What Stands Between You and Greatness

In my previous blog on this site, I provided some tips for becoming a great teacher. Not surprisingly, the question came up as to what constitutes great teaching. I think most of us probably have some fairly firm definition of “good teaching” but what is the next step up the ladder? What exactly do we mean by“great teaching?” If you describe someone as a great teacher, what characteristics are you describing?

Do we know what great teaching is? As I sometimes tell my students, “if you don’t know where you are going, then a road map won’t be of any help.”

One possibility is that we are all satisfied with being good teachers so we have no real reason to consider what comes next. There is no urgency. In your dreams, do you seek to be a good teacher or a great teacher? If you say“great teacher,” then you must have some definition in mind as to what that means.

As I often mention here, I teach at the Robins School of Business at the University of Richmond. My colleagues take teaching very seriously. So, I went to several of them recently and asked: “To you, what does ‘great teaching’ really mean?” I wanted to get some different ideas to mull over.

Below are some of the responses that I received. Look them over – consider what they have to say. (In case you are interested, my response is the last one on the list.)

Then, ask yourself: “For me, what does great teaching mean?” This question can take some thinking. Avoid a quick, flippant answer. Once you have identified what you believe constitutes great teaching, what would you have to do to achieve that level?

In teaching, what stands between you and greatness?

Here’s what I heard from several of my fellow teachers:

(1) - Great teaching accomplishes or exceeds instructor and institutional objectives, which ideally would focus on what students learn.

(2) - Great teaching is grounded in a thorough knowledge of a discipline, but it doesn't stop there. It calls that knowledge into question, and gives the students the tools to do the same.

Great teaching is transformative. It meets students where they are, but then it helps guide them to a place where they can take their education into their own hands, to where they become independent thinkers and seekers after knowledge. It gives them the tools to become life-long learners, rather than ending when the semester ends.

Great teaching is clear and focused, with achievable outcomes that are fairly assessed. That said, it may not bear fruit during the semester or even the college career of the student. (See "transformative," above.)

(3) - I don't know if I will actually answer your question, but I will share with you what I believe good teaching involves. Good teaching involves passion, creativity, and listening. It requires substance, an ability to challenge one to think, and the ability to motivate one to apply knowledge gained. The key element to good teaching is a motivated teacher. I am convinced that unmotivated teachers cultivate unmotivated students.

What's interesting is that I find it easier to tell you what bad teaching is. Hmmm, why is that?

(4) - A setting where students become actively engaged, probing, challenged, and at the end of the day, more interested in the subject than when they began. Great teaching would also include activities and outcomes that allow the Professor to clearly delineate the A, B, C, D, and F students. We could say that not all students have the same ability, but at a school like ours that is not necessarily the case. It is more likely not all students are motivated equally.

(5) - Great teaching creates great learning. I realize that's an inelegant sentence but it conveys what I believe. The best teacher inspires and helps a student to maximize their comprehension of a subject. The focus should always be on the student's learning.

(6) - My first thought to your question is, when I had a teacher who connected with me as a student, I had the joy of learning the topic AND I was inspired to learn more and more on my own. It made me have a desire to be inquisitive and want to dig and explore the topic even more. One of my best teachers was my 7th grade Earth Science teacher. She made studying rocks fascinating and to this day, I still want to pick up rocks, study them, and figure out how they were made. I think her joy in her topic was contagious. Obviously, my experience was at an earlier level, but I think it applies to all levels of schooling and all subjects.

(7) - First, let’s get rid of the “romanticized gentle mentor” image that constantly gets conjured up in the media. Further, let’s also admit that there is no one method of teaching that is best for all students nor for all teachers. Many of the people who I consider to be great teachers are not “cuddly” nor have a single style in which they teach.

Great teaching, in my opinion, gets the best results out of the students. These results are not simply test scores, but a greater maturity in the process of how to think about and solve problems possibly beyond the subject area. Great teachers/teaching make students better people. The difficult part about it is that great teaching may not be recognized by a student for a number of years and possibly only if the student is introspective enough to realize it. This is part of what makes teaching evaluations a flawed process. Your best teacher is not necessarily the one you enjoyed the most, but the one who got the most out of you.

(8) - Great teaching = Learning + Assessment = Convincing students to value (at least) the broad topic + convincing the instructor that the gained knowledge will provide some benefit to the students and the wellness of the world.

(9) What is a great teacher? At the end of the day, all teachers have to make that decision for themselves.

