NEVER TOO LATE TO EXPERIMENT

I am a fan of Frank Zappa’s assertion, “Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.”  If you have followed this blog for long, you know that I am a huge proponent of teaching experimentation.  Consequently, I push the Three E’s of Teaching:  Experiment, Evaluate, and Evolve.  Follow these three steps on a regular basis and wonderful things can happen.  Always be on the lookout for a potential new innovation that you can try out just to see if it works.  Keep your eyes open and consider changes that are possible.  Awareness is a good quality to have when looking to improve as a teacher. 

We are quickly moving toward the end of another semester.  What has been your most interesting teaching experiment of these past few months?  I have long believed that every school should award prizes for the most successful teaching experiment each year.  That would both reward and encourage classroom innovation.  Maybe we could post all the winners on a website just to circulate unique ideas.

With two weeks left in the current semester, I decided to try something I had never done previously in my 48+ years as a college teacher.  I created this experiment as a mash-up of two ideas that I have long pondered with admiration.

(1) – Teaching is extremely personal as you create a relationship of some kind with each of your students.  Therefore, I have always been troubled that giving grades at the end of a semester is a completely impersonal process.  Students take final exams and then leave campus for weeks or months.  After they depart, the teacher posts a symbolic letter grade (A, B, C, etc.) that the students will access, often hundreds if not thousands of miles away.  There is a disconnect (both in time and space) that I do not like.  No words are shared between teacher and student.  No encouragement or suggestions are conveyed.  There is not even eye contact. 

My younger son attended Sarah Lawrence College (outside of NYC) nearly 20 years ago.  At least at that time, students did not receive letter grades from their teachers.  Grades were posted with the Registrar but never conveyed to students unless they explicitly asked to see them.  Instead, teachers authored a letter to each student describing the work the student had done over the course of the semester—the good, the bad, and the ugly.  The teacher was supposed to work on this letter throughout the semester as a basis for an ongoing assessment of the student’s entire body of work.  I liked that approach because it did not boil an entire semester down to a single letter grade.  The student was given both constructive criticism and positive reinforcement.  The teacher reflected on the student’s work, its potential and its quality.

I started my own experiment last week by trying to make the grading process in my classes more personal.

(2) – One of the most popular blog postings that I ever wrote was titled, “What the Catcher Tells the Pitcher.”  It describes a conversation between Brad Ausmus, a long-time major league baseball catcher, and Terry Gross on her NPR radio program, Fresh Air.   

At one point, Gross asked her guess what a baseball catcher tells a pitcher when he goes out to the mound.  Ausmus’s response has stayed with me since the day I first heard the interview in 2011.  “I always had only one goal in mind when I went out to talk with the pitcher. When I left him, I wanted the pitcher to absolutely believe that he was capable of getting out of the situation that he was facing. If he didn’t believe he was capable of taking care of the problem, we didn’t have much chance.”

We are getting to the end of the semester.  If one of my students doesn’t believe he or she is capable of improving, we don’t have much of a chance.  A positive but realistic attitude is essential for success in almost any endeavor and that can slip away here at the end.  No improvement will ever happen if the student gives up.

I wanted to do something dealing with a student’s grade that seemed more personal but also encouraged the student to do better.  I wanted to combine Sarah Lawrence with Brad Ausmus.

The Experiment:  With about two weeks left in the semester, I wrote individual emails to each of the 39 students in my introductory courses this semester.  They are all first-year students or sophomores.  They have worked hard this semester and their test averages at the moment range from 63.0 to 99.0 with an average of roughly 81.

The 39 emails probably took me a total of about 4 or 5 hours.  (At 4 hours, that means that I am writing each email at an average pace of under seven minutes.)  I did not make the emails long, about 5 to 8 lines each.  But, in that time, I told each person some of my thoughts that had stood out about their work this semester—their attitude, their preparation, their interest in the subject matter, their willingness to engage in class, etc.  I tried to touch on the important stuff.  With two weeks left in the semester, I did not see much benefit in describing what they had done during the semester that left me frustrated or exasperated. 

