I have mentioned several times on this blog that I would strongly urge anyone who wants to become a better teacher to keep a blog. There are always two reasons for that piece of advice.
First, I just feel that working out your thoughts on paper is very helpful in establishing what you really think and believe. Until I see it on paper, I’m never sure how I feel. Thus, I was delighted to read the following in Time magazine last week from the renowned historian David McCullough. “The loss of people writing—writing a composition, a letter or a report—is not just the loss for the record. It’s the loss of the process of working your thoughts out on paper, of having an idea that you would never had had if you weren’t (writing). And that’s a handicap People (I research) were writing letters every day. That was calisthenics for the brain.”
Second, keeping a blog gives you a chance to share your ideas with folks around the world. The Internet is a marvel in that way. I can sit here in Richmond, Virginia, and have a slight impact on education in dozens of countries. School is out for the summer in many places but, last month, this blog had nearly 1,300 page views. What struck me as most interesting was that the top 10 countries for accessing the site were: United States, Malaysia, United Kingdom, Spain, India, Israel, Iran, Ukraine, Canada, and Australia. As a wonderful example, there was an average of approximately one view per day for that entire month from the country of Iran. I am so appreciative of everyone who reads my thoughts here.
You probably have as much to say about teaching as I do, if not more. People cannot benefit from your ideas if they have no way to read them. Go blog.
**
I have just finished my 40th year as a college professor. From the first day I walked into a classroom, I have always wanted to be more than a teacher. What I tell people is that I want to be a mentor to my students. I think that type of relationship with students was prevalent decades ago but has become less and less the norm in recent times. Yes, I do know that a lot of professors work closely with their brightest students but I have always felt that 100 percent of the students could benefit from having a mentor.
What is a mentor? I looked up “teacher” in an online dictionary and got “one who imparts knowledge.” Sounds cold and mechanical, doesn’t it? I envision a person standing in a large lecture hall explaining to 400 sleepy students how to split an atom as each one writes down exactly the same words in exactly the same order.
The word “mentor,” though is defined as an “experienced advisor and supporter.” I don’t have any interest in being a friend to my students but I do hope to be an advisor and supporter. I want to be a mentor.
Okay, how do you go about giving advice and support? Well, here is one way. I had 62 students in the spring semester. We worked hard. Hopefully, they learned a lot. Obviously, I tried to show them that I wanted them to learn accounting. And, I tried to help them learn as much about accounting. But, I also worked to let them know that I wanted more for them than just a knowledge of accounting. College (I believe) should be more than the imparting of content.
Usually, after each semester is over, it is easy to file away the members of a class into your memory bank and assume they are no longer your responsibility. I think that is more of a teacher attitude rather than a mentor attitude. After the last day of class, I write one final email to say “If I can ever be of assistance, please let me know.”
But, I don’t want to leave it at that. So, last week, I sent the following email to each of those 62 students. I won’t have any of them in class again but I wanted to continue to influence them a little bit. Interestingly, a number of them wrote back to chat about books they were reading and recommend movies that I should see. I think that’s why I decided to become a college professor.
To: Students from the Spring Semester
Hope your summer is off to a great start. As with the rest of the world, it has been terribly hot here in Richmond but we all hang out with the air conditioning and manage to survive.
Now that your summer vacation is about 1/3 over, I wanted to take a moment to urge you to do stuff over the summer that will make you smarter. You are at a stage in your life when your mind is fast developing so make the most of that. You ought to make it a goal to come back to school in the fall smarter than when you left in as many ways as you can. You are forming a foundation for the rest of your life. Build that foundation well.
Go to museums, go to plays, go to art galleries, take in an opera. You never know when you’ll discover something unexpectedly wonderful.
And, think about business. I’m always interested that students want to go into the wars of business and high finance (and those really can be wars) but aren’t inclined to do any real work to get ready for the battle. Here’s a story I read today about Warren Buffett and his education.
“Buffett was very interested in learning about business and its workings. In his graduate years, he studied under Benjamin Graham who is considered the father of Value Investing. Under Benjamin Graham’s training Warren Buffett learned value investing. It is said that Benjamin Graham was so perfect in value investing that he never used to give A grades to his students as he was never satisfied with their answers. But when Buffett joined him as a student, he was forced to give him A grades again and again. Buffett learned to master the art of reading and analyzing financial statements of companies. He could analyze Balance Sheets and Income Statements faster than anybody else in his college. One day somebody asked Buffett about the secret of his success. He said ‘when everybody was else was reading Playboy, I was reading the balance sheets of companies.’ Even today his major time is invested in reading financial statements of companies around the world.”
