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.” 

SUGGEST SOME STUDENT RESOLUTIONS

As anyone knows who has read this blog for long, I believe in communicating with my students.  I email them A LOT to (a) convey information, (b) provide encouragement, (c) point out things I want done better, and (d) provide hints and suggestions for success.  A good friend of mine, Steve Markoff at Montclair State, passed along an email that he had sent to his students recently.  It seemed so much like what I might have done that I asked Steve for permission to pass it along to you.  This is the kind of advice that helps students do well for you.

Notice that his suggestions do not drop in for no apparent reason.  They are not random.  He ties them to New Year’s resolutions.  I like having suggestions tied to a reason.  We are into February.  To convey this same email now, I might do so right after our first test with a note, “Here is something to think about as you review your first test.”  It is important to realize that there are really great times to convey suggestions—times when students are more likely to pay serious attention.  Figure out when your students are open to advice and pass some along to them.  Steve did it right at the start of the semester.  I might have used the first test for the same purpose.

(I must state that my favorite part of this email is Steve’s section titled “Embrace Struggle” and the comment about learning to walk.  I guarantee – I will steal that idea.  It made sense to me and it will make sense to my students.)

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From Professor Markoff – an email to his students.

I have resolutions – teaching resolutions.  At the start of each year, I make a list of 3-5 things that I am committed to doing that will make me a better teacher in the semesters that follow.  I write them out, determine how I am going to measure how I am doing at them, and make a determined effort to improve in these key areas.

I’m thinking that most of you could use some resolutions – student resolutions – things that you can do to make yourself a more effective student.

So, allow me to suggest a few.  Specifically 5.  These 5 are geared toward my class, but I can tell you that if you make progress on these, not only will they help you in my class, they will help you with all of your classes and outside of class as well.  These are in no particular order.

Come out of your “learning comfort zone”

We all have preferred ways of learning, and that’s good. However, when you shut down and are closed minded to teaching that is being done in a different way, that’s not good.  Too often, after a student obtains a subpar grade in a course, they will blame it on the instructor and how that person taught.  As you move forward in your education, you will find professors with various teaching styles.  Also, some are plainly better instructors than others.  You have to deal with it either way, and your attitude will go a long way toward determining how well you adapt.  The same is true in the work world with managing or supervising styles.  You have to learn to work and be effective with all types.

In my class, ALL of you will have to adapt, as my teaching style is one which none of you have seen before, and you will not see it again here at MSU, except for me.  Your ability to achieve will be directly correlated with how well you can adapt and work with this system.  And that depends on your attitude.

Embrace struggle

Can you walk?  Yes YOU.  Do you consider yourself good at walking?  I bet you go days or even weeks without stumbling or falling.  I bet I have some of the world’s best walkers right here at MSU.  Did anyone teach you how to walk?  Did your parents show you a PowerPoint and give you a lecture?  “Here Bobby, today’s lesson is how to walk.  First, position your feet together as shown on the slide.  Then start to transfer your weight onto you left foot and then gradually toward the front of the foot as shown on the Exhibit.  Meanwhile, your right hand should start moving forward ever so slowly for balance, etc. etc.”

Have you had the chance to be around a toddler trying to learn how to walk?  Hard to watch isn’t it?  They keep falling and falling and stumbling and fumbling.  It looks like they are never going to get it.  And nobody gives them a lecture and PowerPoint.  There are no office hours.  They just carefully watch everyone around them and start to mimic.  If they fall, so what.  They start again.  And again.  And again.  Finally they get it.  That’s effective learning.  When it’s learned, it’s really learned.  It’s not forgotten.

In my class, I am going to assign problems. Some easier than others.  Some downright hard. I am going to ask questions in class.  Tough questions.  Why?  Well, first of all, if all I did was ask questions that were easy for you guys to answer, then you wouldn’t need me.  Same with the homework – we wouldn’t need the course.  It is through the struggle that you will develop the skills to tackle tough questions, just like the toddler learns to walk by falling.  When the learning does come, it is much more permanent and valuable.

