Yesterday, I carried out my very favorite activity of every semester. I sent an individual email to each student who made an A in my class this semester just to congratulate them. As teachers, we push our students unmercifully to succeed. We are after them constantly to do the work necessary to make an A. We push and prod them to give us an excellent effort. We complain when they disappoint us.
Therefore, I think those students who take up our challenge and do the work we ask of them deserve our acknowledgement. I believe they should get more than an anonymous A on a grade report. So, before I turn my grades in to the school, I send each A student an email so they know that I did notice.
In my classes this semester, 14 percent of the students in my introductory class (a relatively low number for me) made an A and 35 percent of the students in my intermediate class (an all-time high) made an A. I sent each of these students an email something like the following:
Wednesday afternoon
To: Mr. X
From: JH
I am very pleased to let you know that I have finished grading the final exams in Accounting 201 (Financial Accounting) and you earned the grade of A for this semester. Only 14 percent of the students in this course managed to earn an A and you were one of those. Congratulations!!! Your work for the semester was outstanding. I am pleased for you and believe that you should be very proud of yourself. Although a lot of people have taken Financial Accounting with me over the past 40 years, very few of them have been able to say that they made an A. You now belong to a relatively exclusive club. To do this well in Financial Accounting requires a lot of hard work and (hopefully) some deep thought. Your work was excellent and it was, very much, a pleasure to have the opportunity to work with you. I really hope you will carry this success with you into the spring semester. Nothing pleases me more than to hear that my former students are knocking the top off of their subsequent courses. You can do it – you are very bright and hard working. So, make it happen.
As I am sure you know, for about the last 12-15 years, I have asked every student who has made an A in one of my courses to write a short essay (a paragraph or two will be sufficient) to explain how you managed to make that grade when so many (equally bright folks) failed to do consistently excellent work this semester. I hope you will write this up and forward that essay to me in the next few days. Think about it a little bit. What should those other students have done differently? As you know, I will share your thoughts with the students for next semester in the hopes that they can replicate your success. What can you tell a rising 201 student to explain to them what I want? I am always frustrated that some students simply never catch on to what I am looking for. I honestly believe that everyone can make an A in 201 if they will do the work in the proper fashion. I need for you to explain what that proper fashion is. All I ask is that you be totally honest. The grade is already in – so, tell them the truth.
Have a great holiday. Enjoy your vacation – you have earned it. If I can ever be of assistance, please just let me know.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Monday, November 15, 2010
Annoying or Amusing?
I had the genuine pleasure this past Thursday of speaking to 150 new faculty members in the Virginia Community College System. It is always a treat to work with people at the very beginning of their teaching careers. They have such a wonderful opportunity to help change the world.
One of the themes that I explored with the group was the idea of improvement. If you continue to improve as a teacher, year after year, you will get very good and eventually become great. And, the amount of annual improvement doesn’t have to be huge. In connection with their teaching, I suggested that every person work toward making a mere 5 percent improvement per year. That is doable and at that rate, in not too many years, you can become the best teacher in your building.
However, a great majority of teachers get better for awhile but eventually plateau. Many people who were B- teachers two decades ago are still B- teachers. I find that troubling. Why doesn't a B- teacher eventually become an A+ teacher?
There is a point where it simply becomes easy to say “I am what I am and I am never going to get any better so I’m not even going to try.” As you can imagine, that is not an attitude that I like. As far as I’m concerned, if I am not dead, I should be working to get better.
The question comes up, then, as to what causes a teacher to plateau. I have known a fair share of people who were good teachers and then suddenly began to become disgruntled. After that, they never got one bit better.
When does that happen? I have a theory. When you first start teaching, it is easy to find your students amusing. My students are all about 19 years old and I occasionally refer to them as puppies. They are just beginning to try out the responsibilities of adult life. As with growing puppies, this time can often be a very humorous period of transition.
However, there can come a time when those same students and those same actions can become annoying. A student will say something bizarre and instead of finding it amusing, the professor finds the student’s ignorance to be annoying.
In fact, if a professor ever says to you, “students simply aren’t like they used to be,” that is a clear sign that they have gone from viewing students as amusing to annoying.