I have not thought about this for long so I might change my mind but my definition would be that a great teacher is one who assists most of his or her students in gaining a significantly deeper understanding of the subject matter. Accordingly, a teacher who got 100 percent of the students to learn a little might be a good teacher but not a great one. A teacher who gets a few students to gain a much deeper understanding might be a good teacher but not a great one. You have to influence a high percentage of the students and the increase in understanding must be eye-catching.

Popularity is not part of that definition.

Someone might ask how I measure the number who improve and the depth of improvement. Right now, I am not sure that I care. I am trying to set a theoretical goal for myself, not document a tenure decision.

Okay – now it is your turn. You have read all of these and they are quite interesting. How would you define Great Teaching? That’s what I would like to know.

How To Become A Great Teacher

My life is now officially complete.   I was mentioned recently in the Huffington Post.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ethan-senack/back-to-school-back-to-sk_b_3845386.html

Life will surely be downhill for me from here on out.

**

I have written about Ken Bain on this blog on a number of occasions.    He is author of What the Best College Teachers Do, a work that I have recommended to hundreds of teachers in my teaching presentations.   Several years ago, Dr. Bain spoke on our campus.   In the evening, he met with probably 75 faculty members.   During the program someone near the back of the room raised a hand and asked the direct question:   How do you become a great teacher?  Okay, the question that everyone really wanted to have answered was officially on the table.   What does a teacher need to do to become great?

Dr. Bain responded immediately with a response that went something like this:   “Oh, I can answer your question quite easily.   To become a great teacher, all you have to do is get your students to care about what you are teaching.”  

“All you have to do is get your students to care about what you are teaching.”   It sounds so simple but it can be so very difficult.

If you are teaching a course on Hamlet, a student who cares will allocate enough time to do the reading at a significant depth.   The student will check out related readings and consider their significance.  The student will pay attention in class, make comments, and ask questions.   In other words, the student will be fully engaged and do the work that is necessary to excel.   For that particular student, this class and professor will be outstanding and thought-provoking.

If a student is not enticed to care about Hamlet, the student will read (or scan) Cliff’s Notes or possibly watch one of the movie versions of the play.   The student will text during class and entirely miss the beauty of Shakespeare’s language.   Any papers will be completed with a half-hearted effort.   Although it is the same class, this student will find it boring and useless.

How much the student cares really is the key.  

As I wander around the country, I often hear faculty complaints about student apathy.

--“The students just don’t care.”

--“Why do they take the class if they don’t plan to do any work?”
--“They are not interested enough to do one bit more than is necessary.”

Great teachers rarely make those comments.

So, the question is not – how do you become a great teacher?    The real question is – how do you get your students to really care about the material?   (It is not coincidental that the two opening questions in my Financial Accounting textbook [written with C. J. Skender] are “What is financial accounting?” followed by “What makes Financial Accounting important?”   We wanted to build the concept of student caring into the material right from the start.)

Encouraging students to care about the material is a terribly complicated subject.   We could probably hold a week-long conference on that one challenge.   Obviously, we have all grown up in a system where “caring” was brought into education by the threat of a test and grades.   “You better learn this stuff or you are going to fail your test next week.”   Sounds like a haunted house warning at Halloween, doesn’t it?

I would argue that one of the problems with college education is that a lot of it is based on learning because of fear rather than developing a student who cares.

How can you get students to care about the material beyond simply threatening them with failing grades?    Here are a couple of thoughts.    This is not an all-inclusive list, just some random ideas.

1 – Communicate early and often. 

    a.   I start sending my students emails weeks before classes begin.  One of the things I tell them is “I truly believe this will be one of the most important classes you ever take in college.”   I want them to walk in on the first day with a sense of anticipation.   And, I want that feeling to be positive – there really is a potential benefit to be gained from learning this material.   Of course, then I have to back up my claim.
    b.   Whenever I see something in a movie, newspaper, the Internet, or television that relates to my course, I send a note to my students and describe why this news was relevant to them.   I really want to stretch the class beyond the four walls of the classroom.   One of my favorite comments is:   “before this semester began, you would not have understood what was written in that article but now you should understand it completely.   You are becoming educated.   Learning allows the world to open up to you.”
    c.   Whenever we talk about something in class that I think is especially important to them, I’ll drop them a quick email later and say “today we discussed X in class and here’s how this might actually prove to be beneficial to you at some point in life.”   Students often need you to make the connections for them, at least at first.   And, making connections is a skill you want to encourage.

