DO YOUR STUDENTS NEED GUIDANCE?

The theme of this essay is that there are times during a semester when students need more than teaching.  They need guidance on how to learn and what to do next.
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The semester here at Richmond is approximately half completed.  Our second examination is still three weeks away.  Spring break is coming soon.  The material we are covering is extremely complex.  Some of my students are struggling.  Most are tired, both physically and emotionally.  

This happens about this time every semester and it is a moment when I fear losing some of my students.  They lack energy and enthusiasm and there is no internal urgency to drive them back to work.  If I lose them now, I might never get them back.  They may simply settle into a rut of mediocrity.  Pushing them harder is not necessarily a good answer.  I always remind myself of the old saying, “The beatings will continue until the morale around here improves.”  On the other hand, I am not a big believer in giving everyone a few days off.  Many students simply do not need a time for rest right now.  Different students react differently to stress.  Forcing them to rest sends a bad message, I believe.  “Take a break whether you need it or not” is not what I want to be telling them.

I view this as an important time to guide my students although no single piece of advice will meet every need.  I have to remember that these students are about 20 years old and don’t necessarily have a clue about what they should be doing next.  They have not been at this point in life previously.  It might not be a good time to let them try to figure out the next steps in learning on their own.   I often joke that, “Recopying notes becomes a default activity for lost students” because that is something they can do without guidance.

I like to view this point in the semester as a good spot for a half-time adjustment.  In sports, teams go into the locker room at half-time and the coaches try to figure out how to get the players to change their approach or tactics in order to do better in the remainder of the game.  Students need the same type of leadership.

Consequently, I emailed all of my students this past Friday afternoon.  I explained to them that the class seemed to be going well but I realized they might be tired and in need of some direction.  I asked them to assess how they were feeling and then I made specific suggestions for what to do over the weekend based on that assessment.  Because this advice is only applicable to my class and my students, I will keep the examples rather vague but you can see the message I wanted to convey.
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To my students:
Okay, if you are truly tired of school or sick of this class and all the material, take the weekend off.  We have been working very hard and, at some point, most people reach a point of saturation.  If you take the weekend off, try to do other things that will provide you with some rest and relaxation.  I do not want you to take a quick break just so you can exhaust yourself in some other way.  I need for you to come back to class on Monday refreshed, stronger, and ready to make progress.  In life, sometimes, taking a break is the perfect antidote for mental and physical exhaustion.  

However, if you are not really tired at this point and you feel confident about the material, then I would suggest spending the weekend going over the practice test that I gave you from last semester.  You have the answer sheets.  This will provide you with a chance to practice using test questions that I actually wrote and gave to students just like you.  Time yourself and get a feel for how well you know the material and how quickly you can turn it into good answers.  Look for any holes in your understanding.  Self-assessment is never a bad idea and, if you don’t need rest, this is a good way to measure where you stand.  You will arrive in class on Monday with an idea of whether you need remedial work before you move forward to our next test.

If you are not exhausted but you are not as comfortable with the current material as you would like, then consider spending the weekend working the email problems I sent you over the last week or so.  They were designed to help you understand what we covered in class.  Each one has its answers so you can immediately see what you know and what you don’t know.  This will help you identify essential areas where you need more work right now.  You need to know what you don’t know before you can address those issues.  The weekend gives you the opportunity to create two lists, “What I know” and “What I don’t know.”  

Finally, if you are not worn out but feel that you are lost, you need some method by which to organize the material so you can get back on track.  Simply working complex problems incorrectly is of limited benefit.  Recently, I have talked with you about creating three-second questions as a way to identify a basic level of subject matter knowledge that you need as a foundation for learning.  Go through your class notes and begin to write down the questions that you should be able to answer without much thought.  Then, begin to practice doing them.  If you are lost, you need to begin with the basics and start to work your way up.  (Author’s note:   my students know what “three-second questions” are because I have shown them examples, but, if you want more help, here is some information:  

http://joehoyle-teaching.blogspot.com/2019/01/helping-students-before-first-class-and.html )
  
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Notice in this email that I have asked my students to figure out where they stand at the moment.  I have given them four reasonable options:  exhausted, knowledgeable, needs work, or lost.  Based on that assessment, I have made specific suggestions.  Not, “Work harder,” or “Spend more time” or “Get tough.”   For most students, the problem is, “What do I do next?  What do I do right now?”  My answer is, “Once you have judged your current position, here is how you should spend your weekend.” 