I computed each overall test average at that point in the semester and then discussed what it would take to pull that average up on the final examination.  For example:  “You have a 76.1 average on our three tests so far this semester.  If you want more than a solid C, you are going to have to show me what you have learned.  Your work at times this semester has been outstanding but your preparation has been wildly inconsistent.  With a solid B on the final exam, you should make either a B- or a B for the course.  From what I have seen, you are more than capable of a solid B.  But you are the one who has to make that happen.  You won’t get there by accident.  Get to work and let’s get it done.  Be consistently good not just occasionally good.  Let me know if I can be of help.”

I do think such notes can have a potential positive effect on the remainder of the semester:

(1) – The student knows that I know who they are.  They are not some invisible spirit that blends into the woodwork.  I want them to realize that I know them as a real person and not just as a student ID number.

(2) – They are reminded of the precise grade they have earned to date.  It is not, “You have a high C” or “You have about a B.”  I want them to know their exact grade.  I want that to be absolutely real rather than something vague.  

(3) – I want them to realize that an improved grade is still very much possible but it won’t happen by luck.  They will have to earn it.  A lot of teachers promise to be tough but really aren’t.  I am not Santa Claus.

(4) – I ended every note with, “Let me know if I can be of help.”  I wanted the students to understand that we are in this course together.  It is not a “me versus them” situation.  I am on their side and want them to do well.  I want them to know that I am available for help and willing to help.  They are not in this battle alone.

Okay, so I invested 4 hours of my life writing 39 emails to my current students.  Was it a good use of my time?  As far as improved results, that remains to be seen, but I was so glad that I used my four hours that way.  The messages felt personal to me and reminded me that I was dealing with real people who have real lives and real futures.  Maybe the benefit was always intended for me and my attitude.

I tried to make the achievement of a particular grade more personal to the students and I hope that they were able to see that their grade, no matter how poor it is at the moment, could still be improved by a rather modest increase in the level of work on the final.  I want them to fight until the end.  It is just a guess (or maybe a hope) but I will be surprised if some of the students don’t kick their work up into a higher gear and successfully improve their average here at the end of the semester.  That was the goal.

That is an experiment I tried at the end of the fall semester in 2019.  I wanted to do something different.  I like trying something different.  What experiment are you going to try at the end of the semester just to see what might happen?  Remember what Frank Zappa said, “Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.” 

SOMETHING I WANT TO TRY IN THE FALL

I just checked the statistics for this teaching blog.   Sometime over the next day or so, it will likely reach a total of 200,000 page views.   I am always amazed and pleased that so many teachers read these essays.   Since there is no publicity, the word only spreads because readers like you pass along the URL.   Thanks for doing that!!  Whenever you read an idea that you like, I hope you will share it with your colleagues, friends, neighbors, and even your enemies.   I love it when people send me teaching ideas.  Likewise, I appreciate your sharing my thoughts with others.  Teaching ideas should be shared and not hoarded.

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If you have read this blog for long, you know that I am always thinking of possible ways that I can improve my teaching.   I am a big believer that the more ideas you have then the more ideas you will have.  If you have one idea, a second idea may be difficult to produce.   But if you already have 10 or 20 ideas, the next bunch is likely to flow out of your brain at record speed.   Okay, some of those ideas might not be feasible but I guarantee that 10 ideas will produce more good ideas than one idea will.   I really believe that producing innovative ideas is a habit that teachers can stimulate within themselves.

I know that there are a lot of people who have just read the previous paragraph and are already shaking their heads and muttering, “No, Joe, you are wrong.  I never have any ideas.  I am always trying to borrow ideas from others.  If I don’t do that, I will continue to teach the way I have always taught.  I don’t have faith that my ideas are any good.”   Well, that is certainly a self-fulfilling prophesy if I have ever heard one.   Don’t be so down on yourself.   Don’t be so timid.   Break out of the rut a little bit.  