So, read a lot. Read the Wall Street Journal every day and just marvel at what goes on in the world of business and high finance. But, don’t just stick to newspapers. There are lots of things to be learned out there in the real world. I am currently reading “The White Lioness,” a mystery that is set in South Africa and Sweden (and unlikely duo) and also reading “Too Big To Fail,” and I suppose everyone knows what that is about. Good stuff—expands the brain cells.
Lastly, I went to a great movie yesterday. It was sadly brutal at times but the movie was just crafted brilliantly. Marvelous. I would highly recommend it. It was called “Incendies” and it was in French with English subtitles.
Okay, you are out of my class and you can obviously ignore me. I will just repeat what I have probably told you before: the more you learn, the more the world opens up to you. And, that’s where you start creating a life for yourself that can make a difference.
Enjoy the rest of your summer and don’t get too baked out.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Thursday, June 9, 2011
What Do We Accomplish?
A few years ago a dear friend of mine died at the age of 95. When he was a young man, he worked in the Massachusetts area in construction. He once told me that on many days they would finish their work and step back and someone would speak out in pride “Look at what we accomplished today.”
That has to be a great feeling. You put in a hard and full day of work and at the end of the day you see that you have created something tangible from your labors, something you can be proud of right then. The world is different because of what you did.
I have always thought that was one of the most difficult parts of being a teacher. At the end of the day, it is hard to see what (if anything) we have accomplished.
Oh, sure, we all know that we are changing lives. We all know that we are making a difference. Is that enough to keep us moving forward? At the end of the day, whether we did a great job or a lousy one, things look about the same.
If you are a baker, at the end of the day you can point to the lovely wedding cake you created. If you are a carpenter, you can hold up a table or chair and say “I made this myself.”
But, at the end of a day, your students walk out of the room looking exactly like they did when they first walked in (maybe a little sleepier).
I think this is one of the reasons that teachers sometimes become mediocre. The results seem the same regardless of their efforts. They don’t get the positive reinforcement for their work that comes from seeing a tangible output. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that I believe this has had negative consequences for the U. S. as it has morphed from a manufacturing economy to a service economy.
I was reminded of this last Friday evening when I went to a reception held at our school in connection with the 2011 Reunion. I had the pleasure of talking with former students from 1986, 1991, 1996, 2001, and 2006. Sure, we reminisced about “the good old days” when they were college students. But, more importantly, they told me all about their lives since graduation – the careers they have fashioned, the jobs they have worked, the graduate programs they have attended. For me, it was a moment to see the tangible evidence of my work as a teacher. My influence on most of them had been slight. In jest, I usually take credit for everything they accomplish. But, in truth, I’m just happy to have been any influence at all. They have fashioned wonderful adult lives and they have gone out and made their own difference in the world. I’m pleased that I was able to give them a push while they were in college.
I left the reunion just so proud to be a teacher.
So, if you have been feeling down about your role as a teacher, perhaps you need to find out when the next reunion is slated and plan to attend. Mixing with some of the students whom you have worked with over the years might just be the reminder of what you are accomplishing that you really need to keep energized.
I once compared teaching to playing the role of Johnny Appleseed. You plant seeds and hope that 5, 10, or 20 years down the road those seeds will bear fruit. Maybe it is time to go to a reunion and see what those seeds you helped plant have managed to accomplish.
That has to be a great feeling. You put in a hard and full day of work and at the end of the day you see that you have created something tangible from your labors, something you can be proud of right then. The world is different because of what you did.
I have always thought that was one of the most difficult parts of being a teacher. At the end of the day, it is hard to see what (if anything) we have accomplished.
Oh, sure, we all know that we are changing lives. We all know that we are making a difference. Is that enough to keep us moving forward? At the end of the day, whether we did a great job or a lousy one, things look about the same.
If you are a baker, at the end of the day you can point to the lovely wedding cake you created. If you are a carpenter, you can hold up a table or chair and say “I made this myself.”
But, at the end of a day, your students walk out of the room looking exactly like they did when they first walked in (maybe a little sleepier).
I think this is one of the reasons that teachers sometimes become mediocre. The results seem the same regardless of their efforts. They don’t get the positive reinforcement for their work that comes from seeing a tangible output. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that I believe this has had negative consequences for the U. S. as it has morphed from a manufacturing economy to a service economy.
I was reminded of this last Friday evening when I went to a reception held at our school in connection with the 2011 Reunion. I had the pleasure of talking with former students from 1986, 1991, 1996, 2001, and 2006. Sure, we reminisced about “the good old days” when they were college students. But, more importantly, they told me all about their lives since graduation – the careers they have fashioned, the jobs they have worked, the graduate programs they have attended. For me, it was a moment to see the tangible evidence of my work as a teacher. My influence on most of them had been slight. In jest, I usually take credit for everything they accomplish. But, in truth, I’m just happy to have been any influence at all. They have fashioned wonderful adult lives and they have gone out and made their own difference in the world. I’m pleased that I was able to give them a push while they were in college.