Does that help?  I certainly think so.  Students are free to make their own decisions but I have provided genuine guidance that can help, “Based on your current situation, here is how I would spend this weekend.”  A lot of students need that type of direct advice.

Being a college professor is not always about teaching.  At key points, it is about guiding.    

The Most Important Days of the Semester – Part One

I have long asserted that the most important days of any semester are the 2-4 days immediately after the first test.  So many good things and so many bad things can happen in this short period of time. They can make the semester more wonderful or they can ruin the semester.  It is the point where the group is of no importance but the individuals are of maximum importance.

Because of the importance of this period, I have started (as of this semester) doing two things.   I sent my students the following email immediately after their first test with the subject line “Please Read.”   I want to get their attention.   Then, a couple of days later when I get ready to return the graded exams, I take the first 5-10 minutes of class time to talk with them about my view of the learning process.   I will describe that talk in my next blog posting in a few days.

Email to my students:

I have not looked at the test yet but I will try to get an answer sheet to you tonight.   I will also try to return the tests to you on Monday. 

My only comment on the test (without looking at any of your papers) is that it looked like a test I would write.   I tried to cover lots of different stuff.   I tried to make every question tie back into our class in some logical way.   I tried to make some questions decently easy and other questions more challenging.   For those of you who have not been in my class before, this is what my tests look like.  Warning:  They will not magically become a lot easier.

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I have taught for 46 plus years and I have always argued that the most important days in any semester are the 2-4 days right after the first test.   No other time comes close to being as significant to your grade. 

Until we have the first test, everything is just hypothetical.   You have no way to know whether you are studying too much or not enough.   You have no way to know whether you are catching everything or missing some things.   You have no way to know whether two hours between each class is too much or too little.   You have no way to know whether you should worry about the email problems that I send out or not.

Today, it all became real.   When you get your test back, it is important to self-assess.   What, if anything, do you need to do differently?   Most of you have been students for at least 16 consecutive years.   You might not be trained at much but you should be an expert at being a student.  Use that knowledge to determine what adjustments, if any, you need to make.   I felt that everyone was capable of making an A on this test.  If you didn’t, then you need to figure out what changes might be helpful.   Remember, whether good or bad, Test One is a relatively small part of your grade.  With adjustments, you can still do great.

If you didn’t do as well as you wanted, there are only three possible problems.

(1) – You didn’t study enough.   I don’t care if you study 23 hours per day.   You can always study more.   My guess is that 60-70 percent of students don’t study enough between classes.  That is a fact of life.   They are busy and the work is just not urgent.  This problem is the easiest one to fix.  Start keeping a study diary just to see how much time you are spending.  Lack of urgency is the biggest thing standing in the way of a good grade for most students.  Spend more time studying between classes -- that's always my first advice.

(2) – You didn’t study well.   You used techniques that have worked in the past for you but just didn’t work here.   A lot of students focus on the textbook and clearly I don’t focus that much on the textbook.   Try to come up with one different approach that you might use in your study routine – either on a day-to-day basis or for the next test.  Improvement requires change – it is just a fact.   Improvement requires change.   I'll say it twice.  Clearly, with all the material that I have sent you over the first 4 weeks, you have a lot that you can be doing.   Pick the ones that work best for you and focus on them.   You don’t need to do everything but you really need to do the ones that work.  One thing I would do is go back and read some of the paragraphs in the handout “How to Make an A in Professor Hoyle’s Class.”   That handout was all written by students just like you – who had all the problems you have and still managed to make an A.   What can you learn from them?

(3) – You had a bad day on the test.   It does happen.   People have headaches or a personal problem arises right before you walk into the class.   I think the first two are the most likely problems but bad days do happen.   If so, shake it off and start working on Test Two.

Please feel free to come by and talk with me about these three.   Students often think there is a magic fourth cause.   There is not.   If you didn't do well, it is probably one or more of these three.

