Student Guide Corner

About three weeks ago (3/6/12), I included the following story in an entry in this blog: �I immediately walked to my study and sent an email to one of my students. �You made a D on your first test in my class. Since then, I have not noticed one iota of improvement. None. You are not one bit better prepared for my class. You are not trying any harder as far as I can see. I can only surmise that your primary goal is to make a D in my class.� �The next day in class that student was clearly better prepared. Not sure how long it will last but it was nice to see him more engaged.� I basically confronted the student directly for not making changes in his attitude toward my class. I cared enough about him as a person to be confrontational. He may well have thought I hated him but, in truth, if I had not cared about him as a person, I would not have wasted my time. He made a D on the first test of the semester and seemed ready to make a D on the second test. Rather than f...

So often we believe text-to-speech is the answer for students who struggle with reading issues, whether due to decoding, fluency or reading comprehension challenges. Today, a high school senior with learning disabilities taught me a valuable lesson. We met during her academic support period to see if there were assistive technology solutions to support her learning. She is a bright student with reading disabilities. The first words out of her mouth were, "I don't read." Hmmm. I immediately thought, "Well let me come to your rescue and show you text to speech!" When I showed her how she could access text and then listen using a service such as Bookshare, she told me it wouldn't work for her. She explained she found the voices too annoying which would distract her and cause her to lose focus. Therefore, learning would not occur. In working with her, I wondered if changing the size of text or using Readability features would be of benefit. I showed her the Rea...

Before I ever started this blog, I wrote a short little teaching book titled �Tips and Thoughts on Improving the Teaching Process in College--A Personal Diary.� I wanted to push myself to think about teaching and I wanted to encourage other folks to think about teaching. The book was a bit of work but it seemed like everyone would benefit. When finished, I put it up on web at https://facultystaff.richmond.edu/~jhoyle/ and forgot about it. However, the book got a very nice review in The Chronicle of Higher Education and people started sending me questions or suggestions. For a while, I got emails from teachers around the world. What fun. Eventually, I wanted to add to those original essays. I had more thoughts on teaching. Plus, I missed the writing. But, instead of starting a second book, I created this blog which has allowed me to stretch out the thinking and writing process indefinitely. A couple of weeks ago I was chatting with a former student of mine who has g...

This week I was in a high school Learning Center Support classroom and noticed a student reading from his personal Kindle Fire. The LC teacher mentioned to me that the student preferred reading on the Kindle device. Since I'm always hoping to learn from students, I asked the student why he preferred reading from his Kindle. He told me he liked being able to increase the font size ; it made it easier for him to read the text . Moral of the story - it's the little things that count. I often hear adults state they can't read from a device, they need the feel of the book in their hands. That may work for you but it's not always the best method for your students. Just because you or I might prefer a different presentation doesn't mean it works best for our students. This is one of the principles of UDL , in this case, multiple methods of presentation . The material was now presented in a form that worked best for this particular student. Another BYOD success story.

My wife often watches �Morning Joe� on cable television as she gets ready for the new day. It is a group of people who discuss and debate politics and the world in general each morning. Last week, I wandered through and the people on the show that morning were discussing education. Just as I passed by, one person asserted: �We all know how to get great education: Demand Excellence and Expect Excellence.� Demand Excellence and Expect Excellence. Hmm, sounds good. I wonder how many of us really do that? Do we really demand excellence from our students? Really? In fact, do we really demand excellence from ourselves? Or, maybe, they are just two sides to the same coin. RESPONSE ONE TO MORNING JOE: After hearing the commentator, I immediately walked to my study and sent an email to one of my students. �You made a D on your first test in my class. Since then, I have not noticed one iota of improvement. None. You are not one bit better prepared for my class. ...

This is my 125th blog entry in the last 25 months. When I started this site, I promised myself that I�d try to do at least 15 entries. My guess is that I would have quit long ago were it not for the many kind emails that I have received. Thanks � I love hearing from people who tell me about their own love of teaching and the challenges they face each day. Today�s entry is broken into several individual parts. PART ONE � I travel around the country 3-5 times per year to give teaching programs and presentations. Invariably, at each stop, some teacher will ask in complete exasperation �why should I even try to do better? The students do not appreciate what I do. They certainly don�t appreciate when I try to make them work and think.� It is very tough to spend the time necessary to move toward excellence if you believe that no one appreciates you. It is hard to put out so much energy if no one cares. I often think deans and department chairs ought to be required to pat as ...

I gave my first test in Intermediate Accounting II last week. As probably most of you know, this is a really difficult course. Every topic, every day, is complex. For this first test, I gave nine problems. I referred to these problems as puzzles because they were quite verbal. I find that the more numbers a problem has, the more likely it is to be a purely mechanical exercise. The students had 75 minutes to see how many of these accounting �puzzles� they could solve. It was a challenging test but, heck, it is a challenging course. And, maybe more importantly, it is hard to convince students that they can leap tall buildings in a single bound if you don�t make every test both challenging and fair. Here�s the good news: 19 percent of the students made an A. For my classes, that�s a pretty good rate. I had 19 percent of the students who did what I judged to be �excellent� work. I was pleased with that. Here�s the bad news: 48 percent of the students made a C and 12...