I am beginning an experiment today to help more of my students be successful in the classroom. If you look on the upper left hand side of this page, you should see a link titled “FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING – 2nd Edition.” If you click on that link, you will come to a page that has a series of audio clips between 8 and 11 minutes in length.
These audio clips were created by me to accompany the Financial Accounting textbook that I have written with CJ Skender at UNC (and published by FlatWorldKnowledge). Although these audio files are specifically designed for our book, they could probably be used quite well with any book. Debits are debits and credits are credits in every textbook.
Right now, I have five audio files posted but I hope to have many more soon. If you are teaching financial accounting, please feel free to suggest that your students listen to these files to see if they are helpful. Heck, they are free. What do they have to lose except for a few minutes of their time?
Each file is a carefully sequenced series of questions and answers. I ask a question and pause for a few seconds so the student can consider the answer. Then, I provide the answer and move on to the next logical question. I am quite literally trying to guide the students, step by step through the reading material.
As I explain in the rest of this posting, I started to create these audio files as a result of reading an article in the Wall Street Journal. I have long felt that our educational system is designed more for visual learners than it is for auditory learners. The article below pushed me to stop thinking about that problem and start trying to do something about it. If you have students who are struggling (in any course that you teach), you might consider whether they are auditory learners who are having trouble in visual learning system.
**
On Thursday, November 29, 2012, I was sitting at my very favorite deli having my very favorite lunch. I was reading the Wall Street Journal for that day as I ate. On page D6, I came across a story about Joe Moglia, the head football coach at Coastal Carolina.
He is the 63 year-old, first-year head coach of that team. And, he is a successful coach – his team made the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs. However, five years earlier, Moglia had been the chief executive of TD Ameritrade (a company with a market capitalization of $8.9 billion). Of course, the article was about the mystery of how a very successful corporate executive could retire and then become a very successful college football coach.
It was a fascinating story. But, if all the story had told me was about blocking and tackling, I would have moved on to the next article. But one sentence really caught my attention. It is a sentence that I have thought of often since that day. “In his first months, Moglia tested each of his players to figure out whether they were auditory, visual or kinesthetic (touch-and-feel) learners so he and his coaching staff KNEW THE BEST WAY TO TEACH EACH OF THEM.” (emphasis added).
Okay, how many of the teachers reading this blog have ever done anything to figure out how each of your students learn? My best guess is that the answer is close to absolutely zero. Which of your students are visual learners? Which of your students are auditory learners? (I understand that only a relatively small percentage of students are kinesthetic learners.) We tend to treat all students exactly alike. Or, if we classify them at all, it is not as auditory learners versus visual learners but rather as “smart students” versus “not so smart students.”
I have read that roughly 30 percent of students are auditory learners. That’s a pretty large percentage of any class. Wikipedia provides this information:
“Auditory learning is a learning style in which a person learns through listening. An auditory learner depends on hearing and speaking as a main way of learning. Auditory learners must be able to hear what is being said in order to understand and may have difficulty with instructions that are written. They also use their listening and repeating skills to sort through the information that is sent to them.”
Now, in most classes, we will tell students “go read Chapter Two in the textbook” or “go to the library and read this journal article.” Some students come back with a clear understanding of the material whereas others come back lost and confused. Maybe, those lost students are not just being lazy. Maybe, those lost students are auditory learners who struggle with comprehending the visual words.
In class, we write things on a board which is visual but we usually talk about what we have written so that we are meeting the needs of both visual learners and auditory learners. However, many of our assignments are purely visual – especially assignments that are textbook based: read the chapter, answer the questions, do the problems.
After finishing the WSJ article and leaving the deli, I started trying to figure out how we could use our textbook to help both visual and auditory learners. We already have 68 videos which are both visual and auditory. But, I wanted to try something different. The result of that thinking is the audio files that will now be attached to this website.
Will they work? I honestly do not know. But, as I often say, the only way you can find out in teaching whether something works is by trying it. If you have a financial accounting course (even if you are using a different textbook), suggest that your students (especially any who seem to struggle with the visual words) try listening to these files. After all, they are free. It might prove to be helpful.
If you don’t teach financial accounting (intermediate accounting, for example, or the history of the Roman empire), think about how you can meet the needs of your auditory learners. If a 63 year football coach at Coastal Carolina can do it, so can you.
Showing posts with label FlatWorldKnowledge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FlatWorldKnowledge. Show all posts
Friday, 18 January 2013
Friday, 14 December 2012
EVERYONE CHANGES OVER TIME
Happy holidays to all the teachers out there. This blog just went over 67,800 page views. I have been thrilled throughout the year to have the chance to interact with so many wonderful educators.
When I give teaching presentations around the country, I am often asked how my teaching has changed during the past 42 years. Because I stress working for 5 percent improvement each year, that particular question is certainly a legitimate one. Invariably someone will jump up and ask: Okay, how are you managing to improve over time?
Yes, I know you are extremely busy. But abdicating this valuable task to a person who might never have taught a single class (or a class like yours) makes no sense. Any test in your class should be designed for your students based on what you have covered and based on what you want them to know. It should not be composed of randomly selected questions written by some mysterious stranger. To me, using a test bank is like asking Mickey Mouse to pinch hit for Babe Ruth. You are giving away an essential element of the course to someone who might not be up to the task.
**
When I give teaching presentations around the country, I am often asked how my teaching has changed during the past 42 years. Because I stress working for 5 percent improvement each year, that particular question is certainly a legitimate one. Invariably someone will jump up and ask: Okay, how are you managing to improve over time?
I actually have a couple of different answers for that question. But, there is one response that I always give: During the past decade, I have come to spend a lot more time writing my test questions. I used to throw tests together hurridly with one goal: to be fair. Now, though, I view testing as a much more important element of my class environment, one that requires a significant amount of preparation time.
I occasionally argue in this blog that the way you test students is the way they will learn. No matter what you tell them, if you test memorization, they will memorize. If your tests are purely mechanical, they will only learn the mechanics. If you only test at a superficial level, they will only learn material to that same shallow depth. I believe this is the absolute truth. The type of tests you create has a huge influence on the type of learning that the students do.
I am always shocked by how many well intentioned faculty members turn testing over to a textbook test bank. I want to run screaming into the night when I hear that. In my opinion, an overworked graduate student who does not know you or your students is not in any position to write a legitimate test for your students. When writing this blog, I sometimes discuss what I would do if I were king of education. Burning all test banks would be one of my first royal acts.
Yes, I know you are extremely busy. But abdicating this valuable task to a person who might never have taught a single class (or a class like yours) makes no sense. Any test in your class should be designed for your students based on what you have covered and based on what you want them to know. It should not be composed of randomly selected questions written by some mysterious stranger. To me, using a test bank is like asking Mickey Mouse to pinch hit for Babe Ruth. You are giving away an essential element of the course to someone who might not be up to the task.
Over the decades, I have worked very hard to learn how to write good questions. During those years, I have written some questions that were horrible. But, I have learned much from that experience.
--The first thing I learned about test writing was that a question that everyone could answer was useless.
--The second thing that I learned was that a question that no one could answer was also useless.
As with any task, you practice and you look at the results and you get better. You don’t hand off an essential part of your course to a test bank.
As everyone who has read this blog for long probably knows, one of the things I started doing about 8 years ago was allowing students to bring handwritten notes to every test. That immediately stopped me from writing questions that required memorization because the students had all that material written down and in front of them.
That was a good start but that was not enough. Allowing notes pushed me in the right direction but it did not get me to the tests I wanted. It takes practice and study.
About 3 weeks ago, I wrote a 75 minute test for my introduction to Financial Accounting class here at the University of Richmond. This test was the last one of the semester (prior to the final exam). By that time, I surely believed that everyone in the class had come to understand what I wanted them to accomplish. So, I wanted to test the material in such a way as to see how deeply they really did understand it.
I wrote 12 multiple-choice questions designed to take about 4-8 minutes each. For accounting tests that are often numerically based, I like multiple-choice questions because I can give 6-8 potential answers and, therefore, limit the possibility of a lucky guess.
In writing the first four of these questions, I tried to envision what an A student could figure out but that a B student could not. In other words, I wanted these four questions to show me the point between Good and Excellent. These were tough. For those questions, I really didn’t worry about the C, D, or F students. These questions were designed specifically to see if I could divide the A students from the B students.
The next four questions were created to divide the B students from the C students. They were easier questions but a student would have to have a Good level of understanding to figure them out. I knew the A students could work these questions and I knew the D students could not work them. These four were written to split the B students from the C students.
