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...

As I have mentioned on my last two postings, I will be part of a panel discussion on April 17, 2015, in Asheville, NC, at the Southeast Regional Meeting of the American Accounting Association.   I am thrilled to be joined by three great teachers:   Lynn Clements of Florida Southern, Eric Bostwick of the University of West Florida, and Scott Showalter of North Carolina State.   We are planning to have a simple conversation about some of the most basic issues in teaching.   I am very much interested in knowing how other teachers deal with the challenges that I seem to face every day in my classroom.   I have long believed that we need a more open exchange of ideas if college education is going to improve as it must. I am not sure what questions we will end up discussing in Asheville but here are ten that we are considering.   How would you answer each of these questions?   There are no right or wrong answers here but th...

  Professional photographers sometimes talk about the �decisive moment.�     It is that one essential point in time when the photo needs to be taken to capture the true essence of the events that are taking place and the people that are involved.     I strongly believe that there are decisive moments in teaching and learning.    If you make the most of those decisive moments, the students can learn much and learn deeply.    If you miss those moments, learning becomes more of a superficial affair. One such moment is immediately after the first test of the semester.    It is still early.    There is still plenty of time to make great things happen.    However, the students are all unsure as to whether they are doing enough to satisfy the teacher�s expectations.   If the first test is complex without being unfair, the teacher will have caught the students� attention.    �This is the kind of...