2 – Keep the proper attitude in class.

    a.    I majored in accounting because I thoroughly enjoy it.   I try to share that interest with my students.   No one gets into college teaching because they hate the subject matter.   I hope to open that same window of interest to my students.   I do admit that there is a fine line between being enthusiastic and being obsessively geeky.   So, I try to share my excitement in small doses.
    b.   As I have written innumerable times on this blog, people love puzzles.   I try to present as much of my material as possible in the form of a puzzle.   Even students who hate accounting, enjoy puzzles.   If you work at it, everything you teach can be twisted into a puzzle.   Puzzles are so much more interesting to students than the straight conveyance of information.   Plus, digging out the solutions helps them develop their critical thinking skills.  
    c.   Students tend to resist caring about material that is boringly easy.    Students also tend to resist material that is so complex that is it beyond their reach.   For me, one of the true challenges of teaching is presenting material at a level that maximizes caring.   I believe material should be challenging without being impossible.   Work is required but that work offers success.   Most people like to be stretched as long as they know there is a reasonable chance of success.    

3 – Bend over backwards to be fair.   Student response to the perception that class is not fair is to stop caring.

    a.   Make sure the daily assignments are of an appropriate length and clearly germane to the learning process.   “That is more work than anyone could possibly do” is not what you want to hear too often.   “I spent hours on that assignment and it was never mentioned in any way” is a response that is likely to signal a future loss of caring.

    b.   Make sure that the tests and grading accomplish what you want them to accomplish.   For me, a student who understands the material should get a B; a student who understands the material extremely well should get an A.   I believe that is fair.   I think the students (deep in their hearts) believe that is fair.   If the testing process rewards students who did what you asked, more students will follow along.   If the testing process does not reward the students who did what you asked, don’t be surprised by a future lack of caring.  

You can get your students to care in many different ways.   How are you doing it now?   Is it working?   That thinking can help you become a great teacher.

Teaching Mistakes -- Do Any Of These Apply to YOU?

Periodically, I list the entries on this blog that have gained the most readership over the years.   I am not always sure why these postings have become so popular but you might find a few of these thoughts to be especially interesting as you start a new school year.

(1) – What Do We Add? – July 22, 2010

(2) – Introduction – Teaching (Financial Accounting) – January 7, 2010
(3) – What Is the Purpose of a Final Exam – May 12, 2010
(4) – What the Catcher Tells the Pitcher – August 21, 2011
(5) – A Good Suggestion – June 1, 2013
(6) – What Is the Best Book You Ever Read – June 23, 2012
(7) – The Future Is Now? – August 13, 2012
(8) – How You Test Is How They Will Learn – January 31, 2010
(9) – A Note to My Students – January 15, 2012
(10) – We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us – May 22, 2012

**

I was hunting through some old materials this morning and found the following paragraphs that I had written a number of years ago.   It is a list of what I think are five big teaching mistakes.   You can see that I even count them down heading toward Number One.    I thought these thoughts might be helpful as colleges open their fall semesters across the country.   You might disagree with me completely but the thinking process and the debate are what I am seeking more than conversion.   Some of what I write (here on this blog and other places) seems to get stale with age.   But, I thought these words still apply just as well in 2013 as they did when I first wrote them.  

**

Mistake Number Five:   Overreliance on Power Point Slides.    I never use Power Point slides in my own classes but, if I did, I would make sure to ask a question on the student evaluations each year about whether students liked my usage or not.   I certainly understand how they can be very handy (especially since textbook publishers even create them for you) as a way of organizing material.   However, I think they send a message to students that you are simply going to read Power Point slides to them as they sit there in the semi-dark trying to stay awake.   Okay, I know that most teachers will say that they throw up the slides and then discuss the material but I have heard way too many students say “that lazy guy just reads Power Point slides to us that he didn’t even take the time to produce.”   The way you view the process and the way your students view it might be radically different.   Plus, I am not certain that it is easy to use Power Point slides to create active interaction with students.   If the slide provides the information, where is the conversation, where is student thinking?    My recommendation – just ask your students on their evaluations:   “Should the professor use Power Point slides more or less or the same amount as now?”   If a lot of students say “less,” I would pay serious attention to that advice.   If they say “more,” then go for it.

Mistake Number Four:   Failure to Engage Students with the Material.   College teachers often seem to have a belief that students bring an active curiosity and desire to learn with them to class.   If (when) that proves false, they appear to be mystified.    “Why do they take my class if they don’t want to learn the material?”    Well, they must take 30-40 courses to graduate so they have to sign up for something.   Over my four decades in this business, I have had a few students who walked in with an “I am dying to learn all about Intermediate Accounting” attitude.   But, a vast majority of them walk in with a neutral attitude; they need to be convinced that they are not wasting their time.   After spending 80 percent of their lives learning stuff like the state capitals, the periodic table, how to outline a sentence, and the Pythagorean theorem, many students have had the joy of learning mashed out of them before they get to you.