The reason that I think this 2-4 day period of time is so important for a great semester is solely because of how you react to this test.   I watch students during these days very closely.  I want to see if there is any change – for better or worse.

It seems to me that there are four possible responses to your grade on Test One (when you get it back on Monday).   Everyone in class will fit into one of these four categories.   The only question is where you fit in. 

(1) – You were pleased with your work on Test One and that gives you confidence to push even harder for a good grade.   A lot of students who do well on test one get excited with the realization that they are capable of doing well in this course and they start working even harder/better.   Their class answers each day get better immediately.   Confidence is wonderful.

(2) – You were pleased with your work on Test One so you start to relax and pay more attention to your other classes or your life outside of class.   The pressure is off and you cut back on your study time.  I am not a big fan of relaxed students.   The A becomes a B and eventually a C and you’ll be mystified as to how you lost the A.  If you were pleased, that is not a good reason to slack off.  Don't do it.

(3) – You were not pleased with your grade on Test One and that irritates you.   You know you are capable and you are not going to accept a poor grade without a fight.   You start to spend more time on each assignment.  You do the email problems quicker.   You spend more time in my office asking questions.   You don’t leave a problem until you understand the answers.   You take a serious look at the PowerPoint Flash Cards that I created.  Consequently, your class answers begin to improve as you start to truly learn this stuff.  Annoyance is not a bad motivator.  “I can do better and I will do better” is a great response.

(4) – You were not pleased with your grade on Test One and your confidence is devastated.   This always breaks my heart.   One test is just a small part of the semester.   I can look in the eyes of these students and read their minds, “See, I told you I wasn’t good enough to do this stuff.   This grade proves it.”   That is absolute nonsense.   Everyone in this class is capable of making an A or a B.   I believe that completely.   You might have to study more.   You might have to study better.   You might have to ask me more questions.   But there is no reason to surrender.   Have some faith in yourself and start getting better prepared for the next class.

That last sentence is the key.   You cannot get ready for the second test today.   The only thing you can do is get really ready for our next class.   Make it your goal:  “I will be the best prepared person in the room on Monday.”   That’s always the best first step toward an A.

LET'S START AT THE END

If you have followed this blog for a while, you know that I try to use the summer to get the students ready for the fall semester.   I want everyone to be ready on the first day to take off and fly.  Time is short.  I want to use it all and use it effectively.  Consequently, I send periodic emails to my new students from May through August although I am never sure whether they pay close attention or not.  However, one email does seem to catch their attention.   

Last week, I cut and pasted one of the questions included on the final exam last spring into an email.   I then sent it to the new students to give them a feel for what they are going to learn this fall.  Most students do not understand in advance the purpose of a course.  A final exam problem gives them an illustration of what they will be able to do after we spend the semester working together.   The reality of seeing a question that the previous class had to work draws the students’ attention.  It is more real to them than almost anything else I can say.

In sending this email, I have several things I want to accomplish.

--I want it to be a question that they have a good chance of understanding.   If the question covers topics they have never heard of, it will sound like gibberish.  I do not want them to believe the course is about gibberish.    

--I want the question to be broad enough to illustrate the overall purpose of the course.  Why is the question relevant to the goals of this particular course?   

--I want the question to sound interesting.   “What the heck should we do in this situation?” is always a question that makes students think.   Test questions can be boring or interesting.   Interesting is better for learning and for the students' attitude.  

--I am not trying to scare them.   The question can not seem impossible.   I am trying to create a sense of wonder and excitement about the learning they will do.

--Where possible, I assure them that a vast majority of students last semester got the question correct.  “You can never do this” is not helpful.   “I am going to show you how this problem works so that you will be able to do it well and make a good grade” is very encouraging.

--Somewhere in the email, I always include two sentences:  “You are not in this alone.   I am here to help.”  No matter how I pitch the course, I want that message clearly conveyed.  Although I am demanding, I want the students to know that I am on their side and we will be working together.  I am not the enemy.  I am on their side.  

