Student Guide Corner

One of the great benefits of teaching is that the summer is available.    We can do research and writing.   Or, we can work to improve our teaching.    �How can my next class be better than my last class?� is a great question to ponder during the summer break.    You have had a couple of months of break � how often have you addressed that question?    I am a strong proponent that everyone needs to learn to think differently about the challenges they face.    If you think like everyone else, you will wind up being average by definition.    In my book Don�t Just Dream about Success:    Stack the Odds in Your Favor , I devote an entire chapter to the challenge of learning to �Think Differently.�    Here is just one of the suggestions that I put forward in that book: ��How could this have been improved?� is a great question to consider throughout your daily wanderings.    It stimulates critical ...

On Tuesday (July 15) at 11:00 a.m. I will be hosting a 35 minute webinar on �The Flipped Classroom.�    I am doing this program in connection with my Financial Accounting textbook (coauthored with C. J. Skender of UNC).    However, I hope to keep the textbook marketing down to a bare minimum because I really am interested in talking about the flipped classroom. I would love for you to join me if you can.    You can register in advance at: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/295135194 ** Below is an email that I sent out this evening to all of my students for the upcoming fall semester.    I am trying to plant a seed in their minds about what I want from them in the fall.    I always believe that a semester goes better if the students know before they ever meet you what you want from them.    They don�t have to waste important classroom time trying to figure out what you value.    As you can see, I just tell them. **...

Are you dependent upon glasses to read this post? Great! Hope you have them on because I want you to read it, especially if you are someone who thinks it's a bad thing when students need a tool to help them read the curriculum. No one thinks twice about the need for glasses to read, drive or see the world, right? Glasses help bypass visual acuity issues. We can all agree on that. So, why is the need for technology to access grade level curriculum such a bad thing? At a recent IEP team meeting, the special educator stated she didn't want the student to " depend upon technology" to access the curriculum. Instead, she reads the material to the student since the student is reading below grade level due to a reading disability. Funny. She failed to see the irony. She was promoting dependence upon the adult.  What's worse, dependence upon an adult to access grade level material or "dependence" on technology, which allows the student to independently access t...

I am lucky.    At my school, students register for classes early and the professors can receive their email addresses almost immediately.    I have talked before on this blog about patterning student behavior (what do I want my students to do and how do I go about getting them to do that?).    I usually start sending emails to my students pretty quickly to set the tone that I want for the semester.    I don�t want to wait until the first day of class to start patterning their behavior.    What tone am I trying to set in these emails:    (1) I am serious about this class so you better be as well and (2) there is a lot of challenging work to be done but the benefits are amazing.    If I can get those two points across before I meet the students in the fall, the battle is already half won.   It helps that I believe both points. Consequently, I sent out an email to my junior level students this afternoon.  ...

There are days, especially at the end of each semester, when I wonder why I keep teaching.    I guess we all face those dark moments.    Students will be lazy and then expect you to go out of your way to do them a favor.    Or, you will ask a serious question in class and get a ridiculous answer that causes the whole class to become distracted.    Or, a heated debate will arise over a grade, an argument that seems more painful than it is worth.    Yeah, days like that happen. Occasionally, I try to step back and remind myself of why I chose to become a teacher and why I want to continue to be a teacher.     We all need to recharge our batteries especially here at the end of a long academic year.    Never ignore that need or you will become grumpy and disillusioned and I have already met way too many teachers like that. It is nice when something happens that helps get us pumped up and ready to go back into the cla...

Joe: I am delighted today to be talking with Dennis Beresford, one of the most influential accountants in the history of the profession. Just as importantly from the perspective of this blog, he has also spent quite a number of years as a teacher. Denny, I recently read one student review of your class that said: "Excellent in stimulating student's interest in accounting matters. Very intelligent and dynamic. Good class to take for improving research, critical thinking, and communication skills." You have certainly had a wonderfully wide and varied career. Can you furnish us with a short biography of some of your many accomplishments over the years? Denny:    The short biography is 26 years in public accounting with what is now Ernst & Young, 10 � years as Chairman of the FASB, and 16 years as E&Y Executive Professor of Accounting at the University of Georgia. I began as a staff auditor in the Los Angeles office of E&Y and worked there for about 10 years. I...

I am a big believer that one of the problems with an accounting education is that it is made up of way too much accounting. If our sole job as college educators is to get our students ready for the first five years after graduation, then the amount of accounting we cover is probably about right. However, an awful lot of accounting graduates leave the accounting profession within the first few years after finishing college. At what point do all those accounting courses become a waste of time if a person is not still doing accounting within a few years? But, I could argue exactly the same thing about the study of History, English, Philosophy, or the like. My belief has long been (well, for 43 years now) that a college education has to help each person have a well-lived and fulfilled life. If a college education is not still having a positive impact on a person decades and decades after graduation, I wonder whether it wasn�t a failure. I believe that we too often abdicate ...