If you find students in general to be amusing, then you are willing to do the work that is necessary to continue to improve. Five percent improvement is clearly a possibility. But, if the students have started to annoy you, then improvement becomes a much more difficult task. It is very easy, at that essential moment, to hit that plateau where your days of improvement cease.
So, wherever possible, I try to view the actions of my students as relatively amusing. And, even though they do incredibly dumb things at times, I try to avoid staying in a constant state of annoyance. The reason is fairly obvious. I really do want to get better. I want to get 5 percent better by this time next year. And, that is hard to accomplish if everything the students do seems to annoy you.
One of the themes that I explored with the group was the idea of improvement. If you continue to improve as a teacher, year after year, you will get very good and eventually become great. And, the amount of annual improvement doesn’t have to be huge. In connection with their teaching, I suggested that every person work toward making a mere 5 percent improvement per year. That is doable and at that rate, in not too many years, you can become the best teacher in your building.
However, a great majority of teachers get better for awhile but eventually plateau. Many people who were B- teachers two decades ago are still B- teachers. I find that troubling. Why doesn't a B- teacher eventually become an A+ teacher?
There is a point where it simply becomes easy to say “I am what I am and I am never going to get any better so I’m not even going to try.” As you can imagine, that is not an attitude that I like. As far as I’m concerned, if I am not dead, I should be working to get better.
The question comes up, then, as to what causes a teacher to plateau. I have known a fair share of people who were good teachers and then suddenly began to become disgruntled. After that, they never got one bit better.
When does that happen? I have a theory. When you first start teaching, it is easy to find your students amusing. My students are all about 19 years old and I occasionally refer to them as puppies. They are just beginning to try out the responsibilities of adult life. As with growing puppies, this time can often be a very humorous period of transition.
However, there can come a time when those same students and those same actions can become annoying. A student will say something bizarre and instead of finding it amusing, the professor finds the student’s ignorance to be annoying.
In fact, if a professor ever says to you, “students simply aren’t like they used to be,” that is a clear sign that they have gone from viewing students as amusing to annoying.
If you find students in general to be amusing, then you are willing to do the work that is necessary to continue to improve. Five percent improvement is clearly a possibility. But, if the students have started to annoy you, then improvement becomes a much more difficult task. It is very easy, at that essential moment, to hit that plateau where your days of improvement cease.
So, wherever possible, I try to view the actions of my students as relatively amusing. And, even though they do incredibly dumb things at times, I try to avoid staying in a constant state of annoyance. The reason is fairly obvious. I really do want to get better. I want to get 5 percent better by this time next year. And, that is hard to accomplish if everything the students do seems to annoy you.
Monday, November 8, 2010
We Shouldn’t Take It For Granted
Topic One: On this coming Thursday, I will be having one of the great pleasures of my life. I will be leading a 3 1/2 hour teaching workshop for 150 new teachers in the Virginia Community College System. When you are given the opportunity of working with 150 new teachers, you realize that you are looking at a group that can truly make a difference in the lives of an almost countless number of students for decades and decades to come. This truly is an honor for me.
**
Topic Two: This past Friday I sat in my office for about 30 minutes and talked with an official in the Afghanistan government. That certainly is not a traditional part of my job. However, his daughter is a student at the University of Richmond and he was on campus visiting her. Because I knew the daughter, she brought her father by so we could meet.
We talked about the progress being made in Afghanistan and he immediately started talking about the problems caused by illiteracy in his country. His point was that for nearly 25 years, the country was without a formal education system. First under the Russians and then under the Taliban, schools as we know them were often nonexistent. Can you imagine, he asked, what it is like to go 25 years without education? An entire generation is lost.
Instead of producing doctors, engineers, accountants, and the like who could serve as the leaders to help pull the country out of poverty, an entire generation basically went without education. And, what can most people really do without education? I do not know if this is accurate but I found the following on the Internet: “The overall literacy rate in Afghanistan is reported to be 28.1%; according to an Afghan Ministry of Education report, ‘In rural areas where 74 percent of all Afghans live, however, an estimated 90 percent of women and 63 percent of men cannot read, write and do a simple math computation.’”