I left the reunion just so proud to be a teacher.
So, if you have been feeling down about your role as a teacher, perhaps you need to find out when the next reunion is slated and plan to attend. Mixing with some of the students whom you have worked with over the years might just be the reminder of what you are accomplishing that you really need to keep energized.
I once compared teaching to playing the role of Johnny Appleseed. You plant seeds and hope that 5, 10, or 20 years down the road those seeds will bear fruit. Maybe it is time to go to a reunion and see what those seeds you helped plant have managed to accomplish.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
How Do You Know How Your Program Is Doing?
I had a great time last week attending the Teaching Summit put on by the Lebow College of Business at Drexel University. Dr. Thomas Hindelang was a wonderful host and I was so pleased to have the opportunity of presenting the opening keynote address. It is hard to boil a 45 minute speech down to a sentence or two but my primary theme was the disconnect between what colleges and universities claim to accomplish and what the new book Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses (Arum and Roksa) says that we are actually accomplishing. I then described six steps that I felt we (as faculty) needed to consider if we were going to fulfill the promises being made to our students.
I might write more about those thoughts later but that speech was not the purpose of this post. After giving my opening remarks, I attended a number of paper presentations at the conference. One of my favorites was Feedback from Alumni and Employers Guiding Assessment of Business Curricula by Ellen Kraft and Diane Holtzman of Richard Stockton College of New Jersey.
I was interested in this paper because it addressed one of my pet peeves about colleges. Over the past 40 years, I cannot tell you how many meetings I have attended where academic programs were discussed and changes suggested with absolutely no statistical backup. No evidence was given that a change was needed and no one could show that the proposal in question might actually provide improvement. It seems that we are often asked to modify programs based on our own intuition of what might work better.
Professors Kraft and Holtzman had helped direct a survey at their school where alumni as well as the employers of those former students were asked to identify characteristics that employees needed for success. Because I didn’t take great notes, I won’t try to explain their methodology. I was just impressed that the folks at that college wanted data to help in assessing the past and planning for the future.
All educational programs must evolve over time. That process, though, should be guided (I believe) by careful data analysis. Too often changes are made that seem to have no basis other than which person can argue his or her position the best (or who can last the longest in the debate).
Since I believe data gathering is essential as a prerequisite for change, I wanted to mention two relatively painless ways that information can be generated for better program decision-making.
(1) – I am a member of the Accounting Department here at the Robins School of Business at the University of Richmond. Last summer, we decided to survey all Accounting students who graduated between May 2006 and May 2009. We didn’t include the 2010 graduates because they had not yet started work. We didn’t go back earlier than 2006 because the program had changed enough over the intervening years that we were not sure the feedback would still be relevant.
We had reached the point where we were tired of making decisions based on what we would hear from former students (almost randomly) at alumni receptions or from an occasional email. The basic questions were obvious: What were we doing well and, more importantly, where did we need to make improvements to better prepare our students for careers after graduation? All faculty members like to believe they are adding value and providing their students with an appropriate education. But how does any teacher really know?
The Alumni Affairs office here on campus was able to provide us with email addresses for well over half of those students who graduated in our designated time period. The Office of Institutional Effectiveness helped create the survey, send it out, and accumulate the returned data.
We asked a number of general questions including:
--How many jobs have you held since graduation?
--In what field are you currently working?
--Have you taken the CPA Exam and, if so, how well have you done?
--Have you attempted any other certification exams such as the CMA Exam?
--Have you attended graduate school?
We then took the former students through a number of different subject areas (income tax, auditing, government accounting, financial accounting, and the like) and asked them to assess whether they felt their education was adequate (a) for their employment and (b) in comparison to students from other schools with whom they worked. We also asked the same questions for three skills: written communications, oral communications, and IT skills.
We wanted to pinpoint areas where changes might need to be made.
Our response rate was quite good and the information has proven to be helpful as we move forward and try to guide the logical evolution of our program. Although the overall results were excellent, we did uncover several smaller areas where a number of individuals indicated that they had been at a disadvantage educationally. Obviously, we have worked on those areas during the past 9 months to rectify the problems.
(2) – Approximately six years ago, our department – once again – wanted to gather information to aid our internal discussions and decisions. Many of our Accounting students continue to live here in the Richmond area after graduation. We invited 16 former accounting majors who had been out of school 1-3 years to return to campus for a one-hour focus group. Because of the number, we had to split them into two focus groups held on separate days. We asked a facilitator to talk with these individuals about their job experiences and how well prepared they felt based on the education they received in the Richmond program. We provided specific questions for the facilitator to discuss with the group. The sessions were audio-taped and a transcript was typed. The facilitator wrote up his assessment of the information that was gathered.