How do you engage students?   One possibility is to link the coverage to some personal benefit – how will their lives be better for knowing this material?   “Learn it because I say so” doesn’t hold too much power over the young people of today.   Or, show the student why you find the material interesting.   If you have read this blog for long, you know that I’m a huge proponent of trying to puzzle students.  Why is it done this way?  What does this accomplish?  Why was this action taken?   If you simply assume your students are truly curious about the Pythagorean theorem, you may be upset when they fall asleep in class or seem more interested in texting than in learning.

Mistake Number Three:   Writing Tests that Reward Memorization.    We all have heard that the purpose of college is to help develop critical thinking skills.   That is a great and worthy goal.   But students will learn based on how they expect to be tested.   If you base your tests on memorization (“name the four criteria for a capitalized lease”), you can forget about developing critical thinking skills.  If you want students to go beyond memorization, your tests have to go beyond memorization.   “If the US had not made the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, what are possible impacts on the growth of slavery in this country?”   Okay, that may lead to an answer that is hard to grade but it allows students to demonstrate their understanding and thinking.   If they expect to be tested in a certain way, their learning will be directed in that same way.  Textbook publishers often provide test banks.   Those questions are primarily designed to test memorization.    You set the tone for your entire course by the way you test your students.   Work to write thoughtful questions and you will be surprised by how much more thoughtful your students will become.  

Mistake Number Two:   Most Teachers Talk Way Too Much.    Teachers get nervous during silences.   They feel uncomfortable.   Consequently, they rush in to fill up the quiet with words and words and more words.   The less the teacher talks and the more the students talk the better.   The teacher should guide the conversation and make sure everyone gets involved.   After that, the less said by the teacher the better.   However, that is hard to do.   The students would much prefer for you to do all the talking because then they can turn their brains off and just write down what you say.   Don’t let them play that game with you!   Push them to talk.   I use the Socratic Method so I just call on them in rapid fire fashion but you can push them to talk in many ways.   If you have read my Teaching Tips book at https://facultystaff.richmond.edu/~jhoyle/   you know that I believe in the 50-50 Rule.   That is the teacher should never do more than 50 percent of the talking.   Push your students to do their 50 percent.

Mistake Number One:   Failure to Force Students to Be Prepared for Class.   In my opinion, the single biggest factor in having a great class is the preparation level of the students.  If they are not prepared, what can they possibly add to the class?   They can just write down notes.   But, when they are well prepared, they can add ideas, suggestions, a different perspective, and the like.   A class with well-prepared students can be a true joy as the conversation and the thinking range throughout the topics under consideration.   To me, that is education at its very best.   That is why I became a teacher.   (Later comment:   this, of course, is now well-known as a “flipped classroom” – I should have made up a cute name for it when I first came up with the idea.)

How do you get students to prepare for class?   First, I think you have to be very specific as to what you want them to do.   Don’t just throw out vague assignments.    College students do not do vague very well.   They ignore vague.    Tell them exactly what you want them to do.   Second, make sure the subsequent class actually incorporates that assignment in some way so students do not feel like they were being asked to do busy work.   I remember being infuriated in college when I would spend hours on an assignment that was never mentioned by the teacher in any way.   I certainly did not make that same mistake twice.   Third, don’t hesitate to be confrontational if the assignment is not done to your satisfaction.   College students are adults.   If they had an assignment at a job and did not do it, they would face the wrath of the boss very quickly.   You don’t have to treat them like delicate flowers.   If you give an assignment that you use in class and students are not prepared, talk to them about the need for doing the work.   I never scream and yell at my students but I certainly let them know if I feel they have not upheld their half of the class work.   I often stop students as they leave class with “you did not seem prepared today and I fully expect better from you at our next class.” 

If you want to see an improvement in your teaching, pick one of these five and work on it for awhile.  Or, pick a different one that you think applies to you.   But you do have to make an effort to work on it.   Just contemplating mistakes doesn’t do you or your students any good.

NEW YEAR STARTING: WHO DO YOU WANT TO BE IN THE CLASSROOM?