That is a staggering set of statistics. If you simply stop and think of how limiting those numbers are for the people, the challenges faced by the entire country seem overwhelming.
How hard it must be to try to create a peaceful, prospering country with those kinds of statistics working against you.
There is a lot of criticism of the educational system in the US and, most certainly, improvements can be made. However, regardless of what you think of US education, no one can deny how important it is to the growth and prosperity of our country. Sometimes it is easy to say “oh, I’m just a teacher” and view the job as unimportant but those of us in education need to constantly remind ourselves of how essential our job is. If you are a teacher, never take it for granted. Our country needs great education. As teachers, we each have students who are depending on us to help them read and learn and go out into the world and make a difference. And, through that learning, they will be able to help continue the building of a great nation.
I couldn’t help thinking, as I sat and talked with the Afghan official, that I wished every teacher could hear what he was saying about the total loss that comes from lack of education. There are a lot of the world’s problems that I cannot do a single thing about. However, when it comes to helping to educate the next generation, that is a challenge that I can personally address—even as soon as Wednesday—when I walk back into class and make a little difference in the lives of my 64 students. I want to be part of the solution and not part of the problem.
**
Topic Two: This past Friday I sat in my office for about 30 minutes and talked with an official in the Afghanistan government. That certainly is not a traditional part of my job. However, his daughter is a student at the University of Richmond and he was on campus visiting her. Because I knew the daughter, she brought her father by so we could meet.
We talked about the progress being made in Afghanistan and he immediately started talking about the problems caused by illiteracy in his country. His point was that for nearly 25 years, the country was without a formal education system. First under the Russians and then under the Taliban, schools as we know them were often nonexistent. Can you imagine, he asked, what it is like to go 25 years without education? An entire generation is lost.
Instead of producing doctors, engineers, accountants, and the like who could serve as the leaders to help pull the country out of poverty, an entire generation basically went without education. And, what can most people really do without education? I do not know if this is accurate but I found the following on the Internet: “The overall literacy rate in Afghanistan is reported to be 28.1%; according to an Afghan Ministry of Education report, ‘In rural areas where 74 percent of all Afghans live, however, an estimated 90 percent of women and 63 percent of men cannot read, write and do a simple math computation.’”
That is a staggering set of statistics. If you simply stop and think of how limiting those numbers are for the people, the challenges faced by the entire country seem overwhelming.
How hard it must be to try to create a peaceful, prospering country with those kinds of statistics working against you.
There is a lot of criticism of the educational system in the US and, most certainly, improvements can be made. However, regardless of what you think of US education, no one can deny how important it is to the growth and prosperity of our country. Sometimes it is easy to say “oh, I’m just a teacher” and view the job as unimportant but those of us in education need to constantly remind ourselves of how essential our job is. If you are a teacher, never take it for granted. Our country needs great education. As teachers, we each have students who are depending on us to help them read and learn and go out into the world and make a difference. And, through that learning, they will be able to help continue the building of a great nation.
I couldn’t help thinking, as I sat and talked with the Afghan official, that I wished every teacher could hear what he was saying about the total loss that comes from lack of education. There are a lot of the world’s problems that I cannot do a single thing about. However, when it comes to helping to educate the next generation, that is a challenge that I can personally address—even as soon as Wednesday—when I walk back into class and make a little difference in the lives of my 64 students. I want to be part of the solution and not part of the problem.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Teaching Is Serious Business
I was asked, about four years ago, to write an essay on teaching. The following was my response. I believed this then. I believe it now. Joe
Teaching is serious business. We have wonderfully bright and talented students at every school. They have almost unlimited potential. For most, this is their one shot at college; they deserve nothing less than an excellent education,
an academic experience that challenges them to excel from their first day to their last.
Faculty members have a responsibility to the world to coax the very best from their students because they will certainly become the next generation of leaders. Where they go from here, what they accomplish, how they impact the world, depends in large part on how much we are able to push and nurture their development. I want every student to leave my class at the end of the semester saying, “I had to work very hard but I am so amazed by how much I learned.” Anything less is unacceptable.
