ASK QUESTIONS - CREATE PUZZLES

Recently, I was invited by Dr. Shannon Orr (Bowling Green State) and Dr. Staci Zavattaro (Central Florida) to participate in an upcoming book project (to be published in 2017 by Palgrave).  They are asking 100 college professors to respond to the question:   What do you wish you had learned back in graduate school?

Isn’t that a fascinating idea for a book?   I must admit that I can hardly wait to read it myself and see what the other 99 have to say.  I am always in need of advice.   The question really breaks down to the ultimate life question:   If we had it all to do over with again, how would we do it differently?   That’s a question we should ponder now and then as we consider making changes in our present day life.  You can’t change the past but you do have some control over the present.  Thinking about the past might help us improve the future.

I spent several days considering what my honest answer might be.   Here is what I wrote.   Dr. Orr was kind enough to allow me to post this to my blog.   (So be sure and buy a copy of the book just as soon as it comes out.)

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For the first 20 years I taught in college, I believed my role was the conveyance of information.  Essential subject matter resided in my head and needed to be moved into the heads of my students almost like boxes transported along a conveyor belt.   Successful learning depended on my ability to explain complex material.  I poured hours into creating beautiful lectures.   Students transcribed every word.  Content was memorized and then regurgitated back on tests.   Occasionally in class, I threw out a question that one of the more attentive students would immediately volunteer to answer.  The rest stuck to their note taking with dogged tenacity. That strategy had proven successful during their long slog through the educational system and was not going to be abandoned without a fight.

Class evaluations were good.   I won teaching awards.   Colleagues congratulated me on my success.   And, I was so dissatisfied that resigning was an ever present temptation.   Student learning seemed stuck in low gear.   My efforts appeared to accomplish nothing more than helping bright young people become stenographers.  

In 1991, I took a desperate leap of faith and switched to the Socratic Method.   I no longer conveyed information.   Instead, I asked questions every day for the entire period.   I followed James Thurber’s mandate: “I’d rather know some of the questions than all of the answers.” This change might have seemed rather spontaneous.   In truth, the need for radical change had been building inside of me for years.  I wanted to teach differently.

The transition was not easy.   The Socratic Method takes practice. Nothing is predictable.  No two classes are alike.  Absolute control is lost.   Years are required to appreciate its intricacies.  My class evaluations went down but, eventually rebounded.  

Every student receives a list of basic preparatory questions before each class.  But, it is the follow-up questioning that pushes them to a deeper level of understanding.  “Think about what we have discussed.  Now apply that knowledge to a more complex situation.”  Developing this type of logical reasoning creates an education worth having.  

I never ask for volunteers.  I award no points for participation.  I call on everyone every day and expect students to be prepared.   “I don’t know” is not acceptable.   “Figure it out” is my reply to a weak response.   The questions are the key.   They form puzzles that must be analyzed and solved.   “Why is it done this way?”  “What would have happened if the facts had been reversed?”  “If a different country had developed rules, what might they be?”   I constantly search for questions that force students to think more deeply.  That sentence is worth repeating:  I constantly search for questions that force students to think more deeply.

Virtually every college boasts of developing the critical thinking skills of its students.   Is this a serious objective or merely a standard line added to a website?   If serious, how do we fulfill that mission? After 45 years in the classroom, I worry that not enough faculty have considered the implications of this last question.   Lectures and the conveyance of information are not the answer. 

When I describe my conversion to the Socratic Method, I often encounter resistance.  Radical change is frightening.  As a visiting history professor once told me, “I see how it works for accounting but I don’t see how it could work in history.”   Socrates would surely have been mystified by that assertion.

Our planet faces a litany of problems that threaten its very existence:  pollution, racism, religious intolerance, disease, terrorism, poverty, dwindling energy resources, climate change, and many more.  I am convinced that only one possible solution is available:  improved education.   Colleges must produce substantially more high-quality graduates, people ready to tackle these challenges.  Conveyance of information will not save us.  Students must learn to think more critically.  They must be encouraged to delve into problems more deeply. 

What holds us back?  Teachers should be leading the charge for better education.

Last summer I listened to a fascinating audiobook on my car’s CD player:  Wild by Cheryl Strayed.   With no practical experience, the author walked 1,100 miles alone through the mountains of California and Oregon along the Pacific Crest Trail.  One day, as I drove to campus, Strayed described her anxiety as she readied to begin the journey.  Not surprisingly, she lost her nerve and almost quit before regaining her composure.  In describing these emotions, she wrote a line that is so insightful that I pulled over to the side of the road so I could write it down.  

