Communications, Evolution, and Motivation

I think three essential keys to having a successful class are:

--Communications – Your students cannot read your mind.   If you want to direct them or influence them, you have to have a way to communicate with them.  In my opinion, teaching in college at a high level becomes almost impossible if you do not have some effective method of communication.

--Evolution – I want my students to get better as students as the semester progresses   It is not just that I want them to learn more material.   I literally want them to become better, more effective students.  I want them to grow as thinkers--over and above the subject matter that I teach.

--Motivation – Students are human beings.   They become tired.  They become discouraged and frustrated.   I am not a cheerleader, but I do believe my students will improve if I both push them and entice them to work harder and think more deeply.  A litte push can be helpful.

When I tell the above to any group, someone will invariable ask me for an example.   Okay, here is one from my classes today.

My students have a few days off for our fall break.   I want them to rest and relax, but I also want them to come back with a renewed vigor about my class.   I do not want the semester to be a slow slide into mediocrity.   Right before they left, I emailed them the following note.

Will they all read it and make some changes?   No, of course not – that is silly.   Nevertheless, I suspect a few students will read it and think about it and, perhaps, come back ready to do better.  I very much want them to avoid giving up and accepting an average grade.  Instead of coasting out the semester, I want them to try harder and try smarter.   For me, and hopefully a few of my students, this email combines communication, evolution, and motivation.  

At half time, what message do you want to send to your students?

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Email to my students:

I have an assignment for you for fall break.   It is not the typical type of assignment where I ask you to write a paper or do some practice problems.

Our course is not yet half-complete but it is getting there.   You have approximately 20 percent of your grade finalized.  We have been together now for enough weeks that I am no longer a mystery to you.   I guarantee that you now know what I want.   If I asked each of you to write a paragraph titled, “What does the professor really want from me?” you would all get the grade of A, maybe A+.

I always talk a lot about half-time adjustments.   A football or basketball team is behind at half time and looks destined for defeat.   At half time, the coach and players make necessary adjustments and suddenly look like an entirely new team in the second half.   They turn things around and march on to victory.   It is not a rare event.   It happens every weekend.   Half-time adjustments are just a necessary part of a long game. 

I read yesterday a quote from Jack Welch, the legendary CEO of General Electric back in its better days (1981-2001).    Few CEOs have ever achieved the status of Welch.   The quote was a simple one, “Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.”   I think if you are looking for a guide to success, those words are pretty darn powerful. 

As far as I am concerned, you are in the business of being a college student.   Yes, you have many other responsibilities and interests but if you are a full-time college student trying to attain an education, then you are in the business of being a college student.  After four (or so) years, this college student business might prove successful or it might not.  I believe you need a vision of your approach to that business, one that you can passionately own and relentlessly drive to completion.  That vision, I think, will help make those years more likely to be ones that you look back on with pride.

Here is my assignment for you over our fall break.   Even if it is not quite half time of this semester, I want you to consider what adjustments you need to try in your approach to this course.   For some, these changes might be slight, for others more dramatic.  You know what I want from you.  You have to decide (sooner rather than later) how you need to improve your approach and then you need to do it.  It is a two-step approach.  It is up to you.   I just want you to consider the possibilities.

However, I want you to take on this assignment with Jack Welch’s words in mind.  Take some time to do some serious thinking about your vision of YOU as a college student, create and articulate the vision you really want.  I think Jack Welch delivered some great business advice but also some great personal advice.  I feel that everyone needs a vision of their business that is so right for them that they feel led to drive relentlessly toward its completion.  

I realize you are mostly 18-20 year olds, but it does not take much of a view of the world to realize that a whole lot of people do not have much of a vision for their business or for themselves.   Mediocrity is not hard to find.   I think colleges should push the idea of a personal vision more.  Your vision of yourself will undoubtedly change over time but now is the perfect time (here at fall break) to start developing a vision of YOU in your business of being a college student.

Assignment:   Figure out your vision for your business and then consider any half-time adjustments that will drive you toward that vision.

Will I Be A Teacher They Never Forget?

Happy Holidays!!!   I hope this semester has been wonderful, one where your students were inspired to think deeply and find joy in learning.  As I often tell my students:  the more you learn, the more the world opens up to you.  So, I hope you helped to open the world a bit wider for every one of your students.  Could any job be more rewarding than that?

**

I needed an old picture last week for a project so I went searching through my college yearbooks.  They have remained on my book shelf, rarely opened, for nearly five decades.   Although I discovered hundreds of scenes of college life, my attention was captured by one tiny picture—about the size of a quarter.  Oddly enough, it was a photo of a sheet of paper—a paper that had 8 words handwritten on it.   The sheet looked like it might have been tacked to a wall.  I have no idea why this particular photo was included in a college yearbook but the words on that paper certainly meant something to me.