Mindfulness & Awareness

I see a lot of students whose bodies are physically in class, but I can see that their minds are clearly somewhere else.  Maybe it’s something happening at home.  Perhaps it’s another class on your mind.  An issue with a boyfriend or girlfriend.  Whatever.  All of these things compete for your attention, but we only have 75 minutes together for a class and need to accomplish certain things. If you are going to get the benefits of class, you must be there 100%.  That means you must turn off ALL other distractions and focus.  That is one reason I do not permit laptops in the class.  When I ask someone a question and they ask me to repeat it – I know that their body might be there, but they are NOT really there.

Now some people want to pay attention when I ask THEM a question, but pay less attention when I am questioning others, which happens to be most of the time.  With my method of teaching, most of the benefit comes from you observing the exchange between myself and other students.  This is how you learn NOT just from the book, or from ME, but from OTHERS as well.

It’s only 75 minutes.  Be THERE.  You want me to be there for you when you need me?  Sure.  Be there for me when I need you.

Say goodbye to embarrassment

I play flute.  The first time I played at a recital in front of others, I went to play the first note and NOTHING CAME OUT.  Ooops.  Embarrassment city.  Guess what?  I did NOT lose my membership card to the human race.  I am still here.  I still play flute.  In fact, when I got done, everyone clapped and gave me a standing ovation.  It felt great.

I ask tough questions in class.  Some people hide along the edges and corners or in the back of the room hoping I won’t ask them any.  Some people don’t want to feel embarrassed by giving a wrong answer in front of their classmates.  Let me tell you 2 secrets.  Secret #1:  I don’t care whether you are right or wrong.  I only care that you are 100% prepared and can engage in the process.  Secret #2:  Most of the people who you are worried about probably have an even worse answer than you!  When you give an answer that shows me that you aren’t prepared, however, you are letting both myself and the team down – and THAT I don’t want or expect.

The reason I don’t mind wrong answers is related to what I mentioned above about struggling.  As a group, wrong answers allow us more opportunities to explore the steps and theory behind the correct answers.  They allow us to figure out TOGETHER why they are not correct or complete.  Some of my least effective classes have been ones where I got a high percentage of correct answers – because I wasn’t asking the right questions and forcing people to challenge themselves.

Be prepared.  Answer.  Get out of your comfort zone. Question other people’s answers.  If someone says something you don’t agree with, challenge them.  Be brave.  Really, nobody gives a darn whether you are right.

Have a sense of humor

Last but not least – relax and don’t take yourself that seriously.  Take life seriously.  Take your education seriously.  But don’t take YOURSELF that seriously.  It creates excess stress and it lessens your ability to think creatively and solve problems.

You will find that the better prepared you are for class, the less stress you will have worrying about me calling you and the more “THERE “you will be.  The more MINDFUL you will be.  The more AWARE you will be of what is going on around you.  The BETTER you will be at expressing your ideas,  The EASIER it will be to come out of your comfort zone, and the MORE SMOOTHLY you will be able to embrace challenges and struggles.

****

Will all of your students listen to such advice?  Of course not, they are college students.   I usually apply my rule of thirds:  1/3 of the students will pay close attention, 1/3 will pay some attention, and 1/3 will wonder why you are bothering them.  

However, over time, if you keep giving good advice (and the above is excellent advice), the words and thoughts will sneak beyond the students’ defense system and begin to slip into their brain.   By the end of the semester, most of them (maybe not all but most of them) will be considerably better students because you (yes, YOU) took the time to give them some darn good suggestions.   Communicate!!!

THREE TIPS TO HELP YOUR TESTS CREATE BETTER STUDENT LEARNING

Quick note:   If you are in need of a little inspiration as you begin a new school year, at the video link below, I tell four stories about teaching that I hope will get every teacher excited about another year in the classroom.  On good days, it is a truly marvelous and wonderful profession.  And, even on bad days, it can still be extremely rewarding.  I hope the video reminds you of that fact.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT428yjJ0Ls&t=176s

**

Thoughts on Testing:  I am currently writing tests for my students so testing is on my mind.  Our first examination of the semester is tomorrow.  As I enter my 48^th year in the classroom, I am convinced that the writing and grading of tests is a true pain in the neck.  In fact, testing stopped being fun for me while Richard Nixon was president of the United States.