Before I get started today, I want to send out a big Thank You to all the readers of this blog.   Several days ago, we went over 90,000 total pageviews.   When I first started writing these essays, I would have bet a gazillion dollars that I’d never get 5,000 pageviews.   And, I would not have gotten to even that lower mark without folks like you passing along good words about this site.   Thanks – I would have probably stopped writing years ago except that the traffic remains strong and actually seems to grow over time.   You provide the energy.   I continue to be convinced that people really do like to think and talk about teaching because it is both extremely important to our lives and our future and a whole lot of fun.

**

A new school year is starting.   For me, it will be my 43^rd year in the classroom.   I have written before that I believe every teacher should consider the “teaching personality” that you want to have with your students.  This is a great time to reconsider that question.    Do you want to be a fiery pulpit pastor who inspires everyone to do better with their lives or do you want to be a kindly nurse who helps everyone get well?   Do you want to be a coach who pushes everyone toward a winning grade or Socrates who prods student thinking with careful questions?   Those are all legitimate teaching personalities but you probably cannot be all things to all students.    You have to choose.

I think contemplating the idea of a teaching personality is important because, without one, it is easy to simply become a mechanical conveyor of information.   Columbus landed in the Americas in 1492.   Raleigh is the capital of North Carolina.   There’s nothing too exciting about that.   It doesn’t even sound terribly important.   I would argue that many teachers let themselves fall into a classroom role that really doesn’t seem important.   They then wonder why students aren’t inclined to do what they ask.   Maybe it is not the students’ fault but the personality you are projecting.

As I have mentioned previously, I was out in Anaheim, California, a few weeks ago at the American Accounting Association annual meeting.   I was sitting at a table one morning with several excellent teachers and this question of “who are you in the classroom?” came up.    It was an interesting conversation because several people knew right away their personality model while others seemed mystified by the question.

Historically, I have given one answer to that question but on that morning I gave a different answer.   People are entitled to change/evolve over time.   My comment was that I viewed myself as “half drill sergeant” because I push each of my students almost unmercifully to succeed.   In the military, the drill sergeant is in charge of turning weak civilians into strong soldiers who can survive in combat.   That requires the sergeant to get in their faces and drive them to go beyond what they ever thought they could accomplish.   My goal is to turn students (who come to me knowing little or nothing about accounting) into people who can go out into the business world and be successful.   I don’t want half of them to reach that goal.   I want them all to make it through.   During the semester, that drive is on my mind all of the time.   I feel, in a nutshell, that my responsibility as a college teacher is to push my students to succeed in learning and understanding.  

However, I also view myself as “half cheerleader.”   Yes, I demand great things from my students but I also try to help them believe in themselves and their ability to succeed.   I am not out to crush their spirits.   I want to drive them but I also want to encourage them and show them how to succeed.

Drill sergeant.

Cheerleader.

Only speaking for myself, I would not want to be one without the other.   Being only a drill sergeant seems almost sadistic.   Being only a cheerleader seems almost useless.   But, if I can successful merge those two personalities, I can push everyone forward.   I don’t care if the students like me or not (I have enough friends).   I do care, though, if they do not make the progress that I think they are capable of making.    Some need more drill sergeant.   Some need more cheerleader.   My goal is to figure out what I can do to help each of them learn and understand and make use of the information we cover.

However, keep in mind:   That is my teaching personality.   It works for me.   You are a different person.   Your goal should never be to become me.   Your goal should be to become the kind of teacher that YOU want to be.  

So, before the 2013-2014 school year gets started in a few days, think about the teaching personality that you want.   What do you want to accomplish and what type of personality is most likely to get you there?

Who are you as a teacher?

A THOUGHTFUL NEW BOOK ON THE MARKET

I try to write all of these blog essays myself.  However, a good friend of mine, James Lang at Assumption College, has just published a new book (Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic Dishonesty) that I think is excellent and innovative and I wanted to recommend that you consider reading it.   (Here, in the name of full disclosure, I will admit that he includes a couple of pages on my approach to teaching but that is only a very small part of the book.)

On his own blog, Jim posted the following description of the book.   I thought he did a great job of explaining what he had done.   So, I am simply including his words directly.   If you are looking for a thoughtful book on teaching and education, I think this is a great choice.

**

By James Lang:

Just around two years ago, the editor of my last book with Harvard University Press told me that she had been to a conference about teaching in higher education and heard a lot of discussion about the problem of cheating on campus. Everyone was looking for solutions. She wondered whether I might have an interest in tackling the problem in a book for the Press.