Here’s an experiment that you ought to try.   For the next 30 days, write down one teaching idea every day that you might be able to use during the upcoming fall semester.   Don’t try to judge whether any of the ideas are good or bad – just get them down on paper.   One idea a day for 30 days.

I think you will discover that two things will happen:

--First, as you eventually look back over your 30 ideas, you will realize that at least 2-5 of them are really good.   They are worth trying.   They can make your fall semester go better.   A lot of time it takes 30 ideas in order to produce 2-5 good ones.   So, you’ve got to get in the practice of producing those 30 ideas.  No one has 30 great ideas but everyone should be able to hit 10 to 20 percent batting average.

--Second, I think you will find that your ideas become easier to generate after the first couple of weeks.   Yes, for the initial 10-14 days, ideas will be difficult but you will get into the swing of it.   The brain cells begin to loosen up.   Eventually, your mind will simply be looking for more ideas throughout the day even when you are not trying.   It is like physical exercise.   It becomes easier with practice.

Try it – what do you have to lose?   30 ideas in 30 days.

So, what is my idea for today?   Here is one that I was pondering this afternoon.   In every class, it seems to me that students spend time doing two things.   One is thinking – trying to figure out how things work or why things work as they do.   They are trying to develop an understanding that will help them in solving future problems.   The rest of the time they are doing something other than thinking.   They are copying notes that they will later memorize.   Or, they are daydreaming or contemplating something that is not class related.  

No one can think about subject matter 100 percent of them time but I wonder how close students can get.

Next fall, as I leave each class, I am going to try to estimate what percentage of class time was spent in actual thinking.   Obviously, it will be a guess but I am betting that I can figure out which activities lead to thinking and which activities lead to note taking or some other type of nonthinking.  If I say, for example, that Boston is the capital of Massachusetts, then that is note taking.   No matter how interesting that might be, no thinking is required.  On the other hand, if I ask a student why Boston became the capital of Massachusetts, then—assuming they have some way of figuring out the answer—that should lead to thinking.   It is not thinking if the answer is a known fact.   It is thinking if the student must, in some way, try to figure out the answer based on the information they have.

I have never done this kind of measurement exercise before.   Can I get to 50 percent of class as thinking time or maybe even 75 percent of time?   That might well be a legitimate goal.   Or, will I be stuck at 10 percent?   That is certainly possible.    Just to make things more interesting, perhaps I could explain my definitions to the students and occasionally ask them to judge:   In class today, what percentage of our time was thinking time and what percentage of our time was something else?

Maybe I am wrong (I’ve not read any research on this) but I would suspect that the more time during class that is spent thinking, the better the learning results are for the students.   If that is true, then I should be able to improve the education level of my students by forcing/encouraging them to think more during class.   Not necessarily thinking deeper, merely thinking more.  That strikes me as an interesting possibility.  Maybe we worry about thinking deeper when we should be worrying about thinking more.

That’s my idea for today and one that I do plan to try out in the fall.

What’s your idea for today?

MY CURRENT EXPERIMENT

If you have read this blog for long, you know that I have two interconnected goals.  

--The first is that every teacher should strive to become 5 percent better each and every year.   Never stand still.  Always push yourself to find some area of improvement.  

--The second goal is to Experiment-Evaluate-Evolve.   It is that active level of experimentation that leads to improvement.   No improvement is possible without making some change.   You should always be able to look at your current situation and point to specific changes that you are trying and evaluating.

If I stopped right now and asked you “what experiments are you trying this semester that might make you 5 percent better,” could you identify one or more? 

Experiments work better if they are directed at identified problems.  

After nearly 45 years in the classroom, one thing continues to irritate me.   I have many bright young people in my classes who have never learned how to become great students.  They are good at note-taking and they are good at memorization but they struggle when the learning goes beyond that level.   They don’t know how to respond.   How can a 20 year old who has been in school for 15 of those 20 years not know more about efficient learning?   That is an issue that seems to hold back many, if not most, students in college.   I don’t understand why we don’t exert more energy to help students learn how to become better learners.