No serious political campaign would ever make decisions without focus group studies. No large business would ever start a major advertising campaign without focus group studies. I am surprised that universities do not make better use of that technique to help assess the quality of the education that their students actually obtain. Once again, as with the email survey that was done more recently, we were pleased with what we heard although the former students did point up areas where they felt they had been at a disadvantage in their jobs.
Perhaps one reason that books like Academically Adrift are written is because universities do not do a better job of talking with their graduates to identify both strengths and weaknesses of the academic programs being offered. Professors Kraft and Holtzman seem to have done a great job of providing useful information for their school.
When is the last time your program made a serious attempt to generate data to indicate the quality of the education that your students are receiving? Either through a survey or through a focus group, information is not that difficult to obtain. Such data can help guide the decisions that are made in the future about modifications needed in your academic programs.
I might write more about those thoughts later but that speech was not the purpose of this post. After giving my opening remarks, I attended a number of paper presentations at the conference. One of my favorites was Feedback from Alumni and Employers Guiding Assessment of Business Curricula by Ellen Kraft and Diane Holtzman of Richard Stockton College of New Jersey.
I was interested in this paper because it addressed one of my pet peeves about colleges. Over the past 40 years, I cannot tell you how many meetings I have attended where academic programs were discussed and changes suggested with absolutely no statistical backup. No evidence was given that a change was needed and no one could show that the proposal in question might actually provide improvement. It seems that we are often asked to modify programs based on our own intuition of what might work better.
Professors Kraft and Holtzman had helped direct a survey at their school where alumni as well as the employers of those former students were asked to identify characteristics that employees needed for success. Because I didn’t take great notes, I won’t try to explain their methodology. I was just impressed that the folks at that college wanted data to help in assessing the past and planning for the future.
All educational programs must evolve over time. That process, though, should be guided (I believe) by careful data analysis. Too often changes are made that seem to have no basis other than which person can argue his or her position the best (or who can last the longest in the debate).
Since I believe data gathering is essential as a prerequisite for change, I wanted to mention two relatively painless ways that information can be generated for better program decision-making.
(1) – I am a member of the Accounting Department here at the Robins School of Business at the University of Richmond. Last summer, we decided to survey all Accounting students who graduated between May 2006 and May 2009. We didn’t include the 2010 graduates because they had not yet started work. We didn’t go back earlier than 2006 because the program had changed enough over the intervening years that we were not sure the feedback would still be relevant.
We had reached the point where we were tired of making decisions based on what we would hear from former students (almost randomly) at alumni receptions or from an occasional email. The basic questions were obvious: What were we doing well and, more importantly, where did we need to make improvements to better prepare our students for careers after graduation? All faculty members like to believe they are adding value and providing their students with an appropriate education. But how does any teacher really know?
The Alumni Affairs office here on campus was able to provide us with email addresses for well over half of those students who graduated in our designated time period. The Office of Institutional Effectiveness helped create the survey, send it out, and accumulate the returned data.
We asked a number of general questions including:
--How many jobs have you held since graduation?
--In what field are you currently working?
--Have you taken the CPA Exam and, if so, how well have you done?
--Have you attempted any other certification exams such as the CMA Exam?
--Have you attended graduate school?
We then took the former students through a number of different subject areas (income tax, auditing, government accounting, financial accounting, and the like) and asked them to assess whether they felt their education was adequate (a) for their employment and (b) in comparison to students from other schools with whom they worked. We also asked the same questions for three skills: written communications, oral communications, and IT skills.
We wanted to pinpoint areas where changes might need to be made.
Our response rate was quite good and the information has proven to be helpful as we move forward and try to guide the logical evolution of our program. Although the overall results were excellent, we did uncover several smaller areas where a number of individuals indicated that they had been at a disadvantage educationally. Obviously, we have worked on those areas during the past 9 months to rectify the problems.
(2) – Approximately six years ago, our department – once again – wanted to gather information to aid our internal discussions and decisions. Many of our Accounting students continue to live here in the Richmond area after graduation. We invited 16 former accounting majors who had been out of school 1-3 years to return to campus for a one-hour focus group. Because of the number, we had to split them into two focus groups held on separate days. We asked a facilitator to talk with these individuals about their job experiences and how well prepared they felt based on the education they received in the Richmond program. We provided specific questions for the facilitator to discuss with the group. The sessions were audio-taped and a transcript was typed. The facilitator wrote up his assessment of the information that was gathered.
No serious political campaign would ever make decisions without focus group studies. No large business would ever start a major advertising campaign without focus group studies. I am surprised that universities do not make better use of that technique to help assess the quality of the education that their students actually obtain. Once again, as with the email survey that was done more recently, we were pleased with what we heard although the former students did point up areas where they felt they had been at a disadvantage in their jobs.