--I try to start the teaching process by drawing their attention to specific elements of the question.   Why did I include this information?   What is the point of that fact?  How do these two factors fit together?   I want them to start deconstructing the question to see what is involved and what is being asked.

--I do not include any answers.   At this point, my purpose is to show interesting questions.  The purpose of the semester is to arrive at logical answers.

There is something real about an actual final exam question that seems to awaken each new group of students to the possibilities of the semester.   For the teacher, it provides an opportunity to show a complicated and challenging goal (“you will see this”) while reassuring the students they will be able to answer this question by the time of their final exam ("you will learn this").   It is a positive and engaging way to introduce the new semester.

The learning process is much more effective if you can make points to the students over the summer.   A good question from the previous final exam is one way to begin getting them ready for the new adventure.

TEACHING FIDO TO ROLL OVER (or COMMON SENSE TEACHING)

If I offered you $1,000 to teach my dog (Fido) to roll over, how would you go about doing it?   Even if you have never taught an animal to do anything, do you think you could come up with logical and reasonable steps?  Sure you could.  For that kind of incentive, my guess is that we would all probably do a pretty decent job.  It might take awhile but we could do it.

I have written well over 200 blog postings about teaching during the last 6-7 years.   One particular entry from early in 2010 has really been on my mind recently—probably because a new school year is starting and I’m thinking deeply about teaching my 56 students.   In that original blog, I talked about teaching Fido to roll over.  Earlier today, I went back and reread this old post.   I loved the idea but I did not seem to develop my thoughts particularly well.  I am not sure I knew what I wanted to say.  Heck, I was only 62 at the time.  Maybe I have matured a bit since then (well, maybe).   I decided to try again based on my current ideas about teaching.  This is not a rewriting of that earlier blog entry.  It is a reconsideration of the idea based on how I feel about teaching today (as I get ready to begin my 46^th year in the classroom).

Sometimes, as we discuss the challenges of teaching, I think we make the whole process too complicated.  Yes, it is quite difficult to teach but I am not sure we don’t get ourselves all twisted up in our own complications.  Vince Lombardi, the legendary football coach, is famous for making the most success out of the obvious:   “Some people try to find things in this game that don't exist but football is only two things - blocking and tackling.”

So, as I wrote this blog today, I wanted to get back to the same type of basic teaching steps.   At its foundation, what is teaching?  Interesting question to ponder.

A few years ago, I read The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski. The novel was well written and very popular at the time.  Believe it or not, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is a retelling of Hamlet set on a small farm in northern Wisconsin where a family breeds and trains dogs.

And, they are truly great at that job.   People come from hundreds of miles to buy the dogs they have trained.  Wroblewski must have known a lot about such training because he spends many pages describing in detail how the members of this family teach their dogs to perform so well.  Frequently, as I read, I felt as if I were studying an education manual.  Absolutely everything he writes about training dogs was so clear and logical that I started applying it to the teaching of people.  And it all worked.   What truly impressed me was that most of the process was nothing but common sense.   There were no complicated theories of learning.  Everything was about teaching the dogs.  I learned so much about teaching people by just reading about how this family taught their dogs.  

Often as we talk about improving education, we dwell on the characteristics of a good teacher (energetic, caring, enthusiastic, knowledgeable, etc.).   However, as I read Edgar Sawtelle, no mention was made of the teacher.   It was all about the process of teaching.   That is a seemingly slight change of focus but an essential one.

I believe (especially in these days of wonderful technological innovations) that we sometimes hold great teaching out as some type of dark mystery.   Perhaps we should start our thinking of great education with teaching and not with the teacher.   There are a lot of things about teaching that are both essential and basic to successful learning.  

So, I want you to try an experiment.   Before you read further, answer the question I laid out at the start of this essay.   Assume you have been hired by a rich person to train his dog (Fido) to roll over.   The dog is bright and alert but has never been trained.  The owner offers you $1,000 (might as well have a good financial reward) if you can train Fido to roll over.  

How would you go about teaching a dog to roll over?   Take a few minutes and write down the steps that you would likely follow.   I doubt there is any technology that can be much help.  There is not an app for this.   You have to depend on your teaching skills at their most basic level.   

