Student Guide Corner

  If you have followed my blog postings over the years, you know that I have several obsessions about teaching.    (1) � I believe in having a lot of communications with my students.   Whether it is love, marriage, or a college class, things go better with communication.    To the teacher, everything makes sense.    Too often, to the students, everything is a mystery.    I want to cut out as much of that mystery as possible.   I think students respond well when they understand what is expected of them. (2) � I believe in honest and frank communication.    College students are adults.   I never see any reason to feed them a bunch of nonsense.    If you aren�t going to tell them the truth, you would be better off not to have the communication.    I think you should stress the good as well as the bad.   No one wants to get praise all the time and no one wants to hear how bad they are all t...

If you have read this blog for long, you must know that I put considerable stress on communicating with my students, often by email. I believe open and honest communication is a key for all successful relationships. These communications give you a chance to guide your students toward the outcomes that you want. They allow you to motivate the students, to keep pushing them forward (�I know this seems hard but you are smart enough to do these problems with a bit of work�). They provide a chance for positive feedback � �the class was especially good today� is never a bad acknowledgement � one that students often never hear. They enable you to correct actions that you don�t like (�not very many of you had worked problem 5 for today; I�ll expect a better effort at the next class�). Communications help the teacher to prepare the students for upcoming material � �we are really going to stress the computation of interest expense at our next class so make absolutely sure you�ve studied pages 45...