Perhaps one reason that books like Academically Adrift are written is because universities do not do a better job of talking with their graduates to identify both strengths and weaknesses of the academic programs being offered. Professors Kraft and Holtzman seem to have done a great job of providing useful information for their school.
When is the last time your program made a serious attempt to generate data to indicate the quality of the education that your students are receiving? Either through a survey or through a focus group, information is not that difficult to obtain. Such data can help guide the decisions that are made in the future about modifications needed in your academic programs.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
In Case You Are Interested - Part II
I have the honor of being the opening keynote speaker on May 20 for "Teaching Summit 2011" being presented at the LeBow College of Business at Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA. They have a great group of papers and presentations scheduled on all aspects of teaching and learning. If you are interested in the possibility of attending, registration information is available at http://www.lebow.drexel.edu/Faculty/Centers/BPTS/index.php
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Worth Reading
I discovered long ago that I did not have many clever and creative ideas. However, I also discovered that if I paid close attention, I could steal wonderful ideas from some of the greatest minds around.
I was reminded of this recently. One of the readers of this blog sent me a link to a great article on the teaching and learning of math. She said that she thought I would find it interesting because I was always curious about education. And, she was absolutely correct. It is well worth reading and pondering.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/18/a-better-way-to-teach-math/
Several parts of this article really caught my attention. They are the parts that I’ll probably steal in the future. In fact, here are five thoughts that I plan to steal (borrow) and apply to my own teaching.
(1) – The subject of the story has an absolute certainty that students can learn math. In fact, he says so “’Almost every kid — and I mean virtually every kid — can learn math at a very high level, to the point where they could do university level math courses,’ explains John Mighton.”
I wonder what would happen if we all walked in each day and had that same certainty about our own students.
It is amazing to me how quickly I begin mentally classifying my students as “excellent,” “average,” and “poor.” Do I start treating those students in that way? Do I ask harder questions of the “excellent” students and dumb down the questions for the students I perceive as “poor?” What kind of subtle messages am I sending them? Perhaps in that way, my perceptions become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I know I say to my students often “you can ALL learn this.” Is that my true sentiment or just lip service that I spout because it sounds good?
In the future, I’m going to try to do a better job of helping everyone to excel. Maybe, as he says, I am forcing my own students early in the semester to choose to think of themselves as either smart in accounting (my subject) or dumb in accounting. And, maybe it is that choice that then serves as a driving force for the rest of the semester. If I can change that mindset, can I get better results? Can I convince them that they can all learn accounting and, if so, how will that change them over the rest of the semester?
(2) – I loved what he had to say about “extensive practice.” I get the feeling in education that we show students how to do something once, maybe twice, and then expect them to be experts from thereon. When I was growing up, we would work extensively on math facts in school: 56 divided by 8 is 7, 20 percent of 15,000 is 3,000. We did hours and hours of that type of practice. Sure, it wasn’t exciting. But, as I have said here before, every student in my fifth grade class in 1959 knew more about basic math than every student that I taught this past year in college. Why? That is easy – students today are trained to use calculators and have never really practiced math facts. The next time you are in a college class, ask a student to multiply 12 times 9 without a calculator and you’ll see pure panic and dread. In 1959, every hand would have been raised (in the fifth grade).
Practice really is necessary for learning.
Maybe we all want to avoid the possibility of boredom so we eliminate extensive practice from the learning process. Then, when we get to a test, we (as teachers) are surprised that the students cannot handle the questions we give them. Perhaps what they really need is just more practice. Few things can be learned by doing them merely once or twice.
(3) – “Studies indicate that current teaching approaches underestimate the amount of explicit guidance, ‘scaffolding’ and practice children need to consolidate new concepts.” I really like the idea of “scaffolding” or building a structure that allows students to see new material within a logical framework. Often, professors have worked with their material for so long that they have no need for a structure. To them, the material is virtually self-explanatory as it stands alone. However, students do not have that wide-ranging knowledge as a basis for understanding new material and how it ties in with other material. To me, a course is a large puzzle where every day you introduce new pieces and then work to fit them into the rest of the puzzle so that—by the end—it all makes sense; the total picture becomes clear.
(4) – “’No step is too small to ignore,’ Mighton says. ‘Math is like a ladder. If you miss a step, sometimes you can’t go on. And then you start losing your confidence.’” Once again, we—as teachers—always understand where the process is headed. We know the end of the story before we set out the beginning. In teaching, we may lose track of why we need to explain every minute step along the way. To the student, one missed step can bring the whole learning process to a screeching halt. Some students get lost easily. Of course, we prefer students who can make giant leaps from one concept to the next but, in truth, those are the people who have the least need for a teacher. If you really want to be a teacher, you have to want to help those people who experience the most trouble in making the connections. That is where the real teaching comes in. You have to recognize when a student can only take small steps and then break the process down so they can successfully see the connections.