I wasn't sure how I felt about it, but you don't get too many offers like this as a writer, so I agreed to think about it. She drove out to Worcester and we had a lovely lunch together at the Sole Proprietor, my favorite seafood restaurant. By the end of the conversation, I was convinced enough to at least do some reading and put together a proposal. I went to the local public library, checked out three books on cheating, and brought them with me on vacation that following week.

After reading them, I had some vague ideas about how I might like to approach the problem, and the book, and so I put together a proposal, which the Press accepted. As I then really dug into the research on cheating over the next few months, I began to see things differently. The more I tried to understand why students were cheating, the more I became convinced that the problem of cheating revealed some fundamental flaws in the ways we structured and taught courses in higher education. I abandoned the structure of my initial proposal and struck out in an entirely new direction.

By the spring of 2012, I had settled on my approach to the issue, which was to argue that research on human learning and research on cheating were both pointing us in the same direction in terms of how we should be designing and teaching our courses, and so the heart of the book became an argument about how we can learn from academic dishonesty how to build better learning environments. Christopher Hager, a Trinity College professor who read an advanced copy, captured this well with his very kind blurb for the book: "James Lang has written a smart, original, well-researched guide to 'building better learning environments' framed as a guide to avoiding academic dishonesty."

The heart of the book, then, is essentially an argument for how we can teach our students more effectively--and, in doing so, reduce their incentive and opportunity to cheat. Around that basic argument are two shorter sections: first, a brief tour through the history of cheating, both in higher education and beyond, as well as an overview of the statistics on cheating in higher education today; and, in the final part of the book, some arguments about how and why we should tackle the problem of cheating from the broader campus perspective.

So if you have any interest whatsoever in the question of why students cheat, or how they do it, or what to do about it, you should buy this book! But I hope the book will appeal to all teachers, even those who teach at the secondary and elementary levels, as it also reviews recent research in learning theory and uses that material to make the case for how we should be building learning environments for all of our students. Finally, if you are interested more broadly in the present and future state of higher education, I hope and think you will find the book of interest, as it explores how the root causes of cheating may extend deeply into the structure and nature of the way we do business on campus.

In any case, that's the story of Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic Dishonesty.

**

The book is available on Amazon through a search of the title.

 

If I Challenge You to Become a Better Teacher in 2013-2014, What Is Your First Response?

As some of you might know, besides being a college professor, I am a cofounder and president of CPAreviewforFREE.com.   In that role, I send out email lessons to about 20,000 past and future CPA candidates two or three times each month.   These lessons talk about how to pass the CPA Exam and, hopefully, encourage and assist those candidates in achieving their goal.   I’ve actually written these motivational email lessons now (off and on) for nearly 20 years.  

The following blog entry is adapted from a recent one of those lessons.   Obviously, I’ve changed the goal from “pass the CPA Exam” to “become a better teacher” but I believe that this basic message applies to teachers just as much as it does to CPA Exam candidates.   Success is success whenever you face a genuine challenge.

**

Two to four times each year, over the past 10-12 years, I have given presentations around the country on teaching.   I am always amazed by how many capable teachers show up to these sessions and immediately start telling me why they cannot improve their teaching.   Were it not so sad, it would be funny.   Over the years, I have started diagnosing this as the “I can’t do this because” disease.  

--I can’t do this because the students are lazy.

--I can’t do this because I have to focus on my research.
--I can’t do this because I have too many students.  
--I can’t do this because I am paid so poorly.  
--I can’t do this because my dean will not give me the resources that I need.
--I can’t do this because I have always gotten bad evaluations in the past.
--I can’t do this because it is not important for tenure and promotion.
--I can't do this because no else around here wants to teach well.

--I can’t do this because my students have no interest in learning.  

With all these self-imposed barriers, I often wonder how anyone ever manages to become a better teacher.   But people do improve and even become great teachers.   If you want to be one of those folks who really does improve,  it can be done.   Yes, it can!!!   It might not be easy but it can be done.   The excuses might slow you down but you can still get better.

When teachers tell me why they cannot improve, my response is always “well, don’t place too many stumbling blocks in your path.   Let’s start by looking at several places where small amounts of improvement can be made.”   Teaching in college is tough enough without you telling yourself you are going to fail.  

So, let’s practice.   Let's check your attitude.   If I were to get in your face and challenge you to become a better teacher in 2013-2014, what is your first response – would you start giving me reasons why that can’t happen or would you start thinking about changes you might make in order to become a better teacher?

