Student Guide Corner

If you have followed this blog for a while, you know that I try to use the summer to get the students ready for the fall semester.   I want everyone to be ready on the first day to take off and fly.  Time is short.  I want to use it all and use it effectively.  Consequently, I send periodic emails to my new students from May through August although I am never sure whether they pay close attention or not.  However, one email does seem to catch their attention.    Last week, I cut and pasted one of the questions included on the final exam last spring into an email.   I then sent it to the new students to give them a feel for what they are going to learn this fall.  Most students do not understand in advance the purpose of a course.  A final exam problem gives them an illustration of what they will be able to do after we spend the semester working together.   The reality of seeing a question that the previous class had t...

�Too often, we settle for dreams that merely scratch the surface of our abilities and then wonder why we are dissatisfied with the results.� From the book:    Don�t Just Dream about Success:    Stack the Odds in Your Favor By:    Joe Hoyle (to be published in January 2014)   Returning from Thanksgiving break, virtually all college teachers start looking forward to creating and then grading final exams.    It is a necessary part of the job but it is also an event that can impact the education of each student rather significantly.    Below is a rewritten version of a blog entry that I posted 3 � years ago.    I thought it made a good point back then.    I believe the same thing today. ** Why do you give a final exam to your students? What do you hope to accomplish?   I have talked with many professors over the years and their strategies for final examinations vary greatly from one to the next.   Here ar...