Student Guide Corner

Final Invitation:   If you are attending the annual meeting of the American Accounting Association this summer in Chicago, I will be participating in two different panel presentations on teaching on Monday, August 10.  One is at 2 p.m. and the other is at 4 p.m.   I would love to have everyone there as several of us chat about the challenges of becoming a better classroom teacher.  I think both presentations will be great fun.   I will be around for the entire conference so don�t hesitate to grab me if you have a question or a suggestion. ** Please send an email to Jhoyle@richmond.edu if you would like for me to alert you whenever I post a new essay on this blog. ** If you have read my blog over the years, you already know that I believe communication between teacher and student is one of the most important aspects of good teaching.   You can increase both student enthusiasm and comprehension by careful communication.   You can...

Does assistive technology make a difference? Don't take my word for it. Ask the fifth-grade student who typically took four months to read one book and was finally able to read four books in one month because of her use of technology ( VoiceDream Reade r with Bookshare membership). She recommended books to her friends. How do you think she felt being able to do that for the first time ever? Ask the high school student  with written expression challenges who received support through the Insert Comments feature in Google Docs. He stated, "I'm getting help when I'm writing instead of after I'm done."  Ask the high school autistic student who up until that time was dependent on others for being his voice since he wasn't provided with the technology he needed. For the first time, he could use his device and finally tell someone, "Leave me alone!"  Ask the elementary age student who had a meltdown any time he was asked to write. He used recording tec...

Repeat of My Earlier Invitation:   If you are attending the annual meeting of the American Accounting Association this summer in Chicago, I will be participating in two different panel presentations on teaching on Monday, August 10.  One is at 2 p.m. and the other is at 4 p.m.   I would love to have you there as several of us chat about the challenges of becoming a better classroom teacher.  If you are interested, grab me after the panel presentations and we can continue the discussion.   ** I have written several times over the years about my basic distrust of student evaluations.   Based on the ones that I have seen, here are some of my issues: (1) � Students are not encouraged to spend enough serious time considering the questions and their responses.   Some students clearly give an appropriate amount of thought and make helpful observations.   Many students appear to dash off their opinions as if they were late fo...

    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...