“Fear, to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves.”

Shakespeare could not have said it better.  Those words have passed through my mind now for months.  We tell ourselves stories that can hold us back from changing our lives and the lives of our students.  Never expect failure.  Never fear change.  Never view students as incapable of serious thinking.  Never view them as lazy. Never feel that your teaching is unimportant. Never enter the classroom with low expectations.   Both fear and failure, to a great extent, are born of the stories we tell ourselves.

What do I wish I had learned in graduate school?   A complete list might stretch out like Rapunzel’s hair.  

I wish I had thought more deeply about the difference between conveying information and the development of critical thinking skills.  I wish I had appreciated fully the vital role every teacher plays in the future of our civilization. I wish I had developed more positive stories about myself and my work so that I would have been brave enough to experiment sooner.  Most of all, I wish I had come to understand that good questions create puzzles that lead students to think deeply, more deeply than anything I could possibly tell them in a lecture.  If I had understood all that, I could have made better use of those first 20 years in the classroom. 

STUDENT EVALUATIONS -- MY SUGGESTIONS

Repeat of My Earlier Invitation:   If you are attending the annual meeting of the American Accounting Association this summer in Chicago, I will be participating in two different panel presentations on teaching on Monday, August 10.  One is at 2 p.m. and the other is at 4 p.m.   I would love to have you there as several of us chat about the challenges of becoming a better classroom teacher.  If you are interested, grab me after the panel presentations and we can continue the discussion.  

**

I have written several times over the years about my basic distrust of student evaluations.   Based on the ones that I have seen, here are some of my issues:

(1) – Students are not encouraged to spend enough serious time considering the questions and their responses.   Some students clearly give an appropriate amount of thought and make helpful observations.   Many students appear to dash off their opinions as if they were late for dinner.   “Good guy” doesn’t really provide much helpful feedback.

(2) – It is easy for too much of the evaluation process to be based on mathematical numbers that are hard to interpret.   If I go from 4.28 on a specific question in the fall to a 4.21 in the spring, does that mean I am getting worse or maybe just more demanding?

(3) – A teacher’s popularity has some impact on evaluations.  I am not interested in popularity.   I am interested in how well the person motivates and guides students to learn.  

(4) – Most of the evaluations that I have seen have so many questions that I think the individual questions quickly lose their impact.   I do not think a lot of students have the inclination (and possibly the ability) to draw fine distinctions between various aspects of teaching over a long range of questions.  It always interests me as to how many students give the same numerical grade to a teacher on virtually every question.

(5) – The evaluations that catch people’s attention are the outliers, the ones where the students either love you or hate you.   Those people have strong opinions that can receive too much weight when judging the quality of the education.   It is easy to ignore the feelings of the great mass of students in the middle whose opinions—although just as valid—are often more muted.

(6) – Evaluations really have two purposes and I think that duality causes a problem.   Student evaluations are supposed to help provide feedback to the teacher so that he or she can improve in the future.   That seems reasonable.   In those cases, the teacher should want to hear the bitter truth so that changes and improvements can be made.   However, evaluations are also used by administrators who must make salary, tenure, and promotion decisions.   Then, the professor wants every response to be as positive as possible.  

Okay, it is easy to be critical but how would I do student evaluations differently if I were suddenly made king?   Here are some of my thoughts on the topic.   I believe this is a conversation that we should be having.   My ideas clearly have some practical flaws but, at least, they are a start toward doing something more creative.

I would view student feedback for a teacher as a separate goal distinct from student evaluations used by administrators.   I think you always create a problem when you try to kill those two birds with that one stone.

As I have written in the past (see, for example, my blog posting titled “Congratulations!!” on May 2, 2012), at the end of every semester, I email each student who makes the grade of an A in any of my courses to let them know of their success.   That is a true pleasure.   I pass along appropriate congratulations.   For me, that pat on the back is important—those students did the work and made the grade.   The final grade should not be an anonymous reward.   They deserve a word of praise.   Then, I ask those same students to write a paragraph on how they went about making that grade of A.   I eventually accumulate all those responses and pass them along to the next class to serve as guidance.   I want each new group to understand, right from the beginning, how to succeed in my class.  

