Student Guide Corner

If you have read this blog for long, you know that I have two interconnected goals.   --The first is that every teacher should strive to become 5 percent better each and every year.   Never stand still.  Always push yourself to find some area of improvement.   --The second goal is to Experiment-Evaluate-Evolve.   It is that active level of experimentation that leads to improvement.   No improvement is possible without making some change.   You should always be able to look at your current situation and point to specific changes that you are trying and evaluating. If I stopped right now and asked you �what experiments are you trying this semester that might make you 5 percent better,� could you identify one or more?  Experiments work better if they are directed at identified problems.   After nearly 45 years in the classroom, one thing continues to irritate me.   I have many bright young people in m...

Recently, I was invited by Dr. Shannon Orr (Bowling Green State) and Dr. Staci Zavattaro (Central Florida) to participate in an upcoming book project (to be published in 2017 by Palgrave).  They are asking 100 college professors to respond to the question:   What do you wish you had learned back in graduate school? Isn�t that a fascinating idea for a book?   I must admit that I can hardly wait to read it myself and see what the other 99 have to say.  I am always in need of advice.   The question really breaks down to the ultimate life question:   If we had it all to do over with again, how would we do it differently?   That�s a question we should ponder now and then as we consider making changes in our present day life.  You can�t change the past but you do have some control over the present.  Thinking about the past might help us improve the future. I spent several days considering what my honest answer might be....