I would bet that every person reading this blog can come up with several essentials steps needed to teach Fido.  Here’s my list.  Your list might be different but I would be surprised if the basics are not fairly close to the same. 

1 – Have a firm understanding of what you want the dog to accomplish.   You are the teacher.   There is absolutely no reason to even start a lesson until you truly understand what you are guiding Fido to do.  If your goal is vague to you, Fido has no chance of making it more concrete.  In my mind, no other step is more important.  Education is a random, ineffective act until you know exactly what you want to accomplish.

2 – Get Fido’s undivided attention.   If Fido is watching the local squirrels or the neighbor’s cat, you have no chance to teach Fido anything.   You have to place Fido in a situation where distractions are reduced to zero if possible.   Fido has to be focused on the lesson.

3 – All communications have to be clear.   The teacher has to communicate to Fido what needs to be done.   Fido cannot read your mind.   If the communication is not clear, the poor dog cannot even raise his paw and ask for a repeat.   Demonstrate to Fido exactly what he is supposed to do.   Very few things in teaching are more important than communications.   Get that right and the learning is much easier.  Get that wrong and you are probably out of luck.

4 – Consistent treatment.  If you are harsh one moment and laughing the next, Fido will have no idea how to react.   Fido will be an emotional wreck.   The dog does not have the experience needed to grasp the meaning of changes in treatment.   Decide who you are as a teacher and how you are going to treat Fido and then stick with the process unless it simply is not going to work.   Too many teachers are Dr. Jekyll for a while and then morph into Mr. Hyde.  Fido will work best when he is comfortable with you and the process.

5 – Build sequentially; build incrementally.  As I said in my previous blog posting, most learning occurs sequentially.   Learning takes place in small jumps of understanding.  You already know how to roll over.  It is no challenge for you.  You have to avoid jumping right to the big finish.  Fido only has the ability to make small jumps of understanding.   Set up the learning steps as sequentially as possible and keep them close enough together so that Fido can be successful in moving from one to the next.  

6 – Acknowledge proper responses.   I am a big believer that the world would function better if all the people in charge would give more pats on the back.   They are easy and free and everyone wants positive reinforcement.  Fido wants to be a good dog and is thrilled with a kind word (and a dog biscuit).   I think positive reinforcement is one of the things we all fail to do in so many aspects of life.

7 – Correct incorrect action immediately.   If Fido acts incorrectly and you don’t say anything about it being wrong, Fido thinks he has done it right and will continue to do it that way forever (and will believe that you are thrilled that he is doing so well).   No one likes to fuss but if Fido does it wrong, you have to stop the incorrect action right then or you just make it worse.   Fido will always interpret silence as “that’s exactly what I want.”

8 – Repetition Repetition Repetition.   It is easy for you.  It is not easy for Fido.   No matter how many times you think you have to demonstrate what you are trying to get across, it will probably take twice as many times.   I know that drives some teachers crazy but repetition is necessary if you really want Fido to learn.  Almost no one ever hears or sees something once and has it down perfectly.

9 – Time and Patience.   Learning is not a race (although our education system seems to favor speed).   My younger daughter has CP and some mild memory problems.   But she will be a senior in college next year.   She has taught me so much about having patience—not everyone learns at the same speed.   It is the learning that is important, not the speed.   If you want successful learning, give Fido the time he needs and stop looking at the clock.

Okay, go back to each of these nine and merely change the words “Fido” and “dog” to “students” and I believe it will read just as well.   This is not about the teacher.   This is about teaching.   (1) Understand your goal, (2) Make sure you have the students undivided attention, (3) Communications with the students should be frequent and clear, (4) Be consistent in the way you approach the class and the students, (5) Build the lessons sequentially and incrementally, (6) Use positive reinforcement, (7) Correct incorrect actions immediately, (8) Expect some amount of repetition to be necessary, (9) – Be patient and do not ruin the learning by being in a big hurry.  

Could you follow those nine teaching steps and train Fido to roll over?  Well, nothing is guaranteed but I think Fido would probably learn fairly well.  If you follow these nine steps could you be successful teaching accounting or English or biology or political science or whatever.   I think that is the essence of this post.   No matter what you are teaching, it is hard to get away from the importance of the basic steps.   There are lots of ways to be a great teacher.  We have all seen successful teachers who have radically different styles ranging from mean to kind.   But I believe, at the very basics, teaching has a set foundation. 