The final four questions were created to divide the C students from those with a lesser level of understanding. They were easier but still not easy. I wanted to see who deserved a C and who did not. If a student could get those four questions correct, that (to me) was average work. Those students deserved at least a C. But, if a student could not get those four, they really had failed to achieve a basic level of understanding worthy of a C.
Then, I shuffled the 12 questions and gave them to my students.
How did this test work out in practice? Pretty well. When it was over, I put the papers in order from best to worse to see if I was comfortable with the results. I genuinely felt like I could tell the A students from the B students from the C students from everyone else. And, isn’t that a primary reason for giving a test?
Okay, I had to create a pretty interesting curve to get the grades to line up with what I thought I was seeing. But I am the teacher for this class. That evaluation should be mine. I tell my students early in the semester that I do not grade on raw percentages. Getting 66 percent of the questions correct should not automatically be a D. In fact, in many cases, getting 66 percent of the questions correct might well be a very impressive performance. It depends on the difficulty of the questions.
After the first test, students will often ask something like, “I only got four questions out of 12 correct and I still got a C, how can that be?” My answer is simple “by answering those four questions, you have shown me how much you have understood and I thought that level of understanding deserved a C.”
If I take an adequate amount of time and write good questions, I believe I can gain a good evaluation of the knowledge of the student. And I usually find they will work harder after that to achieve a deeper level of understanding because they begin to see what I am after. The way you test is the way your students will learn.
Monday, 26 November 2012
BE THE STREAM AND NOT THE ROCK
Last week, in each of my three classes, we were covering some extremely difficult material. The students came to class well prepared for the most part. They did a good job of analyzing and discussing the issues. They came up with reasonable solutions. They were certainly not perfect but they demonstrated a solid understanding of some truly complicated concepts. I was proud of them. They had come a long way.
As long as I keep them moving toward the goals, we will get there.
I also have facilitating goals that I use to help the class get to my long-term goals.
We are now down to the last few days of the semester. I was extremely happy to see such a good effort here near the end. Even a grump like me had to be pleased. Virtually every student in class had demonstrated a real improvement since we began back in August. They not only knew more financial accounting but, just as importantly to me, they knew more about how to be good students.
At times like these, I am always reminded of a quote that I heard a number of years ago, one that I think is terribly relevant to teaching: "In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins--not through strength but by perseverance." Every semester I set out to be the stream.
In other words, no matter how frustrated I get with my students during the semester, if I keep my long-term goals in mind and if I pound on the students day in and day out to get to that goal, I WILL WIN. I will simply wear down their resistance and teach them how to do what I want them to do.
Okay, I never have a 100 percent success rate. If a student sets out to fail, there is not much I can do about that. However, most students really do not want to fail. They would actually like to learn the material (at least at some level) and make a decent grade.
To me, then, the only real question is whether I will get them to do what I want them to do so that they will learn the material and get that decent grade.
And the answer is: "In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins--not through strength but by perseverance."
I am convinced, when the students walk in on the first day of the semester, that I am the stream and they are the rocks and I will get them to learn what I think they need to know because I am going to stay focused on my long term goals. To be a good teacher you need that extreme level of perseverance (or maybe “infinite patience” is a better way to put it). Perseverance is a great help in becoming a good teacher.
If you have read my blog previously, you know that I always have two long-term goals right from the beginning of each semester:
--On the last day of class, I want my students to say “I never knew I could work so hard, I never knew I could learn so much, I never knew I could think so deeply, and it was actually fun.”
--On the last day of class, I want my students to say “I understand this material so well that I can solve problems without needing the teacher.”
I think those are educational goals worth achieving. They make people better. However, your goals may be radically different than mine. That is absolutely fine. I just feel like these two goals work best for me. You need to determine what goals work best for you.
I also have facilitating goals that I use to help the class get to my long-term goals.
--Every day, I want my students to come to class adequately prepared based on specific assignments that I have given them previously. If they are not prepared, I am upset with them.
--Every day, I want my students to participate by analyzing new situations I pose in class. I want their knowledge to always be pushing into new and unknown territory.
--Every day, I want my students to go beyond memorization to achieve a level of understanding that allows them to solve questions and problems at a deeper level.
--After class, I want my students to organize the material that has been covered that day to help them come to a more concrete level of knowledge. I don’t want them to quit when they just have “jello knowledge” but to keep working until they have a solid understanding. Most student leave class with a squishy level of knowledge (jello knowledge) that requires more thought, work, and organization before it is truly solid.
Does it work? At first, of course not. But, that’s normal; that is no reason to give up. If I keep pushing them and guiding them and working on their mistakes, they gradually improve. Learning is a slow, methodical process. My only concern is whether I can get them to my goals by the last day of the semester. And I have a strong belief that "In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins--not through strength but by perseverance." Keep pushing and they will make it.
Always!
Tuesday, 17 April 2012
PERSONAL NOTE FROM JOE
This blog went over 50,000 views a few days ago. Obviously, no one would have ever heard of this blog over the past 27 months if it weren’t for people like you who have spread the word. First, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. I cannot tell you how very much I appreciate your helping out by telling other people about my writings.
Second, I’d like to ask you for a very personal favor. The second edition of my Financial Accounting textbook that I wrote with C. J. Skender (of UNC) came out today. (Today!!!!) I feel like I just experienced the birth of another child. I thought the first edition was good but I honestly think the second edition is great. It approaches the introduction of financial accounting differently because it is written in a Socratic Method style. It is the book that I have always wanted to write and I am thrilled with it. It covers what I think college students should learn in an introductory course. And, although I am obviously biased, I like to think it is written in an interesting and engaging style – using hundreds of real world examples.
After 41 years, I know two things for sure: (1) faculty members are often very critical of textbooks and (2) faculty members rarely change textbooks. I hear a lot of excuses for the tendency to stick with a textbook even if it is hated by all involved (the teacher and the students). I think adopting a bad textbook semester after semester is an awful educational practice, one that can only cause students to suffer.
Textbooks will never get better if professors aren’t open to new alternatives. That’s how the market system is supposed to work. Without real competition for adoptions, the products grow stale and stop being innovative.
Okay, so here’s the favor I am asking. If you teach financial accounting at a two-year or four-year college or in an MBA program, request a copy of the second edition of our Financial Accounting textbook and read one chapter. That’s all I ask. Don’t believe me. Heck, I’m biased. Read the buildings and equipment chapter (chapter 10) or the investments chapter (chapter 12) or the accounts receivable chapter (chapter 7). Or read the very first chapter where we talk about why learning financial accounting is important. Pretend you are a 19 year old college student. Could you read this book and understand it? Is it interesting? Does it cover what you want to teach?
Or, if you don’t teach financial accounting, if you know someone who does teach that course, forward this note to them. The book is published by Flat World Knowledge so the students get to use the book online for free. Yes, the students don’t pay $250 for this textbook. They can use the book online from day one for free. Why have them pay $250 for a book you hate and they hate?
Anyone who would like to receive a copy for adoption consideration should send a note to Becky Knauer at faculty@flatworldknowledge.com. It’s easy and quick. Be a wise decision maker – look at the alternatives.
And, in case you are interested, here is how the book opens. This sample provides a pretty good picture of the whole book. My goal was to catch the students’ attention right from the start and try to stimulate their curiosity. And, maybe most importantly, I wanted to push the real world into the students’ laps.
Question: In the June 30, 2011, edition of The Wall Street Journal, numerous headlines described the recent activities of various business organizations. Here are just a few:
“TMX and LSE Give Up on Planned Merger”
“Ally Financial Faces Charge for Mortgage Losses”
“HomeAway Jumps 49% in Debut”
“Ad-Seller Acquiring Myspace for a Song”
Millions of individuals around the world read such stories each day with rapt interest. From teen-agers to elderly billionaires, this type of information is analyzed obsessively. How are these people able to understand all the data and details being provided? For most, the secret is straightforward: a strong knowledge of financial accounting.
This textbook provides an introduction to financial accounting. A logical place to begin such an exploration is to ask the obvious question: What is financial accounting?
Answer: In simplest terms, financial accounting is the communication of information about a business or other type of organization (such as a charity or government) so that individuals can assess its financial health and future prospects. No single word is more relevant to financial accounting than “information.”
Second, I’d like to ask you for a very personal favor. The second edition of my Financial Accounting textbook that I wrote with C. J. Skender (of UNC) came out today. (Today!!!!) I feel like I just experienced the birth of another child. I thought the first edition was good but I honestly think the second edition is great. It approaches the introduction of financial accounting differently because it is written in a Socratic Method style. It is the book that I have always wanted to write and I am thrilled with it. It covers what I think college students should learn in an introductory course. And, although I am obviously biased, I like to think it is written in an interesting and engaging style – using hundreds of real world examples.