I have long pondered the need of teachers to establish excuses.   For many, it is very much like a chanted mantra:   “I cannot become a better teacher because….”  This tendency seems almost universal.   A lot of humans just think in that negative way.   Every time we start a new challenge in life, especially if it pushes us outside of our comfort zone, we seem to lack faith in ourselves.    I suppose setting low expectations makes failure easier to face.  We make excuses as a way to soften the possible blow to our egos if we do fail. 

However, setting low expectations makes success so much more difficult to attain.   A negative attitude works against you.   It is hard to have the confidence to do the hard work necessary for success if you have already explained to everyone (including yourself) the many reasons you are going to fail.   Who wants to work hard if you don’t believe you can succeed?     People (teachers as well as students) live up to their own high expectations but, just as importantly, they also live down to their own low expectations.  

Attitude is vitally important in achieving success.   People rarely succeed without a “can do” attitude.   No one wants you to walk around and brag about how well you are going to do.   But, a certain degree of “I can do this” is necessary if you are going to take on tough challenges and succeed.

Let me give you an example.    My wife has long wanted to take a pottery class.   I have always resisted because I was convinced that I could never learn how to take a lump of clay and put it on a wheel and turn it into a pot or bowl or vase that could be glazed and fired.   I always assumed that I would produce a wreck and the teacher would look at me and just shake her head in frustration.   I didn’t want to try because I was afraid that I would be embarrassed by failure.   I was afraid of looking stupid.   So, I created all kinds of excuses.   When pottery was mentioned, I found myself starting every sentence with “I can’t do this because.” 

Finally, as I have written before on this blog, we decided to take a six-week pottery class this summer after I ran out of excuses.   I figured that I would produce awful stuff but I’d get it over with.  

And, of course, you can guess what happened.   The teacher was very patient and showed me exactly how to start, how to get the clay centered, how to mold it, how to shape and trim it.   When I did something wrong, she would show me how to learn from my mistake and do better the next time.   It was a wonderful learning experience.

I enjoyed every second.  And, almost immediately, “I can’t do this because” was replaced by “with some help, I can make this happen.”   Becoming a better teacher is much the same.   Quit the excuses and give it a try.

The key was that I stopped putting roadblocks in my path.   I stopped defeating myself.   I let the teacher help me make gradual progress.   And, eventually, I could make some pottery.

After 6 weeks, my wife and I had produced over 30 pieces.   If you want to see them, you can go to the following website and see a few photos that we took:  

http://www.cpareviewforfree.com/resources.cfm?name=article&article_id=83

What is the point of this story about pottery?   When it comes to teaching, stop doubting yourself and start thinking about improvement.   You have to rid yourself of “I can’t do this because” or you will never get one bit better.   Instead, get to work and get better.      

I recently read a book titled “Wild” by Cheryl Strayed.   It was a relatively long book and quite interesting.   But one line near the start of the book really caught my attention.   I immediately jumped up and ran to find a pen so that I could write down those few words.

Ms. Strayed was 26 and had lived a tough life.   Her mother died when Ms. Strayed was in college and she had a lot of trouble getting over it.   She had married and divorced and experimented with some dangerous drugs.

In hopes of getting her life straightened out, she decided to walk 1,100 miles of the very challenging Pacific Crest Trail by herself with little training or experience.   In the book, about the time she gets ready to start this grand adventure, she gets scared and almost backs out.   It is there that she includes the line that I appreciated so much:  

 

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

 A line well worth remembering.

If you tell yourself that you cannot become a better teacher, you will become afraid and will not even try.   You are letting your own story defeat you.

If you tell yourself that you are going to keep pushing forward and learning from your mistakes, your chances of improving go up immediately.   Don’t let your excuses hold you back.  

When you look at becoming a better teacher, what story are you telling yourself?   In many ways, that question is the entire point of this blog entry.   What story are you telling yourself?

--The students don’t care so why should I waste my time as the teacher

Or
--If I improve, I’ll have a positive impact on more of my students

--I need to shut my door and work on my research; the students keep me from doing the work that is really important.

Or

--If I improve, I can change my students for the better and there is simply not a much better way to live a life.

--I have always gotten bad student evaluations; that is never going to change no matter what I do.

Or
--I cannot become great overnight but I can make small improvements and if I keep working and have patience, I can become a good (maybe outstanding) teacher.  

 Before the fall semester begins, ask yourself: “What stories am I telling myself about my teaching?”   Am I telling myself stories that are going to make me afraid and hold me back from getting better?   Am I convincing myself that I am weak and flawed?   Or, am I telling myself stories that will provide me with the courage, energy, and enthusiasm that I need to improve?   Am I convincing myself that I am strong and able?

