Student Guide Corner

    Invitation:   If you are attending the annual meeting of the American Accounting Association this summer in Chicago, I am participating in two separate panel presentations on teaching on Monday, August 10.  I would love to have you there as several of us chat about the challenges of becoming a better classroom teacher.  To me, that seems like a topic that could produce hours of fascinating conversation.   Grab me after the panel presentations conclude and we can continue the discussion.   ----- In almost every entry written over the years for this blog, I have addressed topics that I felt were of interest to all college teachers.   Struggles with student preparation, testing, class participation, and the like probably apply to everyone who enters a classroom each day to encourage and enlighten college students.   History teachers, English teachers, science teachers, accounting teachers and all the rest face simila...

Have to share about a great tool I just learned about via Twitter and #spedchat. Someone mentioned Wonderopolis. The name intrigued me so I checked out the website and loved what I discovered. Wonderopolis  - "Where the Wonders of Learning Never Cease,  a place where natural curiosity and imagination lead to exploration and discovery in learners of all ages."  What was so exciting? Have you ever wondered: Why Castles have moats? Why does it rain? What is static electricity? How does a suspension bridge work? Do frogs freeze? How is yogurt made? Why is grass green? Can chocolate be good for you? Lots to wonder about and find answers. Students can add their questions to the "Wonder Bank" and vote for their top wonder questions.  But, what is especially wonderfu l is the built-in multimedia features and audio supports. There is customizable text to speech added to every article using RealSpeaker , text to speech. There are videos and a word bank with definit...

This website recently went over 146,000 total page views.  That is about 145,000 more than I ever expected when I began.    I want to take a moment this morning to thank everyone who reads these postings and shares them with other teachers.  Obviously, there is no real marketing of this site.  People tend to learn about it from other teachers.   Word-of-mouth.   So, thanks for sharing!!!  I sincerely believe that most teachers want to think more deeply about the art of teaching.   I hope this website serves as an occasional prompt for such thoughts. This will be my 211 th posting.   Several of these essays over the years have gathered more interest than others.   In terms of readership, here are the Top Ten in case you would like to check out some of the more popular postings. --What Do We Add?  (July 22, 2010) --What Is the Purpose of A Final Exam? (May 12, 2010) --Introduction�Teaching Financial...

Now and then, I come across some thoughts on teaching that I think are worth sharing.   That happened yesterday here at the Robins School of Business.   My email to our faculty and staff is below.   No matter what the individual jobs are here at Richmond, we are all in the education business.  This place exists, at least in large part, to maximize the knowledge, wisdom, and understanding of our students.   Passing information like this along to others can help keep teaching (and the thinking about teaching) alive as an important part of our culture.   You can do the same thing in your building.   Whenever you learn something about teaching that you feel might also help others who face similar challenges, then pass it along.   Don't be timid.   Don't be shy.    ** Email Note: A friend of mine here at the University of Richmond passed along the following URL of a recent NPR discussion with Ken Bain. ...

In a March 5, 2015, blog entry, I posted the results of a survey that I had conducted.   I have 76 students this semester and they were each asked to identify the characteristics they believed exemplified great teaching.  I read and classified each of their responses.   I then ranked the various response categories by frequency.   This essay generated heavy traffic.   It quickly jumped onto my all-time top five list in terms of the number of page views.   Readers of my blog apparently have a genuine interest in what students say about great teaching.   I hope you will consider doing a similar survey with your students just to see if the results are consistent. Although I was fascinated by what my students had to say, they were clearly thinking about teaching from a student perspective.   That is hardly surprising.   However, having taught in college now for 44 years, the characteristics that I associate...

As I have mentioned on my last two postings, I will be part of a panel discussion on April 17, 2015, in Asheville, NC, at the Southeast Regional Meeting of the American Accounting Association.   I am thrilled to be joined by three great teachers:   Lynn Clements of Florida Southern, Eric Bostwick of the University of West Florida, and Scott Showalter of North Carolina State.   We are planning to have a simple conversation about some of the most basic issues in teaching.   I am very much interested in knowing how other teachers deal with the challenges that I seem to face every day in my classroom.   I have long believed that we need a more open exchange of ideas if college education is going to improve as it must. I am not sure what questions we will end up discussing in Asheville but here are ten that we are considering.   How would you answer each of these questions?   There are no right or wrong answers here but th...

How do we ever get better as college teachers?   Albert Einstein has been quoted as defining insanity as "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."   What can we do differently as teachers in order to improve our results?    How can a college teacher go from being average to being good and then move from good to absolutely great?    I think that is a legitimate goal for any professor.   From my own observations, not enough teachers make significant improvements over time.   Average teachers tend to stay average while good teachers tend to stay good.   I believe every teacher should push toward greatness.   I often tell my students that the secret to success is to experiment, evaluate, and evolve.   The same, I believe, is true of college professors.   Try something new and see how it works.   Experiment frequently.   You CAN get better in the classroo...