After 41 years, I know two things for sure: (1) faculty members are often very critical of textbooks and (2) faculty members rarely change textbooks. I hear a lot of excuses for the tendency to stick with a textbook even if it is hated by all involved (the teacher and the students). I think adopting a bad textbook semester after semester is an awful educational practice, one that can only cause students to suffer.
Textbooks will never get better if professors aren’t open to new alternatives. That’s how the market system is supposed to work. Without real competition for adoptions, the products grow stale and stop being innovative.
Okay, so here’s the favor I am asking. If you teach financial accounting at a two-year or four-year college or in an MBA program, request a copy of the second edition of our Financial Accounting textbook and read one chapter. That’s all I ask. Don’t believe me. Heck, I’m biased. Read the buildings and equipment chapter (chapter 10) or the investments chapter (chapter 12) or the accounts receivable chapter (chapter 7). Or read the very first chapter where we talk about why learning financial accounting is important. Pretend you are a 19 year old college student. Could you read this book and understand it? Is it interesting? Does it cover what you want to teach?
Or, if you don’t teach financial accounting, if you know someone who does teach that course, forward this note to them. The book is published by Flat World Knowledge so the students get to use the book online for free. Yes, the students don’t pay $250 for this textbook. They can use the book online from day one for free. Why have them pay $250 for a book you hate and they hate?
Anyone who would like to receive a copy for adoption consideration should send a note to Becky Knauer at faculty@flatworldknowledge.com. It’s easy and quick. Be a wise decision maker – look at the alternatives.
And, in case you are interested, here is how the book opens. This sample provides a pretty good picture of the whole book. My goal was to catch the students’ attention right from the start and try to stimulate their curiosity. And, maybe most importantly, I wanted to push the real world into the students’ laps.
Question: In the June 30, 2011, edition of The Wall Street Journal, numerous headlines described the recent activities of various business organizations. Here are just a few:
“TMX and LSE Give Up on Planned Merger”
“Ally Financial Faces Charge for Mortgage Losses”
“HomeAway Jumps 49% in Debut”
“Ad-Seller Acquiring Myspace for a Song”
Millions of individuals around the world read such stories each day with rapt interest. From teen-agers to elderly billionaires, this type of information is analyzed obsessively. How are these people able to understand all the data and details being provided? For most, the secret is straightforward: a strong knowledge of financial accounting.
This textbook provides an introduction to financial accounting. A logical place to begin such an exploration is to ask the obvious question: What is financial accounting?
Answer: In simplest terms, financial accounting is the communication of information about a business or other type of organization (such as a charity or government) so that individuals can assess its financial health and future prospects. No single word is more relevant to financial accounting than “information.”
Tuesday, 3 January 2012
My Favorite Quotes about Teaching – Number Four
Before I write about my next favorite quote about teaching, I have a quick announcement. I know that a lot of the folks who read this blog teach accounting. As most of you probably know, I am the coauthor of an Advanced Accounting textbook (McGraw-Hill) and an Introduction to Financial Accounting textbook (Flat World Knowledge). Over the past 6-8 months, I have spent an incredible amount of time helping to create the second edition of the Financial Accounting textbook (with C.J. Skender of UNC). That second edition will be coming out in the next 4-5 weeks. The book was very successful in the first edition but (as you might imagine) I’d love to increase that adoption rate for the second edition. We didn’t make any huge changes but we must have made 1,000 small tweaks. I was pleased with the first edition but I’m truly ecstatic about the second. I know it is a cliché but we set out to build a better mousetrap. For example, it is the only Socratic Method textbook that you will probably ever see.
We wanted to produce a book that would interest and excite every student who was studying accounting. If a student gets interested and excited about any topic, the learning process becomes so much easier. The textbook is free online while the paperback version only costs students about $40.
If you would like to receive a copy of the second edition when it comes out, drop me an email at Jhoyle@richmond.edu. Give me your name, your mailing address, your school, and when you will be teaching Financial Accounting. I’ll make sure you get one of the first copies of the second edition when it rolls off the press.
**
I seem to pick up quotes about teaching everywhere I go. My fourth favorite quote comes from a very unlikely source. I eat lunch occasionally at the Jimmy John’s deli that is near my campus. They have a lot of interesting signs on the walls but one always catches my attention:
“If you think your teacher is tough, wait until you have a boss.”
I will sit and think about that quote for an entire turkey sub.
I don’t think you should ever be rude or mean to students. That is not appropriate behavior. I also don’t believe that meanness helps the learning process. However, I don’t think you have to treat students like delicate flowers either. I feel that one of the kindest things you can do is to be truly tough on your students. Don’t you want to make them better? How do you make them better without challenging them?
When a student is wrong, I don’t see any reason not to say so.
When a student seems to be loafing, I don’t see any reason not to say so.
When a student is not thinking deeply enough, I don’t see any reason not to say so.
When a student is not giving you their best, I don’t see any reason not to say so.
I know teachers who will tell me “I could never be too critical of a student; I might hurt their feelings.”
Bah, humbug.
Again, I don’t see any reason to be mean but if a student gives me a dumb answer, I don’t see any reason not to tell them right then that I think it is dumb. Or, at least, tell them they can do better. Or, challenge them to think harder.
We often seem to forget that the students who are under our charge will be out in the real world in 1-4 years and the real world can be completely unmerciful. I’m not in the least bit sure we are doing our students a favor if we treat them too kindly.
When I think about my 41 year career, I have never once wanted to be considered “a kindly old professor” or “a swell guy.” Instead, I’ve always wanted my students to believe “he was always fair but he sure as heck did push and challenge us every minute of every class to do better. He was really tough and demanded our best.”
I simply believe our entire school system would be better off if every teacher was tougher.
One of my favorite questions in class is “if you had a job and you were in a business meeting and you gave that last answer, what would your boss say?” I think that is a very legitimate question for college students. And, most students will look extremely sheepish when you ask them that. Most of the time, they know when they have handed you a dumb or unprepared answer.
If a student gives you a bad answer and you smile politely and nod, what has that student learned from you? They have learned that lack of preparation and shallow thinking are adequate for success. Is that really the lesson that we want our students to take from our classes into the real world?
So, the next time you get an answer in class that you don’t like, ask yourself: How is the best way to push this student to do better as they move toward the real world? Just remember - if you accept dumb answers in class, don’t be surprised by the sheer quantity of dumb answers that you start to receive.
Jimmy John’s says: “If you think your teacher is tough, wait until you have a boss.” What I would like to see that quote change to is: “When you eventually have a boss, you’ll be so happy that you had that truly challenging teacher.”
We wanted to produce a book that would interest and excite every student who was studying accounting. If a student gets interested and excited about any topic, the learning process becomes so much easier. The textbook is free online while the paperback version only costs students about $40.
If you would like to receive a copy of the second edition when it comes out, drop me an email at Jhoyle@richmond.edu. Give me your name, your mailing address, your school, and when you will be teaching Financial Accounting. I’ll make sure you get one of the first copies of the second edition when it rolls off the press.
**
I seem to pick up quotes about teaching everywhere I go. My fourth favorite quote comes from a very unlikely source. I eat lunch occasionally at the Jimmy John’s deli that is near my campus. They have a lot of interesting signs on the walls but one always catches my attention:
“If you think your teacher is tough, wait until you have a boss.”
I will sit and think about that quote for an entire turkey sub.
I don’t think you should ever be rude or mean to students. That is not appropriate behavior. I also don’t believe that meanness helps the learning process. However, I don’t think you have to treat students like delicate flowers either. I feel that one of the kindest things you can do is to be truly tough on your students. Don’t you want to make them better? How do you make them better without challenging them?
When a student is wrong, I don’t see any reason not to say so.
When a student seems to be loafing, I don’t see any reason not to say so.
When a student is not thinking deeply enough, I don’t see any reason not to say so.
When a student is not giving you their best, I don’t see any reason not to say so.
I know teachers who will tell me “I could never be too critical of a student; I might hurt their feelings.”
Bah, humbug.
Again, I don’t see any reason to be mean but if a student gives me a dumb answer, I don’t see any reason not to tell them right then that I think it is dumb. Or, at least, tell them they can do better. Or, challenge them to think harder.
We often seem to forget that the students who are under our charge will be out in the real world in 1-4 years and the real world can be completely unmerciful. I’m not in the least bit sure we are doing our students a favor if we treat them too kindly.
When I think about my 41 year career, I have never once wanted to be considered “a kindly old professor” or “a swell guy.” Instead, I’ve always wanted my students to believe “he was always fair but he sure as heck did push and challenge us every minute of every class to do better. He was really tough and demanded our best.”