However, I am even more certain that testing can be (and should be) an extremely positive influence on student learning.  For that reason, I still invest an enormous amount of time in thinking and constructing examinations.  

In one of the first speeches I ever delivered about teaching years ago, I made the observation that,

                   “The way you test is the way your students will learn.” 

If you test students on memorization, they will work diligently to memorize every word you utter no matter how you teach them.  However, if you test their critical thinking skills, your students will quickly realize that memorization is not helpful and begin to focus their attention on critical thinking. 

If that is true (and I believe it is), then you cannot simply rely on a publisher’s test bank for your test questions.  For years, I have argued vehemently against the use of test banks.  I think they have done more harm to college learning than virtually anything else I know.  

Consequently, I want to provide you with three testing tips from my own experience as a teacher.   All of them have helped me over the years in the teaching of my students.  Perhaps, you will find one or two that are helpful to you. 

(1) – Notes – I always allow my students to bring two sheets of notes to every test.  They have to be hand-written because I want each student to do their own thinking about what is important, what material I am likely to cover and what questions I might ask.  I believe students need to learn to assess the relative importance of what we discuss in class.  By limiting the quantity of notes, students cannot simply judge all the material as equally important and just write down everything.  They must decide what is essential.

For me, that assessment is helpful for student learning.  However, that is not the primary reason for allowing notes.  I let students bring in notes because it sends a clear message (to the students AND to me) that I am not going to test them on memorization.  How can I test memorization if they have notes?  This puts an obvious burden on me to come up with reasonable questions that go beyond memorization.  I have often said that I never learned how to write good test questions until I began to allow students to have notes.  That step forced me to come up with better questions, ones requiring student understanding that went deeper than memorization.  When I look back on my evolution as a teacher, this decision to allow notes was a hugely important step.  Student learning improved because I began to challenge them with better questions. 

Try it once – see if it works for you.

(2) – Testing Circle – Every semester, during the last class before our first test, I spend 5 minutes talking with my students about my “testing circle.”  I draw a big circle on the board and tell them, “This represents everything we have discussed this semester to date.  I keep good records.  I know the topics our class has examined.  I will write about 1/3 of the test questions directly from this material because it covers what we talked about in class.  I want to see if you were here and awake, that you paid attention and understood.   If you get these questions correct, then you must have followed the daily conversation with a basic degree of understanding.  That strikes me as approaching average work which is evidence that you are getting close to a C.”

I then draw an X roughly 3 inches outside of the circle and explain, “This X represents test questions that are connected to our class coverage but go beyond what we analyzed in class.  I want to see if you can take your class knowledge and extend it to solve something new, something a bit more complex.  It will take analysis and thinking but you can do it.  If you understand the class material well enough, you can use that fundamental knowledge to figure out legitimate answers for this second group of questions.  To me, success at this level starts to look like Good work and begins to show me that you might deserve a B (or, at least, you are heading that way).  It indicates that you can make use of your knowledge and that is important to me.”

I then draw an X roughly 12 inches outside the circle.  “This final X again represents test questions that are connected to our class coverage, but they are more complex.  They will require an excellent understanding and thinking to determine the key elements of that connection so that you can come up with a solution.  I do not know that anyone can get them all correct, but I want to see if you can solve some of these questions because that starts to feel like Excellent and Outstanding work.  That level of understanding begins to show me that you are capable of earning an A.  Virtually every practice question I have sent to you by email this semester was either a B level or an A level question.  I took what we had done in class and tried to show you how that basic knowledge could be extended to solve more complicated issues.”

Once again, I am stressing that I have little interest in memorization.  I am also doing something that I am not sure enough teachers do.  I am showing the students visually what critical thinking is and why it is important.  We talk a lot about critical thinking in education but few students seem to have any clue what it is and why it is important.  That to me is a serious weakness of much of college education.  We say we are doing it but we do not even explain what it is.  For me, critical thinking is developing a level of understanding that is so solid that the student can use it as the foundation to solve questions and issues that are ever more complicated.  