“Will I be a teacher they never forget?” 

I don’t know if those words had been written by a student who dreamed of a future in the classroom or by a faculty member who looked to that goal for inspiration.   But, the message has been on my mind since I leafed through that yearbook.  It stands at the heart of what you and I do every day as we enter our classrooms.

How do we make that happen?  That is something that you might ponder over the winter break.  My advice:  Set out to make a real difference in the lives of each student.  Then, your efforts will be worth remembering.

I like having a personal theme for each new semester.  The above words seem like a great candidate for the spring of 2017.  Make a real difference in the lives of the students and teaching becomes the greatest profession in the world.   Yes, the students will probably forget our names over the years but they will carry our influence with them for the rest of their lives.

Will I be a teacher they never forget?   That leads to a simple question with no simple answer:  How can a teacher manage to make a positive difference in the lives of his or her students?  That is a discussion that teachers should have more often.  When is the last time you actually talked with a colleague about how to make a difference in the lives of your students?  As we end the fall semester and begin to look forward to the spring, it is a question worth considering.  Making a difference is a lot more than covering subject matter.  At some point, teaching needs to go beyond content delivery.

I can describe my approach to working with students but that’s because I have thought about it for 45.5 years.  But, in truth, these thoughts only apply to me.  If you are serious about being a teacher your students will never forget, then spend some time coming up with your own insights.  

With that disclaimer, here are four things that I always put high on my list of actions that can help make a real difference in the lives of your students.

(1) – William Faulkner famously said:  “Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors.  Try to be better than yourself.”  I think that is a basic message teachers need to convey to their students.  Don’t let them settle for mediocre.  Many are happy to hide their talents.  They focus on their limitations.  A lot of students almost fight to avoid standing out.  Too many would be delighted to accept a B or C and simply head back to the dorm.  

To make a difference in the lives of your students, you have to convince them that they are capable of doing more than they ever thought possible.  Occasionally, I save messages from my students and pull them out when I need to recharge my enthusiasm.   Here’s one I received shortly after a student finished my course.  “You have taught me how to be a better student and how to believe in my own potential to succeed. You have definitely pushed me out of my comfort zone, but by doing so, you've helped me push myself to become a better student and person.”  That student never even mentioned whether I taught her any accounting.  It wasn’t about content delivery.

How does a teacher push a student to go beyond their own self-doubts?  First, you have to believe that what you are teaching is extremely important.  If you don’t believe that, neither you nor the students will be willing to put in the serious effort necessary for success.  Second, you have to push the students to work harder and think more deeply and you have to push them every day even when you get sick and tired of pushing.  Third, you have to guide them.  You cannot simply push—you must also guide.   In my mind, teaching is often no more than “pushing” and “guiding.”

(2) – I find the idea of language to be fascinating.  I have heard it said that the ability to use language was one of the most important steps in our evolutionary development.  I can use simple words (spoken or written) to take a complex idea out of my head and move it into the heads of my students.  Isn’t that marvelous?   Almost sounds like science fiction.   But words are necessary.  We do not teach through telepathy.  Students cannot read a teacher’s mind.  To make a difference, you have to come up with an efficient way to communicate with your students.  Without successful communication, you might as well be a picture on a wall.   

My spring classes start in one month but I have already written 2-3 emails to the new students.  I’ll write them every week until the semester starts and almost every day after classes begin.  I want absolute clarity.  I want no one lost and confused.  I want students to understand what I want from them and why.   I am beginning to create the environment that I want for the spring semester:  challenging, interesting, requiring work, and requiring thought.  Just yesterday I described a problem that one of my current students had posed.   It thought it was a fascinating question and I emailed it to my new students.  Company B directs Company C to send some inventory items to Customer A in China.  Company C certainly records sales revenue but does Company B also record sales revenue or did that company do no more than pass along a message.  I didn’t give them an assignment and I didn’t provide an answer.  I just wanted to start tickling their curiosity.

When something goes wrong in one of my classes, I am always reminded of the famous passage from the movie Cool Hand Luke:   “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.”     

(3) – To convince students to invest time and effort, a teacher has to explain why he or she finds the material interesting and important.  If it is not interesting and it is not important, why in the world should the teacher take up class time with it?  A teacher should never discuss topics just because they have always been discussed in the past.   Don’t take up class time purely because material is included in a textbook.  The subject matter has to be interesting or it has to be important.  If not, then skip it and move on.  Removing material from a course takes some courage.  But you are the teacher.  Within reason, you have to make the decision on how to allocate class time.  If material is interesting, then share that reason with the students.  If material is important, then share that reason with the students.  They have a right to know why you are taking up their time.