Beyond that, those essays provide me with a peek inside the workings of my class.   What do students of mine have to do to earn an A?   How much time must they spend?   Where do they need to invest their energy?   What types of activities and learning strategies proved to be beneficial?   You cannot ask a C student what it takes to make an A because they obviously don’t know (or don’t choose to pursue that goal) but you can ask an A student what it takes to make an A.   I read each of those essays very carefully—often many times.   I try to figure out what I like about the answers and what I don’t like.  

If one of my main teaching goals is for every student to earn an A then I want to know what it takes to reach that achievement.   If one of those students talks about working just 30 minutes per week and still gets an A, I need to consider making the course more demanding.   If a student talks about making an A without ever reading the textbook, I should think about whether that is consistent with my educational goals.  

I want every student to make an A.  I am interested in what it takes to achieve that mark.   That is feedback that I have found very helpful over the years in assisting me in the evolution of my teaching.  Each semester, I read numerous essays that basically say “here is what it takes to be a successful student in Professor Hoyle’s class.”   Am I happy with what I hear or do changes need to be made? 

However, that does not provide adequate information for administrative decisions that must be made.   So, if I were king, I would also have a formal student evaluation process.   I would give every student in every class one assignment at the end of each semester.   I would ask them to turn in those responses directly to the school’s administration.  

The one assignment for the student evaluation would simply be:   “Please discuss this course and this teacher as to how much they have helped to improve your critical thinking skills during this past semester.   Please give as many specific examples as possible.”   Okay, there might be a few exceptions such as a studio arts class or a basic language class but I believe the underlying goal of a vast majority of college courses should be the development of critical thinking skills.   The student evaluation would start with a formal definition of what the school means by critical thinking skills and then make the assignment.   This approach addresses the central issue in the educational process in college. 

If a teacher can help a student develop his or her critical thinking skills, then I believe most everything else will take care of itself.   That is certainly my number one goal in both my financial accounting and intermediate accounting classes.  

Administrators get the information they need for salary decisions and the like by studying these responses.   Read 75 student essays on whether a teacher helps develop critical thinking skills and you (or anyone else) will have a good understanding of the teacher’s success.   It is not about popularity.   It is not about entertainment.   It is not about numbers that have a questionable meaning.   The student is the one who benefits from the class.   When it comes to critical thinking skills, what development did that student experience?   And, of course, they need to give as many specific examples as possible.

Okay, one immediate question is going to be:   How will the administrators be able to use this information?   Here is what I would suggest.    First, I think that at most schools about 20 percent of the teachers are excellent, about 60 percent of the teachers are average, and about 20 percent of the teachers are poor.  That is just my perception based on what I’ve seen over the past 44 years.   You can easily change those percentages if you wish (possibly 25:50:25 or 30:40:30) but, unless you teach in Lake Wobegon, please don’t tell me that all of your teachers are above average.   That is nonsense.   A few teachers are excellent, a few teachers are poor, the vast majority of teachers are average.

The administrator reads all of these essays and judges the faculty member to be Excellent (let’s say 20 percent), Average (60 percent), or Poor (the final 20 percent).  We could argue about this but I imagine 80-90 percent of the faculty will fall into one of those three groups fairly easily. 

After making this judgment, the administrator writes up an evaluation for each faculty member.

For the teachers in the Excellent group, the administrator congratulates the faculty member and describes why this person qualified for the top group.  The administrator also points out any possible improvements that were noted.   “Excellent” is different than “Perfect.”   Improvements are always possible.

For the teachers in the Average group, the administrator describes why that decision was made, pointing up both the good and bad areas that seemed to be mentioned most often by students.   Then, the administrator makes as many suggestions as possible on future efforts that might move the teacher from the Average group to the Excellent group.   That is the one fundamental goal.   That should always be discussed:   How can the teacher move up into the next highest level?

For the teachers in the Poor group, the process is much the same.   First, why was the evaluation made in this way?   Second, what needs to be done to move into the Average group?   The process should always be based on describing (1) what the evaluations indicated and (2) how the teacher can get better.

Two evaluations:

Student feedback to teacher:   How did you make that A?

Student feedback for teacher evaluations:   Please discuss this course and this teacher as to how much they have helped to improve your critical thinking skills this semester.