I often tell my students that the course will never be finished until they can solve all the possible problems based on their own knowledge and, therefore, have no further need of me. 

(3) - Answer Sheets – For me, every test has two purposes:  (1) to help assess the students’ knowledge for grading purposes and (2) to improve the students’ understanding so they will do better in coming classes and on the next examination.   I believe students should show improvement on every subsequent examination. 

Consequently, I email my students an answer sheet within a few hours of every exam.   Not surprisingly, that is the time they are most interested in (a) the knowledge they needed to know and (b) how I wanted them to attack and answer each question.   Students will often pour over answer sheets with more intensity than they ever invest in the class.  They focus their attention like a laser on any questions they miss.  For me, that has always seemed like the perfect moment for improving student knowledge and that is what an answer sheet encourages.  I often have more interesting conversations about the answer sheets than I do about class material.  

For each test, I type up an answer sheet that starts with, “Here is how I would have looked at each question.  Here is how I would have started building an answer.   Here is the answer that I hope you were able to derive.”   No matter how complicated the question, I want the answers to seem logical and sequential.  Education is often the taking of a seemingly random and confused bunch of information and organizing it into knowledge that is logical and sequential.

Of course, there is a troubling disadvantage with distributing answer sheets—you cannot reuse test questions semester after semester.  The questions and answers are “out there” in the student world.   I know this is probably sacrilegious to say but I think teachers should write new questions for each semester.  The old questions become stale and dated.  New questions help keep you focused on what you want your students to know.  Like exercise, the writing of test questions is not fun but it is good for you.     

Answer sheets can help the students.   Again, try it once and see if it works.

Fourth Tip:   And, here is a fourth tip absolutely free of charge.  Send the answer sheets you use one semester to your students the next semester.  Once again, that will help them see that you are not asking for any memorization.  The answer sheets will show them what you mean when you say,  "I want to see if you can take your class knowledge and extend it to solve something new, something a bit more complex."  Students often believe a teacher is bluffing until they see evidence.   At that point, they will forget about memorization and start looking for ways to use the knowledge they have attained.

**

None of these ideas is perfect.  I can see potential flaws easily enough.  Nevertheless, in my own personal experience, they have each helped my students develop stronger and deeper learning.  If you are looking to experiment in your teaching, testing is an excellent place to start.  I think you will find opportunities for quick improvement.

When done well, your questions and answers can have a positive effect on the knowledge and understanding of your students.  Better testing can make for better learning.    

BETTER STORIES MAKE FOR BETTER STUDENTS

The spring semester is rapidly ending.  I have little time left to work with my current group of students.   I always want every semester to end on a surge of energy.   Especially in the spring, classes can drift into mass lethargy where everyone just begins to go through the motions.  Education is too important for that conclusion.   Everything goes better when it ends with enthusiasm.

Recently, I emailed all my students in hopes of encouraging them to redouble their efforts even as spring began to warm the earth and flowers began to appear.   I am trying to establish a strong mindset here at the end of the semester.   They are young and strong.   With the right mindset, they still have time to move mountains.  I have a motto, "if you are not dead, things can always get better."

Here is the email I sent to my spring students.

We have four weeks left in the semester – roughly 12 hours that we will be together.   It’s not much time but it is enough time to push that grade up.

Let me make a suggestion.

I listen to books on CDs as I drive around town.   A few years ago, I was listening to an audiobook in my car:  Wild by Cheryl Strayed.   It is long and complex so I will not include a detailed synopsis here.    However, at the beginning of this autobiographical work, the author believes that she has lost control of her life (at least in part because of the death of her mother).  She decides to focus on a genuine challenge in hopes of regaining inner peace and balance.  In that circumstance, I might have taken up a hobby like pottery.  With virtually no experience to guide her, Strayed chose to walk 1,100 miles alone through the mountains of California and Oregon on the Pacific Crest Trail.  Even now, the level of that challenge seems absurd.  Although she faced horribly frightening experiences during those months, she ultimately succeeded.  She was not the fastest hiker, actually one of the slowest, but she made it.  Along the way, she faced enormous challenges, but figured out ways – often by herself – to get through them successfully.