As you get ready to begin a new school year, think about each of these nine carefully and ask yourself how you could improve your efforts in each one during 2016-2017.   That is not a bad way to start off a bright new academic year.

HELPING YOUR AUDITORY LEARNERS

I am beginning an experiment today to help more of my students be successful in the classroom. If you look on the upper left hand side of this page, you should see a link titled “FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING – 2nd Edition.” If you click on that link, you will come to a page that has a series of audio clips between 8 and 11 minutes in length.

These audio clips were created by me to accompany the Financial Accounting textbook that I have written with CJ Skender at UNC (and published by FlatWorldKnowledge). Although these audio files are specifically designed for our book, they could probably be used quite well with any book. Debits are debits and credits are credits in every textbook.

Right now, I have five audio files posted but I hope to have many more soon. If you are teaching financial accounting, please feel free to suggest that your students listen to these files to see if they are helpful. Heck, they are free. What do they have to lose except for a few minutes of their time?

Each file is a carefully sequenced series of questions and answers. I ask a question and pause for a few seconds so the student can consider the answer. Then, I provide the answer and move on to the next logical question. I am quite literally trying to guide the students, step by step through the reading material.

As I explain in the rest of this posting, I started to create these audio files as a result of reading an article in the Wall Street Journal. I have long felt that our educational system is designed more for visual learners than it is for auditory learners. The article below pushed me to stop thinking about that problem and start trying to do something about it. If you have students who are struggling (in any course that you teach), you might consider whether they are auditory learners who are having trouble in visual learning system.
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On Thursday, November 29, 2012, I was sitting at my very favorite deli having my very favorite lunch. I was reading the Wall Street Journal for that day as I ate. On page D6, I came across a story about Joe Moglia, the head football coach at Coastal Carolina.

He is the 63 year-old, first-year head coach of that team. And, he is a successful coach – his team made the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs. However, five years earlier, Moglia had been the chief executive of TD Ameritrade (a company with a market capitalization of $8.9 billion). Of course, the article was about the mystery of how a very successful corporate executive could retire and then become a very successful college football coach.

It was a fascinating story. But, if all the story had told me was about blocking and tackling, I would have moved on to the next article. But one sentence really caught my attention. It is a sentence that I have thought of often since that day. “In his first months, Moglia tested each of his players to figure out whether they were auditory, visual or kinesthetic (touch-and-feel) learners so he and his coaching staff KNEW THE BEST WAY TO TEACH EACH OF THEM.” (emphasis added).

Okay, how many of the teachers reading this blog have ever done anything to figure out how each of your students learn? My best guess is that the answer is close to absolutely zero. Which of your students are visual learners? Which of your students are auditory learners? (I understand that only a relatively small percentage of students are kinesthetic learners.) We tend to treat all students exactly alike. Or, if we classify them at all, it is not as auditory learners versus visual learners but rather as “smart students” versus “not so smart students.”

I have read that roughly 30 percent of students are auditory learners. That’s a pretty large percentage of any class. Wikipedia provides this information:

“Auditory learning is a learning style in which a person learns through listening. An auditory learner depends on hearing and speaking as a main way of learning. Auditory learners must be able to hear what is being said in order to understand and may have difficulty with instructions that are written. They also use their listening and repeating skills to sort through the information that is sent to them.”

Now, in most classes, we will tell students “go read Chapter Two in the textbook” or “go to the library and read this journal article.” Some students come back with a clear understanding of the material whereas others come back lost and confused. Maybe, those lost students are not just being lazy. Maybe, those lost students are auditory learners who struggle with comprehending the visual words.

In class, we write things on a board which is visual but we usually talk about what we have written so that we are meeting the needs of both visual learners and auditory learners. However, many of our assignments are purely visual – especially assignments that are textbook based: read the chapter, answer the questions, do the problems.