(5) – “The foundation of the process is building confidence.” If you have taught for more than one day, you will have experienced the student who loses confidence. It is a real shame but those students will come to believe that they are simply not smart enough to understand the topic at hand. Often, after that, no degree of work can win back that student. They are lost. They assume they will do poorly and they do. If you are going to turn all your students into winners, you have to recognize immediately when a student starts to struggle and then work to break the process down into more manageable pieces for that student. You need to constantly work to build confidence.
Yes, teaching can be real work but no one ever said it would be easy.
Thanks for sending the article along to me!!! I definitely managed to steal (borrow) a lot from it.
I was reminded of this recently. One of the readers of this blog sent me a link to a great article on the teaching and learning of math. She said that she thought I would find it interesting because I was always curious about education. And, she was absolutely correct. It is well worth reading and pondering.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/18/a-better-way-to-teach-math/
Several parts of this article really caught my attention. They are the parts that I’ll probably steal in the future. In fact, here are five thoughts that I plan to steal (borrow) and apply to my own teaching.
(1) – The subject of the story has an absolute certainty that students can learn math. In fact, he says so “’Almost every kid — and I mean virtually every kid — can learn math at a very high level, to the point where they could do university level math courses,’ explains John Mighton.”
I wonder what would happen if we all walked in each day and had that same certainty about our own students.
It is amazing to me how quickly I begin mentally classifying my students as “excellent,” “average,” and “poor.” Do I start treating those students in that way? Do I ask harder questions of the “excellent” students and dumb down the questions for the students I perceive as “poor?” What kind of subtle messages am I sending them? Perhaps in that way, my perceptions become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I know I say to my students often “you can ALL learn this.” Is that my true sentiment or just lip service that I spout because it sounds good?
In the future, I’m going to try to do a better job of helping everyone to excel. Maybe, as he says, I am forcing my own students early in the semester to choose to think of themselves as either smart in accounting (my subject) or dumb in accounting. And, maybe it is that choice that then serves as a driving force for the rest of the semester. If I can change that mindset, can I get better results? Can I convince them that they can all learn accounting and, if so, how will that change them over the rest of the semester?
(2) – I loved what he had to say about “extensive practice.” I get the feeling in education that we show students how to do something once, maybe twice, and then expect them to be experts from thereon. When I was growing up, we would work extensively on math facts in school: 56 divided by 8 is 7, 20 percent of 15,000 is 3,000. We did hours and hours of that type of practice. Sure, it wasn’t exciting. But, as I have said here before, every student in my fifth grade class in 1959 knew more about basic math than every student that I taught this past year in college. Why? That is easy – students today are trained to use calculators and have never really practiced math facts. The next time you are in a college class, ask a student to multiply 12 times 9 without a calculator and you’ll see pure panic and dread. In 1959, every hand would have been raised (in the fifth grade).
Practice really is necessary for learning.
Maybe we all want to avoid the possibility of boredom so we eliminate extensive practice from the learning process. Then, when we get to a test, we (as teachers) are surprised that the students cannot handle the questions we give them. Perhaps what they really need is just more practice. Few things can be learned by doing them merely once or twice.
(3) – “Studies indicate that current teaching approaches underestimate the amount of explicit guidance, ‘scaffolding’ and practice children need to consolidate new concepts.” I really like the idea of “scaffolding” or building a structure that allows students to see new material within a logical framework. Often, professors have worked with their material for so long that they have no need for a structure. To them, the material is virtually self-explanatory as it stands alone. However, students do not have that wide-ranging knowledge as a basis for understanding new material and how it ties in with other material. To me, a course is a large puzzle where every day you introduce new pieces and then work to fit them into the rest of the puzzle so that—by the end—it all makes sense; the total picture becomes clear.
(4) – “’No step is too small to ignore,’ Mighton says. ‘Math is like a ladder. If you miss a step, sometimes you can’t go on. And then you start losing your confidence.’” Once again, we—as teachers—always understand where the process is headed. We know the end of the story before we set out the beginning. In teaching, we may lose track of why we need to explain every minute step along the way. To the student, one missed step can bring the whole learning process to a screeching halt. Some students get lost easily. Of course, we prefer students who can make giant leaps from one concept to the next but, in truth, those are the people who have the least need for a teacher. If you really want to be a teacher, you have to want to help those people who experience the most trouble in making the connections. That is where the real teaching comes in. You have to recognize when a student can only take small steps and then break the process down so they can successfully see the connections.