If a teacher challenges students to think and do their best, word gets around campus quickly, but having a tough reputation is both good and bad. When students walk into my class on the first day, they tend to be very quiet and pay attention right away. On the other hand, I am always so disappointed when a student says to me “I hear you are a good teacher, but I didn’t take your class because I know you are very demanding.” Isn't that just incredibly sad? I think all of college education (as well as the world in general) will be better when students become convinced to sign up only for classes where teachers push them each day to do their best.
During each semester, I occasionally point out to my students that the grade of A, according to the University catalogue, reflects “outstanding” work. A student does not earn the grade of A for a good effort, only for consistently outstanding work. That’s a great goal; it inspires a wonderful level of effort. Grade inflation has hurt college education across this country and could be fixed simply by faculty members saying, “You earn an A when the work that I see is truly outstanding.” Don’t fool yourself; students are well aware of the difference between “good” and “outstanding.”
I use the Socratic Method. I call on every student every day in class. I don't ask them to regurgitate material; I ask them questions that I believe will cause them to think and reason—on the spot. That is what adult life is like. I then follow my initial question with others based on their answers. If I don’t get good replies from a student, I don’t just nod and smile; I demand better of them. A student once compared my class to a contact sport. Students should be ready, willing and able to discuss and debate issues. This is college, not high school.
I want a reasonable effort from my students because students get back based on what they put in. I expect them to study four to six hours each week outside of class so they’ll be ready to participate in class discussions. I use carrots and sticks. I say, “Good job!” when a student gives me a thoughtful, well-conceived answer, and I say, “Listen, you can do better than that!” when a student gives me a bad answer. I don’t view that as being disagreeable, although I do realize that it injects a bit of tension into the class. But this is not Sesame Street; a bad answer is a bad answer. There is only one primary goal in my class: to improve each student’s ability to think, reason and understand. Students realize how capable they are, but human nature loves to take the easy path.
A good basketball coach adapts to the talents of his or her players. A good teacher does the same. You cannot take an identical approach with every student. Some love to be pushed and pushed hard. They enjoy “in-your-face” challenges. Others are more fragile. You have to coax and nurture them. So toughness comes into my class where toughness is necessary. You teach each student, not each group. However, every student needs to be willing to prepare and to think. That is not negotiable.
One of the keys to becoming a good teacher is learning to walk into a room of students and “see” what is happening to the individual members: Billy needs a few extra seconds to formulate an answer, Susan loves to be called on, Andy doesn’t know what is happening right now, Ellen is not prepared. You have to be able to adapt to your students on the spot every day. What a wonderfully exciting job.
Our students can do amazing things, but if we don’t challenge them fully, they will never realize what marvelous talents they truly possess. Signing up for demanding classes might hurt a student’s GPA, but which is more important: developing a good mind or a good GPA?
Teaching is serious business. We have wonderfully bright and talented students at every school. They have almost unlimited potential. For most, this is their one shot at college; they deserve nothing less than an excellent education,
an academic experience that challenges them to excel from their first day to their last.
Faculty members have a responsibility to the world to coax the very best from their students because they will certainly become the next generation of leaders. Where they go from here, what they accomplish, how they impact the world, depends in large part on how much we are able to push and nurture their development. I want every student to leave my class at the end of the semester saying, “I had to work very hard but I am so amazed by how much I learned.” Anything less is unacceptable.
If a teacher challenges students to think and do their best, word gets around campus quickly, but having a tough reputation is both good and bad. When students walk into my class on the first day, they tend to be very quiet and pay attention right away. On the other hand, I am always so disappointed when a student says to me “I hear you are a good teacher, but I didn’t take your class because I know you are very demanding.” Isn't that just incredibly sad? I think all of college education (as well as the world in general) will be better when students become convinced to sign up only for classes where teachers push them each day to do their best.
During each semester, I occasionally point out to my students that the grade of A, according to the University catalogue, reflects “outstanding” work. A student does not earn the grade of A for a good effort, only for consistently outstanding work. That’s a great goal; it inspires a wonderful level of effort. Grade inflation has hurt college education across this country and could be fixed simply by faculty members saying, “You earn an A when the work that I see is truly outstanding.” Don’t fool yourself; students are well aware of the difference between “good” and “outstanding.”