After finishing the WSJ article and leaving the deli, I started trying to figure out how we could use our textbook to help both visual and auditory learners. We already have 68 videos which are both visual and auditory. But, I wanted to try something different. The result of that thinking is the audio files that will now be attached to this website.

Will they work? I honestly do not know. But, as I often say, the only way you can find out in teaching whether something works is by trying it. If you have a financial accounting course (even if you are using a different textbook), suggest that your students (especially any who seem to struggle with the visual words) try listening to these files. After all, they are free. It might prove to be helpful.

If you don’t teach financial accounting (intermediate accounting, for example, or the history of the Roman empire), think about how you can meet the needs of your auditory learners. If a 63 year football coach at Coastal Carolina can do it, so can you.

Starting to Reprogram Your Students - Part Two

A few weeks ago, I wrote about sending out an initial email to start reprogramming my students to be the type of students that I wanted them to be.  Below is the second step in this process.   It is my second email to the students for the fall semester.   I emailed this note to my students this morning.


To: Accounting 302 Students

From: JH

Okay, I’m sending out a bunch of material to you folks occasionally over the course of the summer. You already have the course outline and I assume you have looked over that pretty carefully by now.

Attached is something entirely different. Everyone knows this class is challenging and that making an A takes an excellent effort. I want to help you understand (before we get started) what you need to do in order to do well in this course. So, every semester, I ask the 11 – 25 percent of the students who make an A to write a paragraph or two to explain how they managed to do so well. I cut and paste all the student responses into a single document and it is attached to this email. I firmly believe that these words can serve as a road map to help you understand how to do well in my class. I hope you’ll read and think about what they have to say. Success is not a secret.

From my experience, everyone seems to enjoy a good sports story. In sports, winning and losing is always more apparent so it is easier to see what leads to some people winning while others lose. So, here’s a sports story for you (and, unfortunately, I don’t recall the details exactly but close enough for the point I want to make).

I was watching ESPN a few years back and the announcers were talking with a retired pro basketball coach about a championship team that he had coached a few years before that date. Apparently, his team got locked into a real battle in the final playoff series. The announcers asked the coach when he knew that his team was going to win the championship. His response went something like this:

“In one of the key games, we were behind by a point with just a few seconds to play. I called timeout to set up our last shot. It was a shot that would lead to either a victory or defeat in that game and possibly for the entire series. As soon as I called timeout, all five players on the court came running to the bench yelling ‘give me the ball and let me take the last shot; I can make it.’ A lot of times when you get to a truly critical moment, no one wants to make eye contact with you. Players start staring around or looking into the stands because they don’t want to take the risk of missing that final shot. When all five players on my team were begging me to take that last shot, I knew I had a team of winners and that we would win. And we did.”

Everyone knows that I ask scores of questions in my class. That is surely no secret. Rapid fire questions based on the homework assignments. When I get to the tough areas, it is amazing how often students begin to stare at their papers or look at the ceiling. They become deeply engrossed in checking their calculators – anything other than making direct eye contact with me.

Here’s my one piece of fatherly advice. On the attached sheet of student advice, the first student says “I wanted to be called on for every question.” That is exactly what I want from you. I want you to be so well prepared each and every day that you literally sit there and pray to get called on for every single question. I cannot promise you that this attitude will get you an A but I do promise you that it will make you the kind of student who succeeds.

Okay, then the obvious question is: How do you get to where you want to be called on for every question? The second student on the attached list says “If you prepare for the class like you would for a quiz/test, then you will be successful.” Virtually all students under prepare for class. That is a given; that is nearly 100 percent. The reason is that humans don’t have much self-discipline. They don’t do real work unless they see the urgency. They prepare just enough to get by. And, then they wonder why they are just able to get by. If you want to succeed, there has to be a genuine sense of urgency (not panic or dread but urgency) in your preparation. To do that, you need to prepare each day like you expected to have a tough quiz when you walked in to class. If you can be ready for a quiz each day even though there is no quiz, you will be the student that I want in my class no matter what your grade turns out to be. You will be ready to become the kind of student that you are capable of becoming.

I know this all sounds a bit frightening but it really is a great class that you will enjoy.

Hope you are enjoying your summer. Work hard but make sure to take time to see life outside of work.