Would that really work better than the system we have?   I honestly do not know but I do think it is time to have that conversation and start experimenting to see if better evaluations are even possible.   I just think, for the systems I have seen, improvement is needed.

ADVICE FROM KEN BAIN

Now and then, I come across some thoughts on teaching that I think are worth sharing.   That happened yesterday here at the Robins School of Business.   My email to our faculty and staff is below.   No matter what the individual jobs are here at Richmond, we are all in the education business.  This place exists, at least in large part, to maximize the knowledge, wisdom, and understanding of our students.   Passing information like this along to others can help keep teaching (and the thinking about teaching) alive as an important part of our culture.  

You can do the same thing in your building.   Whenever you learn something about teaching that you feel might also help others who face similar challenges, then pass it along.   Don't be timid.   Don't be shy.   

**

Email Note:

A friend of mine here at the University of Richmond passed along the following URL of a recent NPR discussion with Ken Bain.   Everything Dr. Bain says about teaching seems worth a few moments of consideration so I thought I would pass it along to everyone. 

As some of you might remember, Dr. Bain spoke on campus to the Richmond faculty about 8-10 years ago.   Several of us had the great pleasure of taking Dr. Bain and his wife out to dinner that evening (at the old Peking Restaurant) before his talk to the faculty.

As a true southerner, I try to have one story about everything.   Here is my one story about Ken Bain (which I have repeated countless times).   That evening, he spoke to about 50-70 faculty members.   About halfway through his talk, someone in the back asked:   “How can a person become a great teacher?”   Bain stopped immediately and responded:   “Oh, is that what you want to know?   Well, that is an easy question to answer.   I can tell anyone how to become a great teacher in just one sentence.   All you have to do is get your students to care about what you are trying to teach them.”   I continue to believe that is one of the most fabulous pieces of teaching advice that I have ever heard. 

Here is what he had to say recently on NPR:

http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/05/08/404960905/what-the-best-college-teachers-do

 

As is often the case on the Internet, the comments after the article are random, amusing, and—at time—insightful.   

Half-Time Adjustments

Quick note:   This teaching blog went over 95,600 page views yesterday.   Thanks a million (and a half) to everyone who has mentioned these random writings to someone else who teaches.   I’m convinced that people throughout the world of education really do want to have conversations about better teaching just so they can bat some ideas around.   Sometimes, though, it is hard to get those conversations started.   Perhaps something that is written here can serve as a conversation starter.   College education gets beaten up a lot these days in the news.   I’m convinced that more conversations among teachers would be a good way to start solving some of those problems.

And, in case you wondered, a total of 95,600 page views is roughly the equivalent of one page view every 21 minutes, 24 hours per day, 7 days per week for the past 3.6 years.   Hopefully, that translates into a whole lot of better teaching.

**

Are you a sports fan?   One of the things that I have noted over the years of watching basketball and football is that some teams just play better after half-time.    They look lousy for the first half of the game and then, at the start of the second half, they suddenly seem infinitely better.   An apparent lose is turned into an impressive win.   As Shakespeare once wrote “All’s well that ends well.”   I thought about this last Saturday when one college team that I follow was behind by three touchdowns late in the first half and I was completely disgusted by their efforts.   However, in the second half, they looked like an entirely different team and went on to win by two touchdowns.  A horrible game became a super game.

What happened?

Some coaches just seem to have the knack for making half-time adjustments.   They are able to see what is going wrong with their team and they figure out changes that can be set up to make improvements.    In the very few minutes allowed at half-time, they manage to change how plays are run or what defenses are set up or the plays that will be called and the momentum changes abruptly in their team's favor.   The winner is often the one where the coach makes the best adjustments at half-time.  

As complex and fast as football and basketball can be, making changes that quickly and explaining them to the team has got to be tough.   But it clearly can be done because a few coaches make those adjustments so very well.

Now, here in October, most college professors are about halfway through the fall semester.    Are things going absolutely perfectly?   If so, you clearly do not need to make any changes.    If you are really happy with the class results so far, keep on keeping on (as the song says).   Or, as I often hear people say, “if ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

But, my guess is that many of you have recognized aspects of your fall class that are not making you happy.    After 43 years at this job, I'm never totally pleased; something always seems to worry me.  Some students do poorly on tests or they fail to prepare adequately for class or they refuse to participate in class.   Why not stop and consider making some half-time adjustments and see if there is improvement?   There are always things that can be done differently.   There are always changes that you can try.