I use the Socratic Method. I call on every student every day in class. I don't ask them to regurgitate material; I ask them questions that I believe will cause them to think and reason—on the spot. That is what adult life is like. I then follow my initial question with others based on their answers. If I don’t get good replies from a student, I don’t just nod and smile; I demand better of them. A student once compared my class to a contact sport. Students should be ready, willing and able to discuss and debate issues. This is college, not high school.
I want a reasonable effort from my students because students get back based on what they put in. I expect them to study four to six hours each week outside of class so they’ll be ready to participate in class discussions. I use carrots and sticks. I say, “Good job!” when a student gives me a thoughtful, well-conceived answer, and I say, “Listen, you can do better than that!” when a student gives me a bad answer. I don’t view that as being disagreeable, although I do realize that it injects a bit of tension into the class. But this is not Sesame Street; a bad answer is a bad answer. There is only one primary goal in my class: to improve each student’s ability to think, reason and understand. Students realize how capable they are, but human nature loves to take the easy path.
A good basketball coach adapts to the talents of his or her players. A good teacher does the same. You cannot take an identical approach with every student. Some love to be pushed and pushed hard. They enjoy “in-your-face” challenges. Others are more fragile. You have to coax and nurture them. So toughness comes into my class where toughness is necessary. You teach each student, not each group. However, every student needs to be willing to prepare and to think. That is not negotiable.
One of the keys to becoming a good teacher is learning to walk into a room of students and “see” what is happening to the individual members: Billy needs a few extra seconds to formulate an answer, Susan loves to be called on, Andy doesn’t know what is happening right now, Ellen is not prepared. You have to be able to adapt to your students on the spot every day. What a wonderfully exciting job.
Our students can do amazing things, but if we don’t challenge them fully, they will never realize what marvelous talents they truly possess. Signing up for demanding classes might hurt a student’s GPA, but which is more important: developing a good mind or a good GPA?
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Conversations
If you have followed this blog for long, you know that my favorite saying about teaching is "Teaching does not come from years of doing it. It actually comes from thinking about it." Unfortunately, it is easy to get trapped into thinking superficially about teaching. “Why are students so lazy?” “Why can’t students read?” “Why do students seem incapable of thinking?” I’m not sure that kind of thinking does anyone much good.
A few days ago, a friend and I had a long conversation about teaching, just a general conversation about what works and what doesn’t work for us. We talked about our goals and our frustrations. When is the last time you had such a conversation? Really, a conversation about how teaching is actually done. Find someone in your building or in your school who truly likes to think and talk about teaching and make it a point to have such conversations on a regular basis.
As part of my recent conversation, the question was raised (now that we are half-way through the current semester) as to what we expect from our students each day. My now we have trained them (either on purpose or by accident). When you walk into your classroom, what do you actually expect to get from your students? If all you expect is for them to sit there quietly and take notes, you will probably get your wish. But, shouldn’t learning require more than that from students? If all students have to do is sit quietly and take notes, then education by television or the Internet is the way to go.
My answer to that particular question, after a bit of thinking, was that I wanted three things from my students.
First, I want them to be engaged. I want them on the edge of their seats ready to participate at the drop of a hat. I don’t like comfortable students. Comfortable students tend to be lazy students. Comfortable students don’t seem to like to do the depth of thinking that I want.
Second, I want the students engaged 100 percent of the time. One of my all-time favorite teaching books is One L. Scott Turow, the author, talks about his first year at Harvard Law School and this famous teacher who taught by the Socratic Method. He made the point that everyone was on the edge of their seats practically holding their breath until the first student was called on. The teacher had the habit of interrogating that one student for the rest of the hour. Therefore, after the first question, every other student started to daydream or think about other classes. When I read that 20 years ago, I thought it was ridiculous. I don’t want one student to be engaged. I want all of them to be engaged all of the time. My classes are 50 minutes long – I’m convinced that people (even young college students) can stay focused for that period of time.
Third, as I have said often in this blog, I want my students prepared. I think 100 percent of good teaching has to start with student preparation. College is for deep thinking and complex learning. When I ask students about a capital lease or a deferred income tax, there is no possibly way they can come up with a legitimate response off the top of their head. This has to be something they have thought about and considered in advance. Without the preparation, what are we able to do in class? Darn little.