(5) – “The foundation of the process is building confidence.” If you have taught for more than one day, you will have experienced the student who loses confidence. It is a real shame but those students will come to believe that they are simply not smart enough to understand the topic at hand. Often, after that, no degree of work can win back that student. They are lost. They assume they will do poorly and they do. If you are going to turn all your students into winners, you have to recognize immediately when a student starts to struggle and then work to break the process down into more manageable pieces for that student. You need to constantly work to build confidence.
Yes, teaching can be real work but no one ever said it would be easy.
Thanks for sending the article along to me!!! I definitely managed to steal (borrow) a lot from it.
In Case You Are Interested
I was talking recently with a friend who asked something like: "You have had nearly 33,000 page views on your teaching blog. Which of your entries have drawn the most traffic?"
In truth, some entries have had almost no readers while others have had thousands of page views. Not really sure what makes such extreme differences.
If you want to go back and check to see the most popular entries over the last 16 months or so, here they are.
1 - What Do We Add? July 22, 2010
2 - Big Mistakes March 26, 2011
3 - Need Some Inspiration? September 13, 2010
4 - What Do You Tell Your Students? August 19, 2010
5 - The $10 Million Question January 16, 2011
6 - The Opening August 24, 2010
7 - Using Power Point Slides March 17, 2010
In truth, some entries have had almost no readers while others have had thousands of page views. Not really sure what makes such extreme differences.
If you want to go back and check to see the most popular entries over the last 16 months or so, here they are.
1 - What Do We Add? July 22, 2010
2 - Big Mistakes March 26, 2011
3 - Need Some Inspiration? September 13, 2010
4 - What Do You Tell Your Students? August 19, 2010
5 - The $10 Million Question January 16, 2011
6 - The Opening August 24, 2010
7 - Using Power Point Slides March 17, 2010
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
My Latest Problem
In every job, problems arise and, unfortunately, there are not always great solutions.
I ran into a problem on Saturday and I wasn’t sure what to do with it. When you are dealing with a group of college students and the decisions you make are important to those people, inconsistencies can drive you crazy.
I have two Intermediate Accounting II classes this semester. At many schools, Intermediate II is considered one of the most challenging courses in the entire university. Consequently, the grade in that class is often viewed as extremely important to the students. The difference of one letter grade can have major implications in the direction of a career.
Our final exam schedule this semester ran from Monday morning at 9 a.m. until Saturday evening. As luck would have it, one of my Intermediate II classes had its final exam in the very first slot from 9 until noon on Monday. The other class had its exam on Friday evening from 7 until 10 p.m. Because my classes were small this semester, I allowed my Intermediate II students to take either exam. I didn’t care. Eight students chose to take the first exam and 25 chose to take the second. Most students seemed uncomfortable trying to take the exam on Monday without sufficient time to prepare. That was fine by me.
I gave the first group 37 problems ranging in time from 3-8 minutes in length. No one left early but everyone seemed to be finished or close to finished by the end. I graded that exam and came up with a raw score for each. I did not curve the exam at that time because I only had 8 tests and wanted to see how the other 25 students did. For convenience, let’s assume that the raw scores ranged from minus 20 to minus 60. I liked the test; I liked the range of raw scores; I liked the length of time that my students took to finish the exam; I liked the distribution from top to bottom.
I would have loved to give the same test to my second class but I worried (especially over a 5-day period) that too much information would get out. I trust my students but I don’t want to put too much temptation out there for them. My guess is that every university worries about cheating.
So, I took each of those 37 problems and changed it slightly – I increased a 6 percent interest rate to an 11 percent rate, I changed a residual value from $10,000 to $25,000, I changed a $5,000 gain to a $9,000 loss. I then rearranged the questions into a different order just in case some student had slipped information out such as “the first question requires you to deal with a 20 percent stock option.”
I honestly believed that I was giving the second group a test that was the equivalent of the first test.
However, the results were so much worse that I was stunned. For the second group, the raw scores ranged from roughly minus 20 (same) to minus 90. Worse still, and this is what really caught my attention, approximately half of the students in the second group did worse than my very worse student in the first group. It was like the two groups took two completely different exams.
My problem became immediately obvious to me. Should the students in the first group get significantly higher grades than the second group or was there something about the second test that made it harder (and that I was not seeing)? I thought I had given comparable tests but maybe not. For example, maybe some of my changes managed to create more complex situations. Or, perhaps changing the order of the questions caused a problem for the students (maybe the first questions were now harder and slowed them down or discouraged them).
And, to make matters even worse, although virtually all of the first group finished the test on time, many of the students in the second group did not come even close to completing it. I had page after page of blanks. It is hard to give any partial credit to a blank sheet of paper.