Experimentation and innovation are good for education.   Don’t get stuck in a rut.   If you don’t like what is happening, try something a bit different.    If a coach can turn an entire team around in just 15-20 minutes at half-time, you (yes, YOU) can create some positive adjustments in your own classes.   

Here is a process I would suggest.  

1--Write down every concern that you have about each class so far this semester.   List out everything that could be going better.    Take your time and reflect on the first 6-8 weeks of class.   If you don’t identify problems, it is hard to fix them.

Some of those issues might be totally related to you and your teaching.   For example, maybe your class organization is not good enough or the problems you choose to work in class don’t demonstrate the issues you want to cover.  

 

Other problems might be purely student related.   For example, a percentage of students might come to class without having read the material or worked assigned problems.  

2--Put this list in order from the biggest problem to the smallest.   What really is holding back the learning that you want?   What is keeping you from having the very best class in your building, in your school?   That's always a good question to consider.    Don’t dwell obsessively on problems that you simply find irritating.   If a student shows up 2 minutes for class, that might be a problem but the education for that day has probably not been ruined.   Place problems at the top that really have a serious impact on class performance—for the individual or for the group.  

3--For each of your classes, look more closely at the five worse problems.   You cannot solve all issues so try to isolate the ones that are the biggest.   Of those five, choose the three that you are most able to influence.   There is really no reason to waste energy at half-time if a quick fix is not possible.  

4--You have now selected three of your top five problems.   These are going to be the focus of your half-time adjustments.  This is where you (yes, YOU) are going to turn the game around.  

For each of these problems, list one or two reasons for its existence.   Problems have reasons; they don’t happen by accident.   I would bet that if it is your problem (you are having trouble with some aspect of class) then the most likely reason is lack of time invested.   In truth, almost any problem can be solved with the allocation of sufficient time.   Maybe there are other reasons for specific problems but never, never overlook the obvious:   You are not investing enough time.   Faculty are like students -- they look for shortcuts.   Teachers can simply be underprepared when they walk into the classroom.   After 43 years, I am always amazed by how much time I have to spend in preparing for each class.   I must be a slow learner (my wife tells me).

On the other hand, if the problem is connected to students and student behavior, it usually relates to a lack of incentive.   In life, incentives matter.   If students are not doing what you ask (assuming you are asking for a reasonable amount of work), they must believe the request is a waste of time or (maybe more politely) they have seen no good reason to do what you ask.   Students will not do work without a reason and it needs to be a good reason (“do it because I say so” probably lost its effectiveness in the Eisenhower administration).   

5--Okay, so what are your half-time adjustments going to be?   For your problems, are there ways that you can allocate more time especially to specific issues that do not seem to be going well?   I realize, especially if you are also doing serious research, that time can be short.   Nonetheless, if you want to be a better teacher, decisions and sacrifices do have to be made.  

6--And, for the problems that relate to the students, can you add more effective incentives?   It is always good to look at class and class work through the eyes of your students.    What messages are you sending that are encouraging them to do the work?   What messages are you sending that are reducing their interest in doing what you want?    “Read Chapter 7 and I promise that on the next test, I’ll ask at least two questions that come directly from the material.”   Or “Read Chapter 7 because I am going to ask you the following 5 questions in class on Wednesday that come directly from this material.”  

Half-time adjustments are never perfect.   Sometime your team is going to lose regardless of what changes the coach makes.   But, you are clearly not without hope.   Adjustments are available.   Improvements are possible.   

--Identify the problems you are seeing.  

--Determine which ones could be improved in the second half of the semester.  

 

--Select ones that are important and can be impacted quickly.

--Analyze whether each one is a teacher issue or a student issue.  

--Consider changes that might turn things around.  

--For teacher issues, think about the allocation and use of time, especially time spent before you walk into class.  

--For student issues, figure out incentives that might encourage students to do what you want them to do.  

Take control of the second half.