It was a good conversation about teaching. I went back to my own teaching with some new insights into what others think as well as what I think. You don’t need those conversations every day but it is hard to get better as a teacher without some of those conversations.
A few days ago, a friend and I had a long conversation about teaching, just a general conversation about what works and what doesn’t work for us. We talked about our goals and our frustrations. When is the last time you had such a conversation? Really, a conversation about how teaching is actually done. Find someone in your building or in your school who truly likes to think and talk about teaching and make it a point to have such conversations on a regular basis.
As part of my recent conversation, the question was raised (now that we are half-way through the current semester) as to what we expect from our students each day. My now we have trained them (either on purpose or by accident). When you walk into your classroom, what do you actually expect to get from your students? If all you expect is for them to sit there quietly and take notes, you will probably get your wish. But, shouldn’t learning require more than that from students? If all students have to do is sit quietly and take notes, then education by television or the Internet is the way to go.
My answer to that particular question, after a bit of thinking, was that I wanted three things from my students.
First, I want them to be engaged. I want them on the edge of their seats ready to participate at the drop of a hat. I don’t like comfortable students. Comfortable students tend to be lazy students. Comfortable students don’t seem to like to do the depth of thinking that I want.
Second, I want the students engaged 100 percent of the time. One of my all-time favorite teaching books is One L. Scott Turow, the author, talks about his first year at Harvard Law School and this famous teacher who taught by the Socratic Method. He made the point that everyone was on the edge of their seats practically holding their breath until the first student was called on. The teacher had the habit of interrogating that one student for the rest of the hour. Therefore, after the first question, every other student started to daydream or think about other classes. When I read that 20 years ago, I thought it was ridiculous. I don’t want one student to be engaged. I want all of them to be engaged all of the time. My classes are 50 minutes long – I’m convinced that people (even young college students) can stay focused for that period of time.
Third, as I have said often in this blog, I want my students prepared. I think 100 percent of good teaching has to start with student preparation. College is for deep thinking and complex learning. When I ask students about a capital lease or a deferred income tax, there is no possibly way they can come up with a legitimate response off the top of their head. This has to be something they have thought about and considered in advance. Without the preparation, what are we able to do in class? Darn little.
It was a good conversation about teaching. I went back to my own teaching with some new insights into what others think as well as what I think. You don’t need those conversations every day but it is hard to get better as a teacher without some of those conversations.
Monday, October 4, 2010
It Is An Honor
My good friend Paul Clikeman furnished me with these lines from Pat Conroy's book The Prince of Tides. This is the way that we should all feel every day when we have the good fortune of being able to go into a classroom to try to help our students to work and learn and understand.
Savannah Wingo: "You sold yourself short. You could’ve been more than a teacher and a coach."
Tom Wingo: "Listen to me, Savannah. There’s no word in the language I revere more than teacher. My heart sings when a kid refers to me as his teacher and it always has. I’ve honored myself and the entire family of man by becoming one.
Savannah Wingo: "You sold yourself short. You could’ve been more than a teacher and a coach."
Tom Wingo: "Listen to me, Savannah. There’s no word in the language I revere more than teacher. My heart sings when a kid refers to me as his teacher and it always has. I’ve honored myself and the entire family of man by becoming one.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Incentives Matter
(1) – I had my first test of the semester last week in Financial Accounting. If you would like to see a copy of that test, drop me a note at Jhoyle@richmond.edu.
(2) - Several weeks ago I heard part of a story on National Public Radio. It was about British sea captains who were transporting prisoners to Australia in the 1700s. Unfortunately, many of the prisoners were dying along the way. So, the British government changed the way they paid the sea captains. They began to pay only for each prisoner who arrived in Australia alive. Not surprisingly, the death rate dropped to nearly zero almost immediately.
The punch line of the story was that incentives matter.
I am a believer that you can encourage people to do almost anything if you figure out the right incentives. With an incentive that matters, people can practically leap tall buildings in a single bound.
Like every teacher, I get frustrated by my students on occasion. I give an assignment and they don’t do it or they don’t put significant time into it. Assuming that the assignment is not too tough for them, why don’t they do better? That is an easy answer. They don’t have any incentive to do better.