(4) – Finally, and maybe most importantly, it is difficult to make a difference in the lives of students unless you care about them as people.  Yes, college students can be lazy and rude.  You still need to care about them as people or you will never make a lasting and positive difference in their lives.  Trust me, after so many years and so many students, it is easy to view students as interchangeable parts – like various pieces of inventory sitting in front of you.  But, they are not unfeeling robots.   They are real people who deserve a genuine shot at an education.  You’ve probably heard the quote that is often attributed to Mother Teresa but was apparently written (according to Google) by Kent Keith:   “People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.  Love them anyway.”  Maybe those 9 words should be the theme for the spring of 2017.

Will you be a teacher they never forget?

--Push your students to go beyond what they believe they are capable of accomplishing.

--Communicate clearly to them so they always know what you want and why.

--Share your excitement by showing them why the material being discussed is interesting or important.

--Don’t look at them as an anonymous group but rather as distinct human beings.   Learn to care about them even if they don’t always meet your high standards.

**

And, once again:  Happy Holidays.  Enjoy your break!!      Joe Hoyle

Letting My Students Know What I Want From Them

On Tuesday (July 15) at 11:00 a.m. I will be hosting a 35 minute webinar on “The Flipped Classroom.”   I am doing this program in connection with my Financial Accounting textbook (coauthored with C. J. Skender of UNC).   However, I hope to keep the textbook marketing down to a bare minimum because I really am interested in talking about the flipped classroom.

I would love for you to join me if you can.   You can register in advance at:

https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/295135194

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Below is an email that I sent out this evening to all of my students for the upcoming fall semester.   I am trying to plant a seed in their minds about what I want from them in the fall.   I always believe that a semester goes better if the students know before they ever meet you what you want from them.   They don’t have to waste important classroom time trying to figure out what you value.   As you can see, I just tell them.

**

To:   My Accounting Students for the Fall Semester

From:    JH

For a number of years now, I have maintained a teaching blog on the Internet where I discuss my teaching and classes and whatever else is on my mind about my students and my job.   I’ve had over 115,000 page views over the years so a lot of people have read about my teaching of accounting here at the University of Richmond.  

This evening, I was doing some work in my files and uncovered a posting that I had written for that blog on July 9, 2010—almost exactly four years ago today.   As I read the post, I immediately realized that this was an excellent idea but that I had not been following my own advice.   I sent out the note in the summer of 2010 but had not done so since that time.   (Sometimes it is easier to give advice than it is to follow it.)  

I thought it was good advice in 2010.   I think it is still good advice in 2014.   (I hope all the students in-between were not harmed too badly by my failure to send out a note like this one.)


Five Great Characteristics (blog entry, July 9, 2010)

I am not sure that any student knows what a professor really wants from them.   My guess is that if you sent a note to your students for the upcoming fall semester and simply asked—what do you think I want from the students in this class—you’d get some simplistic answers like “learn the material” or “pass the tests.”  

Is that really what you want?   It sounds so dull.   No wonder students find education boring.   No wonder they often put out less than an excellent effort.

If that is not what you want from the students in your class, why not tell them?   First, you’ll shock them by your honesty.   Second, you’ll take an immediate step toward having them think differently about your class.   You might even move them closer to what you really want.  

I had a very interesting class last spring.   Okay, I didn’t have that many A students but the class was just very lively and really got into learning about accounting.   I looked forward to working with them and I think everyone got a lot out of the class.  

I wanted to encourage my upcoming fall class to be just as lively.  Maybe it had never occurred to them.   So, I sat down a few weeks ago and tried to figure out what characteristics I really wanted from my students.    As a result, I sent the following short note to all of the students who have signed up for my fall class.

“I had a great class last semester.   It was a lot of fun.   The students were active, engaged, curious, questioning, and thoughtful.   When you have students like that, it is unbelievable the amount that can be accomplished in a class.   My wish for you and the upcoming semester is that you’ll wind up demonstrating those same five characteristics.”

Active
Engaged
Curious
Questioning
Thoughtful

If you could get a class that demonstrated those five characteristics, wouldn’t you be able to accomplish an almost unlimited amount?   Notice that I did not include “smart.”   It is nice to have smart students because it makes the job easy but if teaching is really what you want to do in this life, aren’t you better off to have active, engaged, curious, questioning, and thoughtful students than smart ones?   Smart students probably don’t really need you.

Why did I tell these five characteristics to my new students?   Simple—I wanted them to know walking in the door on the first day that I wanted to them be alive and use their brains.   I don’t want them to sit there and mindlessly take notes.   I want them to know that I have different expectations.   I want them to get excited about their own education because if they get excited, there is no end to what they can accomplish.  

I wanted them to know what I wanted even before they had ever met me.

Okay, if you can send emails to your fall students, why not think of the characteristics that you would like for them to display in your class?   Then, provide them with that list.   It should be no secret.  

You may want characteristics that are totally different from mine.   That is fine.   But, if you really want your students to demonstrate those characteristics, give them a head start.   Just tell them.