GUIDING OUR STUDENTS IN THE TIME OF COVID

As I write this, it is Saturday.  Monday is a holiday.  We have had two weeks of college with a lot of restrictions and the students are getting restless.  Are my students being safe this weekend?  Are they taking care to avoid engaging in unnecessary risks?

As anyone who has ever lived in a dormitory knows, bad influences are constantly present.  There is always someone on a college campus who has a bright idea that probably is not a smart idea.

What is our role as teachers?  Should student guidance be left solely to college administrators?  Have we abdicated our responsibilities to be positive influences for our students? 

This morning, I wrote the email below to the faculty at my school.  Will they take me up on my suggestion?  Yes, I think some will although I am not sure how many.  Will those messages influence our students to be careful?  I certainly hope so.  College students are young adults and they are always looking for guidance.  If they don’t get it from you, they will find it somewhere else.  We need to tell our students what we believe they should be doing.  We need to encourage them to be safe and stay well.  We don't need to hold their hands but we do need to tell them what we believe is the truth.

An email takes about 90 seconds to send to your students.  The cost approximates zero but the benefits can be huge. 

You can let someone else do it or you can do it.  I want my students to know what I think.  I believe in transparency and I believe students and the faculty both have a lot of responsibility for the well being of the university.

**

To the faculty at my school:

Our students have been here a couple of weeks.  It is a weekend.  It is a holiday.  I suspect they are all ready to break loose.  And, we know what happens next.  Just ask some of the schools like UNC and JMU that have had to send their students home.

The students are probably getting a lot of bad advice within the dorms.  They need as much positive support as they can get.  We are their teachers.  We are their guides.  

A few people know that I send my students a lot of emails.  It is just my operating style.  I sent them a special one this morning.   You might consider doing something similar.  The wording can be short and sweet, but they need to hear this message from their teachers not just from the administration.

Here's the email I sent to my students (after I had told them about how wonderful learning accounting really is):

 

"And, finally, stay safe over the weekend.  We are all depending on YOU to keep us old folks healthy.  I absolutely and positively understand how difficult it is not to run wild.  Despite being elderly, I well remember my four years living in a college dorm with 99 other students.  As I remember, none of us were saints.   Nevertheless, these are critical times, and we are very much dependent on each other to make this learning experience (and the ability to stay alive and well) work.  It kind of breaks my heart to say this but:  Please, follow the rules.  The university is counting on you."  

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.
**

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.
**
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 )
  
**
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.    

MAKES ME SMILE

Before I get started today, here is a short 3 minute video that my university produced where I talk about great teaching.  I was allowed to write the questions so it was interesting to consider what questions I wanted to address.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgH5-ynmOmo&list=PLL1AktCDmRQisJ9YnIJoUQXUvH0pjyzjY

**

Since I first began writing this blog, I have virtually never repeated an essay.  One of the primary reasons that I created this site is that it forces me to think of new things to say and do.  It helps my teaching stay fresh.  However, I loosely based the following essay on a posting I published back in 2012.  I updated my earlier posting for two reasons:

(1) – Over the years, I have had more professors tell me that they adopted this specific idea than any other idea I have ever circulated (without a doubt).  Teachers quickly recognize the benefit and like how it rewards good work and helps get new students ready for the upcoming semester.

(2) – It is a topic that is on my mind at the moment.  I just sent out these emails a day or two ago.  Very little I do as a teacher is more likely to make me smile.  I hope you will get the same enjoyment from this as I do.

**

Over the past weekend, I graded final exams, read term papers, and computed averages and awarded course grades.  In one course, 23.8 percent of the students made an A and in my other course, 21.4 percent made an A.  I always want more outstanding work but these percentages were fairly typical.

After determining the grades but before I post them officially, I always email every student who made an A to let them know of their accomplishment.  I have two goals for this email, two very specific goals.  (I like to tell people that when it comes to teaching, I never do anything randomly.)

GOAL ONE:

Each of my two courses was challenging.  I pushed the students to be prepared for every class.  I called on them in class every day and questioned them—often intensely—about the material at hand.  The tests were hard.  The semester was long.  This was no picnic.  

At the end, the A students had shown consistently excellent work.  I had no doubt that they deserved the grade of A.  Consequently, I really wanted them to know how proud I was of their work.  I wanted them to hear it directly from me.  I know they will get a formal report from the university that will show the grade of A but that seems so impersonal.  Somehow that just does not seem to be an adequate amount of recognition.  I want each of those students to feel very special.