There are a number of excellent books on the market that tell teachers what their students need to do to be better students.   Go to Amazon right now and you’ll probably find dozens.   But they all seem to be targeted at the wrong audience.   It should be the students who read and study such books rather than the teachers.  

So, last semester, around December 10, I emailed the 55 students who were going to be taking my Intermediate Accounting II class this spring.   This class is known for being particularly challenging.   Most students enter wanting a good grade but with a great amount of trepidation.  

In my email, I explained to the 55 students that I wanted them to become better students so they could be more successful in my class.  That seemed reasonable.   I also pointed out that they would probably have some spare time over the winter break.   I then offered to give them up to three bonus points on the first test of the spring semester if they would read the book Make It Stick by Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel.  Read the book -- get three points.

On the inside cover of "Make It Stick" is the following description:   “Drawing on recent discoveries in cognitive psychology and other disciplines, the authors offer concrete techniques for becoming more productive learners.”   Wow, that’s exactly what I want for my students.   The description goes on to say “many common study habits and practice routines turn out to be counterproductive.  Underlining and highlighting, rereading, cramming, and single-minded repetition of new skills create the illusion of mastery, but gains fade quickly.   More complex and durable learning comes from self-testing, introducing certain difficulties in practice, waiting to re-study new material until a little forgetting has set in, and interleaving the practice of one skill or topic with another.”  

I think that is an understanding of learning that every college student should consider.   I was willing to offer bonus points just to see how many students would read the book and what the impact might be.   It was an experiment.

Fast forward three months.    Our first test was last week.   Of my 55 students, 20 said they had read less than 20 percent, one said he had read 20 to 50 percent, 7 said they had read 50 to 80 percent, and 27 said they had read 80 percent or more.   Roughly half the class claimed to have read roughly the entire book.   Interestingly, 63 percent of the top 16 students on the test (before the bonus points were added) said they had read at least 80 percent of the book.   Only 22 percent of the bottom 9 students claimed to have read that much.  

Of course, it helped that I gave them the assignment over a long holiday and offered points for a course that already begun to scare them.  It is hard to motivate students by being too easy.

Did the students tell the truth in their self-assessment?   It was only a couple of points; I accepted their word.  They are adults.   They know the rules.   I suspect that 80 percent or more told the truth.  To me, the potential benefit of the experiment far outweighed the risk that some student would falsely get 3 extra points on a single test.

More importantly, did the reading help them?   Has the book changed their behavior?   Do they now understand more about the science of learning?   I’ll wait until the end of the semester to ask them about those questions.   Unfortunately, we have lost several days to snow so it is hard to compare the test results so far this semester with that of previous semesters.

Here’s what I want to happen:

--I hope that the very assignment of this book helps to open the students' eyes to possible improvements in how they study.   Most students never seem to question how they go about learning.   It is like breathing—they just seem to do it without thought.   I wanted to raise the question:   What works in learning complex material?   I do wish that effective and efficient learning was a topic more stressed in middle school and high school.

--I hope the students threw out some of the study habits they have relied on in the past.   Cramming over the 48 hours just before a test is one “study” habit that I would love to outlaw.  Why spend time doing something that does not help?

--I hope the students considered some new study techniques that they might never have considered previously.   In that way, this voluntary assignment might well have a long lasting benefit.

I don’t want my students to learn just accounting.  That has never been my goal.   College education should be more than that.  I want them to become more successful students.   In the world after graduation, when a teacher is no longer around to provide guidance, that efficiency in learning might well be more important to them than anything else I can teach them.

Will I do this same experiment again next fall?   I am still evaluating.  I like the idea.   I would like to figure out how I could make better use of it.   I guess it is still in the planning process.  

I will leave you with a line from page 226 of Make It Stick:   “Students generally are not taught how to study, and when they are, often get the wrong advice.  As a result, they gravitate to activities that are far from optimal, like rereading, massed practice, and cramming.”  

Yeah, I agree.  Let’s start introducing the students to better practices so that they can become the capable students who will make our jobs much more interesting and easier.   Sometimes all it takes is three bonus points.