One day, I was listening to Wild as I drove to campus.  The author was getting ready to begin her incredibly long, difficult journey.  Not surprisingly, she lost her nerve and almost quit before marching off resolutely to the starting point.  In describing her emotions, she wrote a line that is so insightful that I pulled my car 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.  “Fear, to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves.”  For me, this was the most brilliant sentence I have read recently.  The words have stuck with me like an arrow for months.  And, the sentence is even more relevant if you begin to swap out the word “Fear” for other words such as “Joy,” “Excitement,” “Hate,” “Love,” and “Success.”   We are very much a product of the stories that we tell ourselves.   I believe that.

We have four weeks left in this semester.   My guess is that all of you would like to finish strong so you can learn the material and make the highest grade possible. 

What is holding you back from reaching your potential?   I suspect a large barrier to your desired level of success is a list of the stories that you tell yourself about this class.   Be honest – what stories linger in the back of your mind about this class?   Which of these sound like you?

--I’m not as smart as the other students.

--I’m just not very good with numbers.

--I’m tired of being a student so I’m going to coast out with as little work as possible.

--I prefer to sit and listen and this teacher keeps asking me questions, which is annoying.

--I’m good at memorizing.   I am not very good at thinking.

--The class is in the morning and I am not a morning person.

--I’ve got other classes that take up much of my time.

--I am never going to need to know this material so why waste my time.

--I don’t really know what I want to do in life so why spend so much time on this course.

--I want to have fun with my friends and don’t want to waste time on this class.   College is for fun.

--I’m really terribly shy and don’t like to speak in class.

--I always seem to know the material until I get to a test and then I panic and make stupid mistakes.

--No one really cares if I make above a C.   Mediocre is good enough.

And, all of those are absolute nonsense.  They are designed to hold you back.   They are designed to give you a dull, mediocre life.   They are designed to take you off the hook and have an excuse to be lazy.   Those are the wrong stories.  They will never lead to success in anything.  That mindset makes you an average person.   You are smarter than that.  Come up with better stories and you will come up with better results.   I cannot guarantee that you’ll make 110 on our third test but I honestly believe you will do better.

What stories should you be telling yourself?

--I will be the best prepared person in class next week.   I will analyze every question in advance and be ready with an answer.   I might not be able to do this for an entire semester but I can do it for the next week.

--I will write down questions in class that I don’t understand and go ask the teacher immediately.   He is paid to teach so let him earn his money.

--I will enjoy the energy and excitement of the class discussions.  I will look forward to this class. 

--I will pray that the teacher calls on me in class because I am ready to be a leader.

--I will work the extra class problems as soon as I get them.

--I will start keeping a diary of the amount of time I spend studying each day just to see if I can slowly raise that average.

--I will not worry about whether the material will ever be important.   I will learn it just for the sheer joy of adding knowledge to my head. 

--I will be better at time management so that I am ready for every class and can still have time to enjoy life outside of class.

I simply believe you will do better if you have better stories.   Positive stories create positive results.  You have to have stories that give you the strength to do the work now and do it well.   You have to overcome the bad stories.

That is not easy.   I fully understand.   But better stories really do make for better students.

I have an odd photo here at my house.  It is taped to my wall near my computer.   It is a photo of the cover of a notebook.   It was given to me by a student who did very well in my course about a year ago.   After the semester was over, she sent me the photo and explained, “I wrote this on the cover of my course notebook on the first day of the semester and I looked at it long and hard every day for the entire semester.”

On the notebook, she had written just four words:

“I want it more.”

She told herself the right story and she did very well.  She truly did succeed.

I AM CHEERING FOR YOU

I often think about teaching in comparison to being a coach.  Both teachers and coaches work with a group of people in hopes that those people will accomplish some task particularly well (often under pressure).   There is an ongoing learning experience where individuals in both groups gradually improve (hopefully) over time.   In each case, the whole process culminates in some type of test – sports teams play a game that they hope to win whereas students take an examination where they hope to excel.   In sports, the coach is trying to maximize the team’s chances for a victory.   In education, the teacher is trying to maximize the amount of every student’s understanding so that each person can do as well on the exam as possible.  

