Student Guide Corner

If you have read this blog for very long, you know that I often argue that college teachers have become obsessed with teaching stuff and less interested in developing the student as a whole person. Should we care if a student becomes a brilliant scholar but then leads a miserable life because he or she simply doesn�t know how to live? Well, I think so. I could give several examples of what I do in my classes beyond teaching stuff but here is one of my favorites. My primary course is Intermediate Accounting II which covers some of the most complex material at any university. For nearly 20 years, about half way through the semester, I give my students a required assignment. I ask them to consider all the books they have ever read in their entire lives and pick the �best book you�ve ever read.� Then, they have to write a paragraph or two to describe why they picked that book. Over the years, I have had some of the most fascinating essays submitted. Obviously, I want the students to think ...

Several weeks ago, I had the privilege of speaking to 70 teachers or so at the Kentucky Accounting Educators� Forum. At one point in that presentation, I made a comment that working with students who can often be incredibly lazy is a real challenge for every teacher. My guess is that every teacher has mumbled similar words over the years. Later that day, Randy Hahm who is on the faculty at Kentucky State drove me to the airport. On the way, Randy told me about one of his favorite quotes from Zig Ziglar, the world famous motivational speaker: �There�s no such thing as a lazy person; he�s either sick or uninspired.� I don�t remember much else about that day but those few words have stuck with me since that car trip. My students rarely appear sick. So, whenever I�m dissatisfied with their efforts, is it laziness or is lack of inspiration? Lazy or uninspired? On the surface, you might ask what difference does that distinction make? I think it makes an important difference as you think abou...

I am always a bit amazed by how many readers we have on this blog. I never expected to get to 1,000 and we have now had (as of 8 minutes ago) 54,309 page views. Many readers are accounting profs but a lot teach all kinds of other things. I am busy so I rarely pay attention to which blog entries get a lot of readership and which get less. However, because of an unrelated project, I had to go back a few days ago and look at all the entries to date and noted the number of hits for each. Most got hundreds, some got thousands. However, the following entry (from May 30, 2010) only had 14 hits. 14??? Heck, some of these entries get 14 hits in the first two minutes. I�m not sure why no one read this entry because (even rereading it today) I think it raises a valid question as to what you actually want to be as a college prof. I especially liked the comment about the baseball team needing different types of players. Are you in an environment where different talents and roles are recognized? So,...

Occasionally, someone will ask me to give them my number one piece of advice for becoming a better teacher. Teaching is such a complex art that I really think that is close to impossible. However, I do think there is one thing that every teacher (and I do mean every teacher) should do that will help them immediately to become a better teacher. Can you believe it? I�m almost guaranteeing you success with just one piece of advice. Every teacher should get a reality check by enrolling as a student each year in a class in something about which they have no real knowledge. In other words, they should walk around to the other side of the desk and put themselves into the student role just as a reminder of how it feels to be the struggling one. I don�t mean for a history teacher to take another history class. There�s no benefit. I don�t mean for an English teacher to take a class in poetry. I mean for a history teacher or an English teacher to take a class in quantum mechanics. Two weeks ago, ...

My department chair (Darrell Walden) sent out the following link to an article from The Washington Post . You may have to register to read it but it is well worth your time. (If the link doesn�t work, just go to www.washingtonpost.com and search for �Is college too easy� as of May 21, 2012.) http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/is-college-too-easy-as-study-time-falls-debate-rises/2012/05/21/gIQAp7uUgU_story.html Darrell summarizes the story quite well in just a few words. �Over the past half-century, the amount of time college students actually study � read, write and otherwise prepare for class � has dwindled from 24 hours a week to about 15, survey data show. And that invites a question: Has college become too easy?� As I travel around the country talking about teaching, I very frequently hear faculty members complain that �college students are not like they used to be.� My feeling (after 41 years in this job) has always been that college students really do not change much o...

A good friend of mine who teaches at a university in Texas wrote to me a few days ago and posed the following question. My guess is that all college teachers have felt this same way at times over the years. It is very difficult to get students to leap tall buildings with a single bound if you can�t get them to prepare for class. �For the past two semesters I have become so totally frustrated with the students in my classes. They do NOT come to class prepared AT ALL. They don't read the book. Some of them don't even get the book until the 3rd or 4th week of the semester. �Do you have a secret for getting students to read their textbook, especially in Intermediate? Do you threaten them with hanging at dawn? Do you give them a quiz every class? �I really want my fall Intermediate students to develop some better habits, so I'm looking for a way to facilitate that.� Okay, I think the first way to approach this quandary is to consider where most of the students are coming from in...

I was going through some files this evening and discovered a quote that I received some years back from a person in India .  There's a lot to like about this quote but I especially appreciate the line:  "The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods."   I sometimes think in teaching (and maybe many other things in life) that we are too obsessed with finding the perfect method.  "Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it. The man who knows how will always have a job. The man who also knows why will always be his boss. As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble".      Ralph Waldo Emerson