I simply believe our entire school system would be better off if every teacher was tougher.
One of my favorite questions in class is “if you had a job and you were in a business meeting and you gave that last answer, what would your boss say?” I think that is a very legitimate question for college students. And, most students will look extremely sheepish when you ask them that. Most of the time, they know when they have handed you a dumb or unprepared answer.
If a student gives you a bad answer and you smile politely and nod, what has that student learned from you? They have learned that lack of preparation and shallow thinking are adequate for success. Is that really the lesson that we want our students to take from our classes into the real world?
So, the next time you get an answer in class that you don’t like, ask yourself: How is the best way to push this student to do better as they move toward the real world? Just remember - if you accept dumb answers in class, don’t be surprised by the sheer quantity of dumb answers that you start to receive.
Jimmy John’s says: “If you think your teacher is tough, wait until you have a boss.” What I would like to see that quote change to is: “When you eventually have a boss, you’ll be so happy that you had that truly challenging teacher.”
Monday, 15 November 2010
Annoying or Amusing?
I had the genuine pleasure this past Thursday of speaking to 150 new faculty members in the Virginia Community College System. It is always a treat to work with people at the very beginning of their teaching careers. They have such a wonderful opportunity to help change the world.
One of the themes that I explored with the group was the idea of improvement. If you continue to improve as a teacher, year after year, you will get very good and eventually become great. And, the amount of annual improvement doesn’t have to be huge. In connection with their teaching, I suggested that every person work toward making a mere 5 percent improvement per year. That is doable and at that rate, in not too many years, you can become the best teacher in your building.
However, a great majority of teachers get better for awhile but eventually plateau. Many people who were B- teachers two decades ago are still B- teachers. I find that troubling. Why doesn't a B- teacher eventually become an A+ teacher?
There is a point where it simply becomes easy to say “I am what I am and I am never going to get any better so I’m not even going to try.” As you can imagine, that is not an attitude that I like. As far as I’m concerned, if I am not dead, I should be working to get better.
The question comes up, then, as to what causes a teacher to plateau. I have known a fair share of people who were good teachers and then suddenly began to become disgruntled. After that, they never got one bit better.
When does that happen? I have a theory. When you first start teaching, it is easy to find your students amusing. My students are all about 19 years old and I occasionally refer to them as puppies. They are just beginning to try out the responsibilities of adult life. As with growing puppies, this time can often be a very humorous period of transition.
However, there can come a time when those same students and those same actions can become annoying. A student will say something bizarre and instead of finding it amusing, the professor finds the student’s ignorance to be annoying.
In fact, if a professor ever says to you, “students simply aren’t like they used to be,” that is a clear sign that they have gone from viewing students as amusing to annoying.
If you find students in general to be amusing, then you are willing to do the work that is necessary to continue to improve. Five percent improvement is clearly a possibility. But, if the students have started to annoy you, then improvement becomes a much more difficult task. It is very easy, at that essential moment, to hit that plateau where your days of improvement cease.
So, wherever possible, I try to view the actions of my students as relatively amusing. And, even though they do incredibly dumb things at times, I try to avoid staying in a constant state of annoyance. The reason is fairly obvious. I really do want to get better. I want to get 5 percent better by this time next year. And, that is hard to accomplish if everything the students do seems to annoy you.
One of the themes that I explored with the group was the idea of improvement. If you continue to improve as a teacher, year after year, you will get very good and eventually become great. And, the amount of annual improvement doesn’t have to be huge. In connection with their teaching, I suggested that every person work toward making a mere 5 percent improvement per year. That is doable and at that rate, in not too many years, you can become the best teacher in your building.
However, a great majority of teachers get better for awhile but eventually plateau. Many people who were B- teachers two decades ago are still B- teachers. I find that troubling. Why doesn't a B- teacher eventually become an A+ teacher?
There is a point where it simply becomes easy to say “I am what I am and I am never going to get any better so I’m not even going to try.” As you can imagine, that is not an attitude that I like. As far as I’m concerned, if I am not dead, I should be working to get better.
The question comes up, then, as to what causes a teacher to plateau. I have known a fair share of people who were good teachers and then suddenly began to become disgruntled. After that, they never got one bit better.
When does that happen? I have a theory. When you first start teaching, it is easy to find your students amusing. My students are all about 19 years old and I occasionally refer to them as puppies. They are just beginning to try out the responsibilities of adult life. As with growing puppies, this time can often be a very humorous period of transition.
However, there can come a time when those same students and those same actions can become annoying. A student will say something bizarre and instead of finding it amusing, the professor finds the student’s ignorance to be annoying.
In fact, if a professor ever says to you, “students simply aren’t like they used to be,” that is a clear sign that they have gone from viewing students as amusing to annoying.
If you find students in general to be amusing, then you are willing to do the work that is necessary to continue to improve. Five percent improvement is clearly a possibility. But, if the students have started to annoy you, then improvement becomes a much more difficult task. It is very easy, at that essential moment, to hit that plateau where your days of improvement cease.
So, wherever possible, I try to view the actions of my students as relatively amusing. And, even though they do incredibly dumb things at times, I try to avoid staying in a constant state of annoyance. The reason is fairly obvious. I really do want to get better. I want to get 5 percent better by this time next year. And, that is hard to accomplish if everything the students do seems to annoy you.
Saturday, 14 August 2010
Getting The Right Answer Is Not Enough
I start my classes again in 9 days. Even after 39 years, I am always tense as to what I want to say to my students on the first day. They have been in school for 15-16 previous years and, unfortunately, some of them expect every class to be more of the same. A few (maybe more) start off with a poor attitude. I am a big believer in first impressions. I want to get the class off to the perfect start. I want the students to realize that I want something different from them. They are college students, more should be demanded of them. But, if all you’ve ever been asked to do is memorize, it is hard to believe there is something more that the teacher might want.
I got a note today from Steve Markoff, a friend of mine who teaches at Montclair State. He told me about a book where computers were programmed to come up with the perfect move each time in various backgammon situations. The book, then, tries to help the reader figure out why each of those moves was the right one. The computer starts you off with the right move—you have to analyze the situation and figure out why it is the best possible answer.
Steve’s comment was something like “That’s what I want from my own college students—to go beyond just getting the right answer and be able to tell me why it was the right answer.”
Then, I knew what I should tell my students on the first day of the fall semester. From my perspective, too many classes focus on getting the right answer as the ultimate goal-that leads to memorization. I want my students to focus on understanding what is going on and why. How do I convey that desire? Simple—tell them: “When you get the right answer, you are half way home. You still need to be able to explain to me why it is the right answer.”
I think that is an understandable goal-one that will help my students know, right from the start, that I’m stressing something more complicated than what they might have expected.
I got a note today from Steve Markoff, a friend of mine who teaches at Montclair State. He told me about a book where computers were programmed to come up with the perfect move each time in various backgammon situations. The book, then, tries to help the reader figure out why each of those moves was the right one. The computer starts you off with the right move—you have to analyze the situation and figure out why it is the best possible answer.
Steve’s comment was something like “That’s what I want from my own college students—to go beyond just getting the right answer and be able to tell me why it was the right answer.”
Then, I knew what I should tell my students on the first day of the fall semester. From my perspective, too many classes focus on getting the right answer as the ultimate goal-that leads to memorization. I want my students to focus on understanding what is going on and why. How do I convey that desire? Simple—tell them: “When you get the right answer, you are half way home. You still need to be able to explain to me why it is the right answer.”
I think that is an understandable goal-one that will help my students know, right from the start, that I’m stressing something more complicated than what they might have expected.
Wednesday, 12 May 2010
What Is The Purpose of a Final Examination?
Why do you give a final exam to your classes? What do you hope to accomplish? I have talked with lots of professors over the years and their strategies for giving final examinations seem to vary significantly from one to the next:
--It is a comprehensive examination on the material from the entire semester with a major grade component.
--It is a one-hour test on just the material since the last hourly exam with no added weight in comparison to other tests.
--It is basically ignored; it is the work for the entire semester that is more important than what a person can do on one day at the end of the semester.
--It is a little harder than a one-hour test but students can only improve their grades and cannot hurt them.
I do know that as I walk through our building during final exams that most students seem to leave well before the three-hour time limit is reached. I am not sure that many final exams are still three hours in length.
I have always been interested in the final exams that are given by some law school professors. The entire grade for the whole semester is based on what the student can do on the final exam questions. Nothing else counts. The rationale is that, if you are going to be a lawyer, you need to be at your very best every day that you walk into court no matter what is thrown at you. There can be no down days.