There are no guarantees in life.   But that doesn’t mean that you have to view yourself as chained to failure.  Everyone can teach better; I guarantee it.   Tell yourself stories of courage and determination and, quite possibly, like Cheryl Strayed, you’ll succeed at a very difficult task and become a better teacher.

It is easy to have weak stories in your head.   But your chances for improvement go up dramatically if you can replace them with strong positive stories.

UNDERSTANDING THE IMPORTANCE OF GOOD TEACHING

 

As I have mentioned several times in the last few months, this blog is receiving an innovation award at the American Accounting Association annual meeting that will be held next month in Anaheim.  As part of that program, on Wednesday, August 7, I will make a 90 minute presentation (2:00 until 3:30 p.m.).   Because this blog is about improving teaching, I assume the presentation should be about improving teaching.   There will be hundreds of research presentations in Anaheim; however, at least this one will be a teaching presentation.

I realize that 99 percent of the people (maybe 100 percent) who read this blog will not be able to attend my session in Anaheim.   So, today, I want to talk with you about how I plan to start that program and why.   You can pretend you are in Anaheim in August (at a hotel next to Disneyland).  

If I want to have any real impact during my 90 minutes, I need to get the attendees mentally involved as quickly as possible.   I want them to seriously consider the importance of good teaching and how they can become better teachers.   That’s my basic goal.   However, from past experience, I know that whenever I give talks about teaching, the conversation can quickly fall into a litany of complaints about students:   Why are they lazy?   Why do they never seem to be able to think?   Why are they reticent to participate?

Those are legitimate questions but I want the program to have positive energy and not negative.   I am not looking to become “Dear Abby” – out to solve everyone’s problems with their students.

What I plan to do is have a quick warm up exercise to get people in the right mood.   To begin, I will ask all of the attendees to close their eyes.   I will then ask them to think back through all of the teachers they have ever had – from kindergarten through grad school.   I will ask them to consider them all but eventually pick the one teacher who was the very best.   I am not asking them to select their favorite teacher of all time or the most popular teacher.   I want them to pick the teacher from their experience who was the very best.  

From past presentations, I have found that almost every person in the audience is able to quickly select his or her choice.   I don’t provide any criteria but people just seem to know who was best.  Usually one person stands out above all the rest.   It might possibly be a 9^th grade biology teacher or a 4^th grade English teacher or maybe a math teacher in college.   Virtually every person has at least one teacher who has really made a difference.

I will then ask every person present to consider that selection very carefully and come up with three characteristics that describe why that person was their very best teacher.   I want them to choose three words that capture the teacher’s essence.   What made that person so very good?   It wasn’t luck.   What was it?

I will next ask each person to think of what they would tell that best teacher if he or she walked into the room at that very moment.  Some are probably dead and many have been out of contact for years.   But if their best teacher was to appear, what would they want to say?   What message would they convey?  How important has that person been?

Finally, I ask all of the attendees to turn to the person on their left or right and describe their best teacher by talking about those three words they chose as descriptors, and also what they would like to say to that person.   I want to create a personal conversation about great teaching.

Okay, I do not know how this will work in Anaheim (all of the people might fall asleep) but when I have asked these questions in previous presentations, everyone has gotten seriously involved.   Why?   That is easy.   I have changed the perspective.    The people in the audience walked in as teachers (probably annoyed with student behavior).   Like most groups, they often feel dissatisfied by what they have been able to accomplish.   But then, suddenly, each person has been returned to the role of student, a student who has been influenced by a great teacher.   It is the proper perspective for a teaching presentation.   I want every person to consider how important a teacher can be.  I want every person to think about how lives are affected by great teachers.   Most of all, I hope each attendee will want to become some other student’s “best teacher.”   That is really a goal worth having.  

Okay, if you are going to be in Anaheim, I hope to see you there.   But if you are not, why not try this warmup exercise by yourself?   You don’t need me there.   Sit in a chair in a quiet room.   Close your eyes.   Think of all your teachers, probably since you were 4 or 5 years old.   Pick the one who was the best teacher.   Think about why that teacher was so good.   Select three words to describe that teacher.   Imagine that teacher suddenly walks into your room.   What would you want to say? 

You are not going to be in a room with other people so, instead of discussing your best teacher with the person to your left or right, I will give you an alternative assignment.   For those three characteristics that made this person so wonderful, what grade would you give yourself and your own teaching?   For example, if your best teacher was “caring,” that was clearly an important characteristic to you.   So, what grade would you give yourself on being a caring teacher?   If it is not an A, then you know you have some work to get done.