Student Guide Corner

Here is an email that I sent to the faculty of my school (the Robins School of Business at the University of Richmond) this morning as we all get ready for a new school year.   Time to get excited about the upcoming challenge. Greetings -- welcome back for another bright and sunny school year.    Possibly because I am so lost in the classroom, people send me articles about teaching that they have found worthwhile.   I received two within the last 48 hours.   I thought they were both great.   They got me back into thinking about how I might teach my classes better in the upcoming year.   I started getting excited about the opening day of class.   I might even send these articles to my students.   I find it helpful if students realize that there is some justification to all the weird things I do in class.   (I seem less eccentric to them.) The first article comes from a buddy of mine in ...

Greetings from the annual convention of the American Accounting Association.    One of the plenary speakers was Jimmy Wales who founded Wikipedia.   He is truly one of the most impressive people I have ever seen.   Very inspiring person.   Hope you get to hear him one day. ** The following blog entry is, to some extent, an extension of my previous essay on this blog. ** Below is a note that I wrote yesterday morning to my intermediate accounting students.    Even before the semester begins, I am trying to stack the odds of success in my favor.    Based on my 43 years as a classroom teacher, I have found that most C students make C�s, most B students make B�s, and most A students make A�s.    Okay, there is always some movement in the ranks but I often get frustrated with the rigidity of this alignment.    Students bring to class a self-image that seems to create an upper barrier that limits how good they can be. ...

Class participation. Often included as part of a student's cumulative grade. How do you ensure student participation? Do you depend upon the student's who voluntarily raise their hands to answer your questions or participate in discussions? Or, do you recognize there are many reasons why a student will look the other way when you are looking to call on a student? Why do students not willingly raise their hands?  There may be several reasons: They may need additional time to process the information you are requesting. And additional time to process their response. #processingspeed They may have anxiety about speaking in the classroom. #anxiety  They may be afraid of embarrassing themselves if they say something that is "incorrect."#avoidhumiliationatallcosts They may have developed a fixed mindset which prevents them from feeling they have anything of value to contribute to the discussion. #mindset They may be afraid to look "too smart" in front of their pee...