However, I am teaching 19-20 year old sophomores and juniors in college and not 25-30 year old law students. I am afraid that I would have students facing nervous breakdowns if I put the whole grade on the final exam.
So, what are my goals for the final exam? Psychologically, what am I trying to accomplish?
---I want students to stay emotionally involved with my class all the way through the last day. I am not interested in them quitting early. Thus, the final exam has to count enough to make it worth their time to keep working. In my 201 class, the final exam is 35 percent of the overall grade. I have found that this is enough to keep them emotionally involved.
---I want to give students who do poorly on the first (and, even, second) test of the semester a chance to improve their grades. If a student makes a C or a D (or an F) on the first test, it can be very disheartening. It is easy to give up. I do everything I can to keep them from giving up. I like to be able to say “if you can show me that you can learn this material, you still have a lot of your grade left to earn including a comprehensive final examination.” Nothing pleases me more than for a student to make a low C or a D on the first test and then come roaring back to make an A for the course. That is hard to do unless the final examination has a pretty serious weight attached to it.
---Likewise, I don’t like students who do well on the first test to get complacent and think they have an A in the bag. “Good job on this first test but realize that there is a lot of semester left and I want you to keep up this level of work from beginning to end.”
---I want students to understand the material well enough that they can still answer questions from throughout the semester at the end. If we cover inventory in February, I think they should still be able to answer questions on that topic in early May. Since I want to stress understanding more than memorization, I don’t think that is too much to ask.
As a result, I do give a comprehensive final examination and I do grade it and that grade (for better or worse) counts 35 percent of the overall course grade. In my introductory course financial accounting course, I want the first student to leave after 2 hours and the last student to finish at 3 hours. I like it when about half stay virtually the whole time. For intermediate accounting, I want the first person to finish in three hours but everyone else is relatively close to being finished. The material in that course is so complicated that I don’t see how a final exam can take less than three hours.
So, I line up all the topics for the entire semester on a sheet of paper and pick one pretty much at random (nonmonetary exchanges, for example). I then ask myself – if one of my students is at a job in six-months and this topic is raised, what should I expect an A student to be able to remember after five minutes of review? In all honesty, I would love to say “what should I expect an A student to be able to remember immediately” but I don’t think that is realistic. People forget everything quickly (even financial accounting). 39 years of teaching has shown me that students never remember quite as much as you might hope.
Based on the answer to that question, I write a problem to see if they still hold that level of knowledge now. For example, a company buys a truck on January 1, Year One for $80,000 with a $6,000 residual value. It has an estimated life of 10 years and the company is using double-declining balance depreciation without the half-year convention. On April 1, Year Three, when this truck is worth $53,200, it is traded for another truck which is worth $53,600. What gain or loss (if any) does the company record on the exchange?
The rule is straight-forward here. Not an easy question but not an impossibly hard question.
If students truly understand GAAP in this area, even after six months, with five-minutes of solid review, they should be able to answer this question.
Thus, I would use it as an appropriate final examination question.
Setting up the final exam in this way keeps the students (I hope) thinking about financial accounting all the way until the end of the semester. And, it gives them one last chance to make up for any poor grades they have earned during the semester.
What’s your philosophy? Why do you give a final exam?
--It is a comprehensive examination on the material from the entire semester with a major grade component.
--It is a one-hour test on just the material since the last hourly exam with no added weight in comparison to other tests.
--It is basically ignored; it is the work for the entire semester that is more important than what a person can do on one day at the end of the semester.
--It is a little harder than a one-hour test but students can only improve their grades and cannot hurt them.
I do know that as I walk through our building during final exams that most students seem to leave well before the three-hour time limit is reached. I am not sure that many final exams are still three hours in length.
I have always been interested in the final exams that are given by some law school professors. The entire grade for the whole semester is based on what the student can do on the final exam questions. Nothing else counts. The rationale is that, if you are going to be a lawyer, you need to be at your very best every day that you walk into court no matter what is thrown at you. There can be no down days.
However, I am teaching 19-20 year old sophomores and juniors in college and not 25-30 year old law students. I am afraid that I would have students facing nervous breakdowns if I put the whole grade on the final exam.
So, what are my goals for the final exam? Psychologically, what am I trying to accomplish?
---I want students to stay emotionally involved with my class all the way through the last day. I am not interested in them quitting early. Thus, the final exam has to count enough to make it worth their time to keep working. In my 201 class, the final exam is 35 percent of the overall grade. I have found that this is enough to keep them emotionally involved.
---I want to give students who do poorly on the first (and, even, second) test of the semester a chance to improve their grades. If a student makes a C or a D (or an F) on the first test, it can be very disheartening. It is easy to give up. I do everything I can to keep them from giving up. I like to be able to say “if you can show me that you can learn this material, you still have a lot of your grade left to earn including a comprehensive final examination.” Nothing pleases me more than for a student to make a low C or a D on the first test and then come roaring back to make an A for the course. That is hard to do unless the final examination has a pretty serious weight attached to it.
---Likewise, I don’t like students who do well on the first test to get complacent and think they have an A in the bag. “Good job on this first test but realize that there is a lot of semester left and I want you to keep up this level of work from beginning to end.”
---I want students to understand the material well enough that they can still answer questions from throughout the semester at the end. If we cover inventory in February, I think they should still be able to answer questions on that topic in early May. Since I want to stress understanding more than memorization, I don’t think that is too much to ask.
As a result, I do give a comprehensive final examination and I do grade it and that grade (for better or worse) counts 35 percent of the overall course grade. In my introductory course financial accounting course, I want the first student to leave after 2 hours and the last student to finish at 3 hours. I like it when about half stay virtually the whole time. For intermediate accounting, I want the first person to finish in three hours but everyone else is relatively close to being finished. The material in that course is so complicated that I don’t see how a final exam can take less than three hours.
So, I line up all the topics for the entire semester on a sheet of paper and pick one pretty much at random (nonmonetary exchanges, for example). I then ask myself – if one of my students is at a job in six-months and this topic is raised, what should I expect an A student to be able to remember after five minutes of review? In all honesty, I would love to say “what should I expect an A student to be able to remember immediately” but I don’t think that is realistic. People forget everything quickly (even financial accounting). 39 years of teaching has shown me that students never remember quite as much as you might hope.
Based on the answer to that question, I write a problem to see if they still hold that level of knowledge now. For example, a company buys a truck on January 1, Year One for $80,000 with a $6,000 residual value. It has an estimated life of 10 years and the company is using double-declining balance depreciation without the half-year convention. On April 1, Year Three, when this truck is worth $53,200, it is traded for another truck which is worth $53,600. What gain or loss (if any) does the company record on the exchange?
The rule is straight-forward here. Not an easy question but not an impossibly hard question.
If students truly understand GAAP in this area, even after six months, with five-minutes of solid review, they should be able to answer this question.
Thus, I would use it as an appropriate final examination question.
Setting up the final exam in this way keeps the students (I hope) thinking about financial accounting all the way until the end of the semester. And, it gives them one last chance to make up for any poor grades they have earned during the semester.
What’s your philosophy? Why do you give a final exam?
Saturday, 8 May 2010
Request for Assistance
If you teach financial accounting, I have a request for you. A friend of mine recently gave me a list of articles (from newspapers, journals, and the like) that he uses in teaching financial accounting. I thought it might be interesting to create a more complete reading list of articles about financial accounting or the topics within financial accounting that I could post for teachers in connection with the new Financial Accounting textbook that I recently wrote with CJ Skender. I am always looking for creative/innovative things to add to "the package" to make the learning process better for teachers and students both. Consequently, if any of you who read this blog have articles that you use in teaching financial accounting or know of articles that might apply, could you send them to me? Just a list of the publication and date would be fine - I can dig them up from there. Just send me a note at Jhoyle@richmond.edu.
Likewise, if you've ever thought "I wish a textbook had the following," let me know. FlatWorldKnowledge (the book’s publisher) has let me do whatever I thought might be helpful for student learning but I'm always limited to my own ideas. If you have suggestions, I would love to hear them.
I always believe that a textbook should be more of a community project. I would love for you to be part of that community in connection with this textbook.
Likewise, if you've ever thought "I wish a textbook had the following," let me know. FlatWorldKnowledge (the book’s publisher) has let me do whatever I thought might be helpful for student learning but I'm always limited to my own ideas. If you have suggestions, I would love to hear them.
I always believe that a textbook should be more of a community project. I would love for you to be part of that community in connection with this textbook.
Friday, 7 May 2010
Making Summer Count
In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell talks about how much knowledge students lose over the summer time. Although he is looking at younger students, the amount is incredible. For some reason, we seem to hold the philosophy that summer time is a “no brain” time where students should do as little as possible that might stimulate their thinking. I’m not sure that is a very good idea.