--Could the better students have all taken the first test rather than the second? If so, then I had a justification for giving them a higher grade. But, for the most part, I couldn’t see any difference in the abilities of the two groups (and I looked very carefully).
--Could the first class have been bright and awake at 9 a.m. and the second class sleepy at 7 p.m.? They didn’t look any different but I could not peak inside of their heads. And, should that make a difference in the final grading?
--Could the first class have been fresh because it was their first final exam and the second class exhausted because it was their fourth or fifth? And, again, if so, should that have any effect on the grading? Should you factor in the time of the test when handing out grades? If two students both make minus 60 can you give one student a different grade because he or she took the test on Friday night after 3-4 other tests over a long week?
--Could some of the changes I made in the questions have subtly changed easy questions (on the first test) into hard questions (on the second test) without my awareness?
Why Why Why is the question I have asked over and over since then? Why were the raw scores so different and what should I do about that in arriving at final test scores?
It is several days later and I still do not have a good answer for that question.
I ran into a problem on Saturday and I wasn’t sure what to do with it. When you are dealing with a group of college students and the decisions you make are important to those people, inconsistencies can drive you crazy.
I have two Intermediate Accounting II classes this semester. At many schools, Intermediate II is considered one of the most challenging courses in the entire university. Consequently, the grade in that class is often viewed as extremely important to the students. The difference of one letter grade can have major implications in the direction of a career.
Our final exam schedule this semester ran from Monday morning at 9 a.m. until Saturday evening. As luck would have it, one of my Intermediate II classes had its final exam in the very first slot from 9 until noon on Monday. The other class had its exam on Friday evening from 7 until 10 p.m. Because my classes were small this semester, I allowed my Intermediate II students to take either exam. I didn’t care. Eight students chose to take the first exam and 25 chose to take the second. Most students seemed uncomfortable trying to take the exam on Monday without sufficient time to prepare. That was fine by me.
I gave the first group 37 problems ranging in time from 3-8 minutes in length. No one left early but everyone seemed to be finished or close to finished by the end. I graded that exam and came up with a raw score for each. I did not curve the exam at that time because I only had 8 tests and wanted to see how the other 25 students did. For convenience, let’s assume that the raw scores ranged from minus 20 to minus 60. I liked the test; I liked the range of raw scores; I liked the length of time that my students took to finish the exam; I liked the distribution from top to bottom.
I would have loved to give the same test to my second class but I worried (especially over a 5-day period) that too much information would get out. I trust my students but I don’t want to put too much temptation out there for them. My guess is that every university worries about cheating.
So, I took each of those 37 problems and changed it slightly – I increased a 6 percent interest rate to an 11 percent rate, I changed a residual value from $10,000 to $25,000, I changed a $5,000 gain to a $9,000 loss. I then rearranged the questions into a different order just in case some student had slipped information out such as “the first question requires you to deal with a 20 percent stock option.”
I honestly believed that I was giving the second group a test that was the equivalent of the first test.
However, the results were so much worse that I was stunned. For the second group, the raw scores ranged from roughly minus 20 (same) to minus 90. Worse still, and this is what really caught my attention, approximately half of the students in the second group did worse than my very worse student in the first group. It was like the two groups took two completely different exams.
My problem became immediately obvious to me. Should the students in the first group get significantly higher grades than the second group or was there something about the second test that made it harder (and that I was not seeing)? I thought I had given comparable tests but maybe not. For example, maybe some of my changes managed to create more complex situations. Or, perhaps changing the order of the questions caused a problem for the students (maybe the first questions were now harder and slowed them down or discouraged them).
And, to make matters even worse, although virtually all of the first group finished the test on time, many of the students in the second group did not come even close to completing it. I had page after page of blanks. It is hard to give any partial credit to a blank sheet of paper.
--Could the better students have all taken the first test rather than the second? If so, then I had a justification for giving them a higher grade. But, for the most part, I couldn’t see any difference in the abilities of the two groups (and I looked very carefully).
--Could the first class have been bright and awake at 9 a.m. and the second class sleepy at 7 p.m.? They didn’t look any different but I could not peak inside of their heads. And, should that make a difference in the final grading?
--Could the first class have been fresh because it was their first final exam and the second class exhausted because it was their fourth or fifth? And, again, if so, should that have any effect on the grading? Should you factor in the time of the test when handing out grades? If two students both make minus 60 can you give one student a different grade because he or she took the test on Friday night after 3-4 other tests over a long week?
--Could some of the changes I made in the questions have subtly changed easy questions (on the first test) into hard questions (on the second test) without my awareness?
Why Why Why is the question I have asked over and over since then? Why were the raw scores so different and what should I do about that in arriving at final test scores?
It is several days later and I still do not have a good answer for that question.
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