I once asked a class: “if I gave you each $1 million to make an A on our next test, how many of you would make an A?” Every hand in class was raised quickly. So, it was not a question of ability – with the right incentive, everyone will do enough work to make an A.
Assuming that you don’t have a lot of extra millions to give out, what incentives can you use? Historically, teachers often fall back on the old standby “this is likely to be on the test” to motivate students to work. However, that is such a negative incentive. It tells the students “learn this or else.” That is hardly a way to build excitement for learning.
Personally, I prefer not to use incentives at all. I think learning should be fun and the reward of knowledge and understanding should be enough to motivate students to do the work that is necessary.
At the same time, I realize that is a bit naïve. Students are humans and they will always put their energy where they perceive the greatest immediate benefit. So, at times a more tangible incentive is needed.
On Monday and Wednesday of this week, in my financial accounting class, we covered accounts receivable. The weather has been cool and rainy and the students have seemed especially lethargic. The next test is not for 2-3 more weeks. I could tell that many of them were going to defer thinking about accounts receivable until that next test. I needed to get them cranked up. Last night, I sent them an email saying that I was going to start class off on Friday with one quick question on accounts receivable. No penalty if they missed it but I would give them 2 bonus points on their next test if they got it correct.
I’m hoping this will be the incentive they need to focus their attention on this topic. Two points is not a lot but it provides them with a tangible reason to learn this material now and not wait until the night before the test.
I will write later and let you know if this bonus question works or not. However, I am convinced that appropriate incentives do work. So, if you are having a class that is not responding in the way that you would like, step back and consider what incentives they have for doing better. Perhaps changing those incentives a bit will change your results.
(2) - Several weeks ago I heard part of a story on National Public Radio. It was about British sea captains who were transporting prisoners to Australia in the 1700s. Unfortunately, many of the prisoners were dying along the way. So, the British government changed the way they paid the sea captains. They began to pay only for each prisoner who arrived in Australia alive. Not surprisingly, the death rate dropped to nearly zero almost immediately.
The punch line of the story was that incentives matter.
I am a believer that you can encourage people to do almost anything if you figure out the right incentives. With an incentive that matters, people can practically leap tall buildings in a single bound.
Like every teacher, I get frustrated by my students on occasion. I give an assignment and they don’t do it or they don’t put significant time into it. Assuming that the assignment is not too tough for them, why don’t they do better? That is an easy answer. They don’t have any incentive to do better.
I once asked a class: “if I gave you each $1 million to make an A on our next test, how many of you would make an A?” Every hand in class was raised quickly. So, it was not a question of ability – with the right incentive, everyone will do enough work to make an A.
Assuming that you don’t have a lot of extra millions to give out, what incentives can you use? Historically, teachers often fall back on the old standby “this is likely to be on the test” to motivate students to work. However, that is such a negative incentive. It tells the students “learn this or else.” That is hardly a way to build excitement for learning.
Personally, I prefer not to use incentives at all. I think learning should be fun and the reward of knowledge and understanding should be enough to motivate students to do the work that is necessary.
At the same time, I realize that is a bit naïve. Students are humans and they will always put their energy where they perceive the greatest immediate benefit. So, at times a more tangible incentive is needed.
On Monday and Wednesday of this week, in my financial accounting class, we covered accounts receivable. The weather has been cool and rainy and the students have seemed especially lethargic. The next test is not for 2-3 more weeks. I could tell that many of them were going to defer thinking about accounts receivable until that next test. I needed to get them cranked up. Last night, I sent them an email saying that I was going to start class off on Friday with one quick question on accounts receivable. No penalty if they missed it but I would give them 2 bonus points on their next test if they got it correct.
I’m hoping this will be the incentive they need to focus their attention on this topic. Two points is not a lot but it provides them with a tangible reason to learn this material now and not wait until the night before the test.
I will write later and let you know if this bonus question works or not. However, I am convinced that appropriate incentives do work. So, if you are having a class that is not responding in the way that you would like, step back and consider what incentives they have for doing better. Perhaps changing those incentives a bit will change your results.
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