Charles Dickens Would Approve

From Joe Hoyle:   On January 1, 2013, and again on June 1, 2013, I wrote entries on this blog about my experience at linking a Government Accounting course with a Victorian Literature class.  I found it to be an interesting experiment with some excellent outcomes.   If you want to read more about what we did, the following link will take you to an article in the online version of the Chronicle of Higher Education.    If you have followed this blog for long, you know that I am a strong proponent of experimentation in education.   This one did not require a committee or a mandate or a strategic plan.   We thought the idea might work and (with the support of my dean) we just tried it to see.  I believe college education would certainly improve with more such interesting experiments.

http://chronicle.com/article/Victorian-Literature-for/139971/

**

Since I have already referred to Victorian Literature above, I will make a comment about something I recently read.   A few weeks ago, I started Hard Times by Charles Dickens.    Dickens could be brutally sarcastic about elements of daily life that he found wanting.   Apparently, he was not necessarily a big fan of certain educational practices.   At the end of Chapter Two of the first book of Hard Times, he describes a teacher (with an incredibly unusual name – another characteristic of his writings).

To quote Dickens, this teacher “had taken the bloom off the higher braches of mathematics and physical science, French, German, Latin, and Greek.   He knew all about all the Water Sheds of all the world (whatever they are), and all the histories of all the people, and all the names of all the rivers and mountains, and all the productions, manners, and customs of all the countries, and all their boundaries and bearings on the two and thirty points of the compass.   Ah, rather overdone, M’Choakumchild.  If he had only learnt a little less, how infinitely better he might have taught much more!”

That last line jumped out at me like a bullet:   “If he had only learnt a little less, how infinitely better he might have taught much more!”

Is it possible that a person can just be too smart or too well educated to be a good teacher?

Well, hopefully not, but it does present some challenges:

--If you understand material especially well, it is often difficult to comprehend why certain aspects are not readily apparent to a 19 year old college student.   In such cases, it becomes easy to skip over essential parts of the process because “anybody can see how these two steps connect.”   What is clear to a teacher is not necessarily clear to a student. 

--If you love the material (which is often why people study particular subjects so intensely), it is often difficult to comprehend why other folks might not be equally enamored.   Thus, although reading 300 pages of dense material over a week-end might be a thrill for you, a 19 year old college student might present a bit of resistance.  What is fun to a teacher is not necessarily fun to a student.

 --If you are truly excited about the material, it is often difficult not to talk on and on and on about it.   You then find it incomprehensible that a 19 year old college student could possible nod off in the middle of your monologue.  What is enthralling to a teacher is not necessarily enthralling to a student.

Obviously, you cannot unlearn material or become dumber simply because you think it might make you a better teacher.   No, but you can work to see the course more through the eyes of a student.

As I wrote last year, I like to take classes over the summer – especially in topics where I know absolutely nothing – just to help me stay aware of what it feels like to be “the dumb one in the room.”   Last summer, I took tai chi (and am still taking tai chi) and I have struggled terribly to do things that my teacher does with ease.   He makes a movement with his hands and arms and legs and then I do what seems to be exactly the same thing.   The teacher then shows me at least 9 different reasons why I am off.   Luckily, he is very patient with me.

This summer, I am taking a class in pottery.   I know nothing about pottery.   I know less about pottery than I know about tai chi.

At the first class, the teacher handed me a one-pound piece of clay and showed how to shape it into a cone.   When she did this shaping, it looked like something a 4 year old dog could have done.   It could not have looked easier.   So, of course, I messed it up completely.   She actually had to take the clay from my hands and toss it aside.   Without professional work, my effort was beyond help.   I wanted to bang my head against the wall.

For me, at those special moments, I become a better teacher.   I can actually feel how difficult it is to do something for the very first time and not the 10,000^th time.   I needed to be shown again (and again and again).   I needed for the teacher to do it incredibly slowly.   She did and, eventually, I was able to turn my clay into a cone and get it on the wheel and come up with something roughly like a cup.   For me, every step was a trial.   Nothing came easy.   It was just a whole lot tougher to be a student than I would have anticipated.   But, when I had made my cup, I was thrilled.   The educational process had worked its magic!   I had managed to succeed (or take a small first step toward success).

You have a lot of summer left.   Why not find a class like tai chi or pottery or some such and take it?   Go in as stupid as possible and see what you can learn.   Remember what it feels like to be “the dumb one in the room.”

I believe this is a good suggestion.   I hope you will try it.   From my experience, the typical response is:   “that’s a great idea” and then it never gets done.   That’s just human nature.   But it is also why improvement is often so difficult.   We want to get better; we truly do.   But we don’t necessarily want to do the things that might bring about such improvement.   Prove me wrong -- go sign up for a class.