Consequently, last week, I sent an email message to the 37 students who will be in my Financial Accounting courses next fall. (I will also be teaching one section of Intermediate Accounting II.)
I wanted to get the students’ attention.
I wanted to start convincing them that Financial Accounting was going to be challenging but very much worth that challenge.
Most importantly, I wanted them to have the opportunity to make use of their summer vacation to get ready for next fall. Why not? What is wrong with wanting to learn more? I don’t accept the premise that my students want to learn as little as possible. Some students certainly have little ambition but most, from my experience, don’t mind spending the time if they think the effort is worthwhile.
So, I sent them the following email. Please note that I have assigned my own Financial Accounting textbook here. However, since the textbook is a FREE online textbook, you can still use this “summer assignment” even if you have chosen to use some other book in the fall. There are some real advantages to “FREE online.”
(Interestingly, I got several emails in return from my future students talking about how much they were looking forward to the class.)
Email sent to the students who signed up for my Financial Accounting course in the fall:
“Hi, I’m on the faculty here at the University of Richmond and I am sending this note to the 37 students who have signed up for my two Accounting 201 sections for the fall semester. Okay, I realize that some of you will have to switch sections before the fall semester begins but I imagine that 80-90 percent of you will be in my class next fall.
“I want this to be a great experience for you. I don’t want this to be “just another class.” I want you to work hard; I want you to learn a ton; I want you to enjoy the process. On the last day of the class, I want you to walk away and say “Wow, I didn’t know learning could be that great.”
“To help make this happen, I want to convey a bit of information to you today before you leave campus for the summer. Please take time to read all of this note so that we are on the same page.
“First--My 201 classes in the fall semester will use the Financial Accounting textbook that I wrote with C. J. Skender (of UNC). This is a free online textbook. So, if you get bored over the summer, you can start reading now. That would give you a huge head start for the fall. Instead of rushing to finish assignments, you could read the book leisurely over the summer. Go to www.flatworldknowledge.com. Click on “catalogue.” Then, under “Business and Economics,” click on “Accounting and Tax” and then on “Financial Accounting.” At that point, you should see a list of chapters. Click on Chapter 1 and start reading. If you read 5 minutes per day, you could read the entire book over the summer.
“When I designed this book, I was trying to “revolutionize” textbooks so you’ll find that it is different. It is written entirely in a question and answer format (the Socratic Method) and has videos and embedded multiple-choice questions. I used it in my class this semester and, although they might not be too honest with me, the students seemed to find the reading interesting and informative.
“When you come back in the fall, the book store will have color copies available for roughly $60.00 and black and white copies for roughly $30.00. However, as far as I’m concerned, use the online version and save your money.
“Second--The world of business is absolutely fascinating. Whether it is marketing, production, finance, human resources, or accounting, it is like a giant puzzle with an infinite amount to figure out. Most college students walk into a 201 class on the first day with little serious knowledge about business. As teen-agers, most students just miss out on the fun of business. What is it like to start a business? What is it like to talk customers into buying your products? What is it like to find the money needed for expansion? The more you learn, the more the business world will open to you. One strong suggestion that I would have is to spend an hour or two in the library each week and read (just randomly read) the Wall Street Journal, Forbes magazine, Business Week, or Fortune. Don’t try to learn anything – just read. You will be amazed by what you start to discover. And, it will make class in the fall go so much better. Instead of starting off at absolute zero, you will walk into class with important terms fresh in your mind. Things will just make more sense.
“Third--Around August 1, I will start sending you a few preliminary emails to get you ready for the fall semester. There is just some stuff that you need to know in advance. But, you don’t really need any of that until August. I am just trying to alert you to watch out for my emails (I’m not spam). And, to tell you the truth, if you are not going to be where you can get to your email, your life won’t be ruined if you don’t get this stuff. I simply want to make the semester as smooth for you as absolutely possible.
“Fourth--Have a great summer. Get out and enjoy life. At your age (well, at any age), that ought to be a requirement. If you need to get in touch with me, I’m always available at Jhoyle@richmond.edu.
“Fifth--I’ve had a great 201 class this semester. It has been a lot of fun. The students have been active, engaged, curious, questioning, and thoughtful. When you have students like that, it is unbelievable the amount that can be accomplished. My wish for you and Accounting 201 is that you’ll wind up demonstrating those same five characteristics.”
Consequently, last week, I sent an email message to the 37 students who will be in my Financial Accounting courses next fall. (I will also be teaching one section of Intermediate Accounting II.)
I wanted to get the students’ attention.
I wanted to start convincing them that Financial Accounting was going to be challenging but very much worth that challenge.
Most importantly, I wanted them to have the opportunity to make use of their summer vacation to get ready for next fall. Why not? What is wrong with wanting to learn more? I don’t accept the premise that my students want to learn as little as possible. Some students certainly have little ambition but most, from my experience, don’t mind spending the time if they think the effort is worthwhile.
So, I sent them the following email. Please note that I have assigned my own Financial Accounting textbook here. However, since the textbook is a FREE online textbook, you can still use this “summer assignment” even if you have chosen to use some other book in the fall. There are some real advantages to “FREE online.”
(Interestingly, I got several emails in return from my future students talking about how much they were looking forward to the class.)
Email sent to the students who signed up for my Financial Accounting course in the fall:
“Hi, I’m on the faculty here at the University of Richmond and I am sending this note to the 37 students who have signed up for my two Accounting 201 sections for the fall semester. Okay, I realize that some of you will have to switch sections before the fall semester begins but I imagine that 80-90 percent of you will be in my class next fall.
“I want this to be a great experience for you. I don’t want this to be “just another class.” I want you to work hard; I want you to learn a ton; I want you to enjoy the process. On the last day of the class, I want you to walk away and say “Wow, I didn’t know learning could be that great.”
“To help make this happen, I want to convey a bit of information to you today before you leave campus for the summer. Please take time to read all of this note so that we are on the same page.
“First--My 201 classes in the fall semester will use the Financial Accounting textbook that I wrote with C. J. Skender (of UNC). This is a free online textbook. So, if you get bored over the summer, you can start reading now. That would give you a huge head start for the fall. Instead of rushing to finish assignments, you could read the book leisurely over the summer. Go to www.flatworldknowledge.com. Click on “catalogue.” Then, under “Business and Economics,” click on “Accounting and Tax” and then on “Financial Accounting.” At that point, you should see a list of chapters. Click on Chapter 1 and start reading. If you read 5 minutes per day, you could read the entire book over the summer.
“When I designed this book, I was trying to “revolutionize” textbooks so you’ll find that it is different. It is written entirely in a question and answer format (the Socratic Method) and has videos and embedded multiple-choice questions. I used it in my class this semester and, although they might not be too honest with me, the students seemed to find the reading interesting and informative.
“When you come back in the fall, the book store will have color copies available for roughly $60.00 and black and white copies for roughly $30.00. However, as far as I’m concerned, use the online version and save your money.
“Second--The world of business is absolutely fascinating. Whether it is marketing, production, finance, human resources, or accounting, it is like a giant puzzle with an infinite amount to figure out. Most college students walk into a 201 class on the first day with little serious knowledge about business. As teen-agers, most students just miss out on the fun of business. What is it like to start a business? What is it like to talk customers into buying your products? What is it like to find the money needed for expansion? The more you learn, the more the business world will open to you. One strong suggestion that I would have is to spend an hour or two in the library each week and read (just randomly read) the Wall Street Journal, Forbes magazine, Business Week, or Fortune. Don’t try to learn anything – just read. You will be amazed by what you start to discover. And, it will make class in the fall go so much better. Instead of starting off at absolute zero, you will walk into class with important terms fresh in your mind. Things will just make more sense.
“Third--Around August 1, I will start sending you a few preliminary emails to get you ready for the fall semester. There is just some stuff that you need to know in advance. But, you don’t really need any of that until August. I am just trying to alert you to watch out for my emails (I’m not spam). And, to tell you the truth, if you are not going to be where you can get to your email, your life won’t be ruined if you don’t get this stuff. I simply want to make the semester as smooth for you as absolutely possible.
“Fourth--Have a great summer. Get out and enjoy life. At your age (well, at any age), that ought to be a requirement. If you need to get in touch with me, I’m always available at Jhoyle@richmond.edu.
“Fifth--I’ve had a great 201 class this semester. It has been a lot of fun. The students have been active, engaged, curious, questioning, and thoughtful. When you have students like that, it is unbelievable the amount that can be accomplished. My wish for you and Accounting 201 is that you’ll wind up demonstrating those same five characteristics.”
