Student Guide Corner

The ability to synthesize information into its essential and most important components is a skill many struggling learners fail to grasp. Vicki Davis has written a fantastic post called, "Note Taking Skills for 21st Century Students" that I can't recommend highly enough. Even if you just focus on effectively using the  Cornell Two-Column Note Taking system,  you are ahead of the game.  If you are interested to take it to the next level, explore Visual Note Taking which helps connect ideas combining drawing and text. Interested to learn more? Check it out  here . Image - https://31.media.tumblr.com/8d6feed12bde5c24830029f0d718a38f/tumblr_inline_n2p1wuiaVL1rpt8u5.png

I will be leading a 75 minute discussion on teaching (�Coaxing More Excellence from Your Students�) starting at 10:40 a.m. on Saturday, September 27, 2014.    The presentation is part of the 2014 North Carolina Education Forum at the Embassy Suites near Raleigh, NC.    If you are in the area, I hope you will consider attending.   You can get more information at www.ncacpa.org . ** The September 6-7, 2014, issue of The Wall Street Journal had a great article on teaching:    �Four Ways to Spot a Great Teacher.�     It is on page C3 and I would urge you to read it.    Here, I just want to address the four highlights to whet your appetite.    The author (Dana Goldstein) talks about the importance of teaching and how a parent (and I suppose a student) can recognize great teaching.    Here are the four keys as well as my own observations. �Great teachers:    Have active intellectual lives outside thei...

Here is an email that I sent to the faculty of my school (the Robins School of Business at the University of Richmond) this morning as we all get ready for a new school year.   Time to get excited about the upcoming challenge. Greetings -- welcome back for another bright and sunny school year.    Possibly because I am so lost in the classroom, people send me articles about teaching that they have found worthwhile.   I received two within the last 48 hours.   I thought they were both great.   They got me back into thinking about how I might teach my classes better in the upcoming year.   I started getting excited about the opening day of class.   I might even send these articles to my students.   I find it helpful if students realize that there is some justification to all the weird things I do in class.   (I seem less eccentric to them.) The first article comes from a buddy of mine in ...

Greetings from the annual convention of the American Accounting Association.    One of the plenary speakers was Jimmy Wales who founded Wikipedia.   He is truly one of the most impressive people I have ever seen.   Very inspiring person.   Hope you get to hear him one day. ** The following blog entry is, to some extent, an extension of my previous essay on this blog. ** Below is a note that I wrote yesterday morning to my intermediate accounting students.    Even before the semester begins, I am trying to stack the odds of success in my favor.    Based on my 43 years as a classroom teacher, I have found that most C students make C�s, most B students make B�s, and most A students make A�s.    Okay, there is always some movement in the ranks but I often get frustrated with the rigidity of this alignment.    Students bring to class a self-image that seems to create an upper barrier that limits how good they can be. ...

Class participation. Often included as part of a student's cumulative grade. How do you ensure student participation? Do you depend upon the student's who voluntarily raise their hands to answer your questions or participate in discussions? Or, do you recognize there are many reasons why a student will look the other way when you are looking to call on a student? Why do students not willingly raise their hands?  There may be several reasons: They may need additional time to process the information you are requesting. And additional time to process their response. #processingspeed They may have anxiety about speaking in the classroom. #anxiety  They may be afraid of embarrassing themselves if they say something that is "incorrect."#avoidhumiliationatallcosts They may have developed a fixed mindset which prevents them from feeling they have anything of value to contribute to the discussion. #mindset They may be afraid to look "too smart" in front of their pee...

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. **...