I often think that the reason we do not get as much outstanding work as we want from our students is that we do not acknowledge personally those people who actually do outstanding work.  Why work so hard if no one is going to notice?  I think that is a sentiment that every person in authority should ponder.

GOAL TWO:

No one knows more about how to earn an A than the students who just did it.  Therefore, I want them to convey that message to my next group of students.  Students do not necessarily take advice from professors but are often inclined to listen carefully to advice from their peers.  Notice in my email that I ask them to tell me how they made an A.  Be serious and be honest.  Rell me exactly how you went about earning the grade of A in my class.   I accumulate all that advice into a Word document that I forward to my next class of students.  “Read this – it comes from my current A students.   They will tell you how to make an A.  Learn from them what you need to do to excel.”  

Below is what I wrote and emailed a few days ago to my A students.  I really would urge you to consider doing something similar.  It might seem corny to you but I bet that it will not seem corny to the students.  (I cannot tell you how many students have written back to me over the years to tell me how much they cried when they got my note about them making an A.  I obviously never set out to make anyone cry but it does indicate how special the recognition of hard work can be to a young student. I often say that the world would be a much more efficient and effective place if we all gave out a lot more pats on the back.)

I get back some genuinely nice responses.   Here is one that I got this morning.   “Thank you so much for this kind e-mail. I have worked harder for your class than I have for any other class in my academic career, and it is so rewarding knowing that my hard work has paid off.  Since September, I have had a small piece of paper taped onto my laptop with the goal “Get an A in Accounting” written on it.  Taking it off in the coming weeks will be satisfying knowing that I met my goal but also bittersweet with the class being over.”

**

December 18, 2018

Congratulations!!!

I am sending this note to you as one of the students who earned the grade of A this semester in our accounting course.  Although 28 students took the course, only 6 (21.4 percent) managed to earn the grade of A.  And, you did it – Congratulations!!   On the first day of the semester, I told the class that it would take truly outstanding work to earn an A.  And, you did outstanding work.  That is never easy.  You should be proud of yourself and your effort.

I very much appreciate the work that it took to excel in such a challenging class.  Few classes on any college campus are as demanding as our Intermediate Accounting II course.  From the first day of the semester to the last, we pushed through some complicated material:  gift cards, bundling, callable debt, frequent flyer miles, bonds, leases, deferred taxes, pension plans, comprehensive income, earnings per share, statement of cash flows, stock options, and much more.  It is quite a list but it takes a deep knowledge of such topics to truly understand how accounting works. 

Even before the semester began, I said that I would throw out odd and complex problems and then help you figure out how to report them so that they would be fairly presented in conformity with accounting rules.  You did the work that was necessary to achieve that goal.  You didn’t let the challenge overwhelm you.  I am proud of you and pleased for you.  I sincerely believe that all 28 students who started the course back in August had the ability to make an A.  But you were one of the few who managed to achieve the goal.  In life, success comes from a lot more than just ability.  It comes from taking on challenges and investing the time necessary to be outstanding.  I occasionally get frustrated that more students don’t set out to excel.  However, I cannot say that about you.

Go out and celebrate your accomplishment!  Not many people can say they made an A in this course.  It is always fun for me to have students who want to do well and then do the work necessary to make it happen.

As you will likely remember, I always ask students who make an A in my class to write a short paragraph or two directed to next semester’s students to explain exactly how you did it.  I really believe this provides important guidance that can help the next batch of students do their best.  You figured out what I wanted and then you did it.  Many students never seem to catch on to my goals.  It is always helpful when the A students at the end of one semester explain success to the next group of students: “Everyone can make an A in this class but you really have to do certain things.” Okay, what are those things?

I only ask two things as you write this paragraph:  be serious and tell the truth.  There is really nothing more I can ask of you than that.

Have a great holiday break.  Spend time doing stuff that will expand your horizons and make you think more deeply.  Read a good book, see a thoughtful movie, check out a museum.  Those are the type of experiences that can change the rest of your life (for the better).  Never let life fall into a rut.  Open your mind and pour as much interesting stuff into it as you can.  Hopefully, that is one of the lessons that you will take with you from our class.

Congratulations again. It has been a genuine pleasure having the opportunity to work with you.