Sunday, 25 April 2010
A Dream
I dreamed about teaching last night. Normally, I do not remember my dreams and, if I do, they are weird snippets that make no sense. Last night was different.
I dreamed that I flew to Arizona (not sure why it was Arizona) for a teaching conference with about 25 other college professors. At the end, one of the participants challenged the group to write down on a sheet of paper what we each believed was the secret to good teaching. In my dream, I wrote down “you have to care enough about your students that you are willing to force them to prepare for every class.” And, I woke up.
I am not sure what I would have written down in real life but it could not have been better than what I wrote down in that dream. I do not think you need to love your students but I do believe you should care about them – even the ones who occasionally drive you crazy. For a short period of time, about 14 weeks twice a year, a small piece of each student’s future is in your hands. Where they go and what they do for the rest of their lives will be influenced ever so slightly by the way you teach that class. To ignore that reality is to abdicate the responsibility you accepted when you chose to become a teacher. I think it is hard to be an excellent teacher if you are not willing to acknowledge that you have the capacity to change lives. I have 81 students this semester. I have had over 6,000 students in my career. At times, it is easy to think of each one as just another brick in the wall. But they are not. They are unique individuals who will go on to have lives and careers. Each one is affected differently by you. The last one is as deserving as the first one. I want to make those lives and those careers a little bit better. If you do not care about your students and how you will change them, why would you do all of the work that it takes to become a good teacher?
And, of course, if you have read this blog or my other writings, you know that I am obsessed about student preparation. If students walk into class having properly prepared themselves, great things can (and probably will) happen every day. Conversely, if students walk into class with no real preparation, Socrates himself would have very limited options. Students are humans. They rarely do work without proper motivation. From kindergarten until the moment before they walk into your class, they may never have had to prepare for any class on a daily basis. They are well trained in not preparing. I think our school systems do a pretty good job but class preparation is not always a priority. So, you have to address the real questions: Am I going to insist on my students being prepared each day and, if so, how will I do that? Will I do it with carrots or will I do it with sticks?
I would bet those two questions are rarely ever considered by most teachers. However, even in my dreams, I have come to believe that these questions form an essential juncture in what a teacher is able to accomplish. James Thurber was a wonderful humorist who wrote short stories and cartoons about 60-70 years ago. In 1939, he concluded: “It is better to ask some of the questions than to know all the answers.” Maybe, in teaching, we worry too much about getting specific answers and not enough about asking the right questions.
Here is my question for you today and, believe it or not, it is based on the dream I had last night: Do you care enough about your students that you are willing to force them to prepare for every class?
I dreamed that I flew to Arizona (not sure why it was Arizona) for a teaching conference with about 25 other college professors. At the end, one of the participants challenged the group to write down on a sheet of paper what we each believed was the secret to good teaching. In my dream, I wrote down “you have to care enough about your students that you are willing to force them to prepare for every class.” And, I woke up.
I am not sure what I would have written down in real life but it could not have been better than what I wrote down in that dream. I do not think you need to love your students but I do believe you should care about them – even the ones who occasionally drive you crazy. For a short period of time, about 14 weeks twice a year, a small piece of each student’s future is in your hands. Where they go and what they do for the rest of their lives will be influenced ever so slightly by the way you teach that class. To ignore that reality is to abdicate the responsibility you accepted when you chose to become a teacher. I think it is hard to be an excellent teacher if you are not willing to acknowledge that you have the capacity to change lives. I have 81 students this semester. I have had over 6,000 students in my career. At times, it is easy to think of each one as just another brick in the wall. But they are not. They are unique individuals who will go on to have lives and careers. Each one is affected differently by you. The last one is as deserving as the first one. I want to make those lives and those careers a little bit better. If you do not care about your students and how you will change them, why would you do all of the work that it takes to become a good teacher?
And, of course, if you have read this blog or my other writings, you know that I am obsessed about student preparation. If students walk into class having properly prepared themselves, great things can (and probably will) happen every day. Conversely, if students walk into class with no real preparation, Socrates himself would have very limited options. Students are humans. They rarely do work without proper motivation. From kindergarten until the moment before they walk into your class, they may never have had to prepare for any class on a daily basis. They are well trained in not preparing. I think our school systems do a pretty good job but class preparation is not always a priority. So, you have to address the real questions: Am I going to insist on my students being prepared each day and, if so, how will I do that? Will I do it with carrots or will I do it with sticks?
I would bet those two questions are rarely ever considered by most teachers. However, even in my dreams, I have come to believe that these questions form an essential juncture in what a teacher is able to accomplish. James Thurber was a wonderful humorist who wrote short stories and cartoons about 60-70 years ago. In 1939, he concluded: “It is better to ask some of the questions than to know all the answers.” Maybe, in teaching, we worry too much about getting specific answers and not enough about asking the right questions.
Here is my question for you today and, believe it or not, it is based on the dream I had last night: Do you care enough about your students that you are willing to force them to prepare for every class?
Saturday, 10 April 2010
14 Questions to Introduce Present Value
When I talk with financial accounting teachers, the topic of present value will eventually come up. Teachers are often puzzled by how much they should cover. Some teachers tell me they skip present value entirely whereas others let me know that they believe extensive coverage is necessary. What does a sophomore in an introductory financial accounting class need to know about present value? What can they really understand? I find that if I throw terms like “discounted cash flows” and “the time value of money” at my sophomores, they quickly become lost. What seems crystal clear to me as the teacher can be puzzling to a young student.
However, if students are going to take other business courses or other accounting courses, they need to have some basic understanding of present value concepts. So, yesterday, in my classes here at the University of Richmond, we began to examine present value.
I did this by looking asking them the following series of questions:
1 – What is interest? (Interest is the charge for using money over time – students seem comfortable with that definition.)
2 – If I buy a piece of land and make a single payment of $200,000 today, how much do I pay and why am I paying that amount? (The students seem puzzled by that question because it is self-evident—you pay $200,000 and you pay it to acquire the land.)
3 – I buy a piece of land and agree to pay $200,000 in exactly two years. In the interim, I will pay an additional 10 percent (or $20,000) each year. How much do I pay and why am I paying that amount? (Students realize that $240,000 is paid--$200,000 for land and $40,000 as interest over the two years. The interest is necessary because of the introduction of time to the cash payment.)
4 – I buy a piece of land and agree to make a single payment of $200,000 in exactly two years. Nothing else is paid. If interest is the charge for using money over time, is it reasonable to believe that some part of that $200,000 will actually be paid as interest with the rest being the amount paid for the land? (This is obviously an essential question. I find that students are open to the possibility that part of the payment is for interest since there is a two-year wait for the cash.)
5 – I buy a piece of land and agree to make a single payment of $200,000 in exactly two years. GAAP requires that we view part of the $200,000 as payment for the land with the remainder as payment for interest since I am delaying my payment. What is our next problem? (Students understand that they do not know how to allocate the $200,000 between the land and the interest. They don’t mind the split but don’t know where to draw the line between the land and the interest.)
6 – Mathematically, we can determine the amount of interest. If we determine the interest and then remove it from the $200,000, what is left? (The remaining amount is what we are paying for the land. Again, that seems self-evident to most students. There are only two possibilities: land and interest.)
7 – Why do we determine the amount of interest and then remove it? (Interest is the charge for using money over time. Since no time has yet passed, there can be no interest at this time.)
8 – What do we mean by present value? (It is a future flow of cash with the interest removed because no time has yet passed.)
9 – When we are making a present value calculation, what are we doing? (Present value is the removal of the interest that we assume is included in the cash flows. The present value calculation removes interest because no time has yet passed.)
10 – If we buy land by agreeing to pay $200,000 in two years, how do we record the acquisition? (Both the land and the liability are recorded at present value. Accountants assume there is a charge for using money over time. Part of the $200,000 is assumed to be for interest. No time has yet passed. Thus, that interest is removed and the rest is the amount of the debt incurred today to buy the land.)
11 – Whether we use a formula, tables, or a spreadsheet, what is the purpose of the present value computation? (It mathematically removes the interest from future cash flows. We don’t have to guess at what part is interest and what part is for the land. The present value computation automatically removes the interest mathematically.)
12 – The land and the liability are both recorded at the present value of the cash flows. What happens at the end of Year One? (Time has now passed. The assumed interest rate is multiplied by the liability [principal] balance and that shows the interest expense to be recorded for that first period. It is not paid right then so it is compounded—the interest is added to the liability [principal] balance. The land account is not changed. Its cost was established when it was first acquired. The liability balance grows.)