I spent my weekend writing a long, complex test for 41 of my students.   I know it will be a challenge to each one.   There is nothing easy about any of these questions but they have worked hard and they are capable of success.  I would really like to maximize the chances for success.

When I finished writing the test, I decided to sit down to watch a little bit of the basketball games in March Madness.   It is hard to avoid these games at this time of the year.

As I watched the teams play, I was struck by how much time and energy the coaches had expended in hopes of getting each player to do their very best.  The best coaches seemed to have taken nothing for granted.   They had done everything possible to help the players perform well.  Hmm, I found that interesting – they had done everything possible to help the players perform well.   Had I done as much for my own students?

I started thinking about my students and the test that they were surely preparing for at that moment.  We had spent an enormous amount of time working on the material but I wasn’t sure that I had helped them to be as psychologically prepared for the test as possible.   Is that my role?   Am I purely a teacher of material?   Or, if I want my students to really do well, do I have more of an obligation than that?  

One of the things I don’t like about testing is that it tends to put the teacher in an adversarial relationship with the students.   We are the coach but we are also the judge and that creates a bit of separation in the minds of both parties.   I’ve always wanted my students to know I was on their side.   I think that helps their learning.

After the last game was over last night, I decided that there really was a little bit more that I could do for my students to help them do their best on the test today.  Instead of going to bed, I wrote them one final email, not about the subject matter but rather about doing their best.   I imagine that a great basketball coach might have done something like this.   And, in all seriousness, are those games on television one bit more important than the success of your own students?  You might disagree but I think not.   One of the first steps in being a better teacher is to recognize the importance of your role and in doing it as well as you possibly can.

Here is the email that I sent out.  I have no idea whether it increased anyone’s grade even one point but, for me, it was worth a try.   At least, I wanted my students to know that I was cheering for them.  I did truly want them to do well.   Before your next test, you might try something similar.   If nothing else, I think it is good for the student-teacher relationship for them to know that you really do want them to learn and succeed.

To my students:

You will have your second test in roughly 12 - 13 hours.   I know I have said all of this before but I want to say it again as you mentally prepare yourself for the battle.

Most importantly, I doubt seriously that I am going to ask you anything that is not already in your head.   Seriously, I wrote each question with one comment to myself, "I think this is in their heads -- it is not really impossible/bizarre/unworkable.  I think they'll know this."  

So, I think the whole key to the test is getting the material out of your head smoothly and onto the paper.   That's all I want you to worry about in these last few hours -- getting the knowledge out of your head smoothly and onto the paper.  

To do that, you know what I'm going to recommend first -- get a normal night's sleep.   Being tired is one of the worst things you can do on a difficult test.   No one functions well when they are tired.   If you normally get 7 hours of sleep, then go for 7 hours of sleep.

Second, stay calm.   I know the questions are going to look bizarre at first.  Take a deep breath and tell yourself, "he wrote these questions knowing us and believing that we can work them.  Getting rattled is not going to help.  Let me read it carefully."  

Third, have confidence.   You are bright people who have made your way into this university, into this school, and into this class.   That didn't happen by accident.   Yes, the material is complicated but it is not that complicated.   Don't blow it out of all proportions.

Fourth, keep your concentration.   I always tell my students, "if the building catches on fire, you don't want to notice until some fireman picks you up and carries you from the room."    I don't care what happens in room 223 tomorrow morning, nothing but that test should make any difference to you.

Fifth, if you get stuck on a question, don't waste a lot of time on it.   Go find another question that you might know better and come back to the "stuck" question at the end of the time.  

Finally, be careful.   I'm always shocked/dismayed by how many points great students just throw away by doing careless things.   If you don't know a question, that's fine, I can live with that.   But don't just hand over points by making careless errors.  

I know you (not the person beside you but YOU) are capable of doing great.   I'll be cheering for you!!!!!!   Go get it!!!!!    Make it happen!!!!!!