13 – What happens at the end of Year Two? (More time has now passed. The assumed interest rate is multiplied by the new liability [principal] balance. That provides the interest expense for the second period. It is recognized and the liability is again increased because of compounding.)
14 – After two years, what is the reported liability balance? (The liability balance will be the $200,000 total that is now due to be paid. Present value removes the interest because no time has passed. The accountant then puts that interest back in over time. Mathematically, the amount has to come back to the total amount of the cash flows. Interest is taken out; then, the interest is put back in.)
Okay, you have to ask the questions carefully and guide your students as they work to get their answers. But I was pleased yesterday. After we had walked through these 14 questions, all of my students seemed to have a basic understanding of the concept of present value. We will practice this until they get smooth. However, that “mathematically remove the interest because time has not yet passed” line is one that they seem to grasp just fine. They are obviously not present value wizards yet but they know enough now that we can build on that knowledge and, eventually, they will be able to go into a finance class and not start out totally lost. And, to me, that is the purpose of an introductory course.
However, if students are going to take other business courses or other accounting courses, they need to have some basic understanding of present value concepts. So, yesterday, in my classes here at the University of Richmond, we began to examine present value.
I did this by looking asking them the following series of questions:
1 – What is interest? (Interest is the charge for using money over time – students seem comfortable with that definition.)
2 – If I buy a piece of land and make a single payment of $200,000 today, how much do I pay and why am I paying that amount? (The students seem puzzled by that question because it is self-evident—you pay $200,000 and you pay it to acquire the land.)
3 – I buy a piece of land and agree to pay $200,000 in exactly two years. In the interim, I will pay an additional 10 percent (or $20,000) each year. How much do I pay and why am I paying that amount? (Students realize that $240,000 is paid--$200,000 for land and $40,000 as interest over the two years. The interest is necessary because of the introduction of time to the cash payment.)
4 – I buy a piece of land and agree to make a single payment of $200,000 in exactly two years. Nothing else is paid. If interest is the charge for using money over time, is it reasonable to believe that some part of that $200,000 will actually be paid as interest with the rest being the amount paid for the land? (This is obviously an essential question. I find that students are open to the possibility that part of the payment is for interest since there is a two-year wait for the cash.)
5 – I buy a piece of land and agree to make a single payment of $200,000 in exactly two years. GAAP requires that we view part of the $200,000 as payment for the land with the remainder as payment for interest since I am delaying my payment. What is our next problem? (Students understand that they do not know how to allocate the $200,000 between the land and the interest. They don’t mind the split but don’t know where to draw the line between the land and the interest.)
6 – Mathematically, we can determine the amount of interest. If we determine the interest and then remove it from the $200,000, what is left? (The remaining amount is what we are paying for the land. Again, that seems self-evident to most students. There are only two possibilities: land and interest.)
7 – Why do we determine the amount of interest and then remove it? (Interest is the charge for using money over time. Since no time has yet passed, there can be no interest at this time.)
8 – What do we mean by present value? (It is a future flow of cash with the interest removed because no time has yet passed.)
9 – When we are making a present value calculation, what are we doing? (Present value is the removal of the interest that we assume is included in the cash flows. The present value calculation removes interest because no time has yet passed.)
10 – If we buy land by agreeing to pay $200,000 in two years, how do we record the acquisition? (Both the land and the liability are recorded at present value. Accountants assume there is a charge for using money over time. Part of the $200,000 is assumed to be for interest. No time has yet passed. Thus, that interest is removed and the rest is the amount of the debt incurred today to buy the land.)
11 – Whether we use a formula, tables, or a spreadsheet, what is the purpose of the present value computation? (It mathematically removes the interest from future cash flows. We don’t have to guess at what part is interest and what part is for the land. The present value computation automatically removes the interest mathematically.)
12 – The land and the liability are both recorded at the present value of the cash flows. What happens at the end of Year One? (Time has now passed. The assumed interest rate is multiplied by the liability [principal] balance and that shows the interest expense to be recorded for that first period. It is not paid right then so it is compounded—the interest is added to the liability [principal] balance. The land account is not changed. Its cost was established when it was first acquired. The liability balance grows.)
13 – What happens at the end of Year Two? (More time has now passed. The assumed interest rate is multiplied by the new liability [principal] balance. That provides the interest expense for the second period. It is recognized and the liability is again increased because of compounding.)
14 – After two years, what is the reported liability balance? (The liability balance will be the $200,000 total that is now due to be paid. Present value removes the interest because no time has passed. The accountant then puts that interest back in over time. Mathematically, the amount has to come back to the total amount of the cash flows. Interest is taken out; then, the interest is put back in.)
Okay, you have to ask the questions carefully and guide your students as they work to get their answers. But I was pleased yesterday. After we had walked through these 14 questions, all of my students seemed to have a basic understanding of the concept of present value. We will practice this until they get smooth. However, that “mathematically remove the interest because time has not yet passed” line is one that they seem to grasp just fine. They are obviously not present value wizards yet but they know enough now that we can build on that knowledge and, eventually, they will be able to go into a finance class and not start out totally lost. And, to me, that is the purpose of an introductory course.
Thursday, 8 April 2010
More Predictions
A few days ago I wrote about speaking to a group of accountants here in Richmond about the future of higher education. At that time, I made a prediction about Google (or some similar organization) getting into higher education in a serious manner during the next decade.
Today, I wanted to give you a few of my other predictions. Not sure that I entirely believe any or all of them but it is always interesting to contemplate how the world of education will evolve over the next ten years.
Here you go:
(1) – Accounting programs will begin to require less accounting coverage. I think it is unrealistic to expect students to learn more and more accounting in college before they have sufficient practical experience to grasp what they are learning. I could give you a list of 50 things we commonly teach students today that they cannot possibly understand fully without additional real life experience. I have long argued that the flaw in the 150 hour requirement is that the profession was dissatisfied with the amount that college students could absorb so more hours were thrown at the problem. That is like Congress throwing money at problems; it does not necessarily solve anything.
I think what will happen is that states will eventually require fewer hours of accounting in college and then require three years of practical experience to get certified. But, during that period, the states will require 200 hours of CPE per year. The new accountants can tailor these hours to help them gain the knowledge they need in parallel to their actual work experience. You still get the same amount of education but the last 600 hours are done while the person is also discovering how the working world operates.
There is just a limit to the amount of accounting, tax, auditing, systems, and the like that a student can actually grasp while in college. I think we have passed that limit.
(2) – Textbooks will change radically. Obviously, I am biased here since I just released a brand new Financial Accounting textbook that has a revolutionary new design (free online, Socratic method, videos). However, traditional textbooks today are not much different than they were 50 years ago. Like newspapers and magazines that are also in the information conveyance business, they have failed to evolve and probably face the same future. If you ask students about textbooks, the three phrases that you are most likely to hear are “costs too much,” “boring,” and “confusing.” Radically better textbooks would immediately enliven the college education experience from Maine to Montana and from Florida to Alaska. I would love to think that my new textbook is a step along that path. Regardless, a system where students pay $175 for a book they will not read and cannot understand is destined for eventual replacement.
(3) – All programs (from poetry to political science) will start including a “finding a career” component. As the cost of a college education skyrockets, the interest (of both student and parent) in career opportunities goes up each year. I love liberal arts; I love learning for the sheer joy of learning. However, students want to leave college with some reasonable chance of making a decent wage. I think if liberal arts programs are going to remain viable over the next ten years they will have to acknowledge and address that concern.
(4) – Some (maybe many) universities will stop having a physical campus. Historically, traditional colleges brought their students to a campus to live so they could sit at the feet of their professors. As courses become more innovative, then I think the amount of actual physical interaction will decrease. At some point, a school will say “listen, we can teach you just as well in England as we can here on campus.” When that happens, the need for the cost and maintenance of a campus will come into question. I do think, though, that before this happens, online courses are going to have to make some type of major breakthrough. At present, no one seems totally comfortable with the quality of online courses. Over the next ten years, though, I think someone is going to come up with better online ideas. When that happens, four years of living on a college campus may no longer be needed.
(5) – Courses will start being designed in many different time frames. Instead of 150 minutes of class each week for 14-15 weeks per semester, courses may be for just a few hours or may be for hundreds of hours stretched over years. The current course system is a “one-size-fits-all” type of box. Courses are expanded or trimmed to fit into the allotted time schedule. That might have been necessary in 1960 but do we still believe that such a high percentage of classes have to fit such a structured format?
(6) – Some courses will stop being subject matter driven. Instead, new courses will be created to bring about certain changes in a student such as thinking skills, finding answers, and critical analysis. Then, each week, a different discipline will address that central topic from its own perspective. Think about “finding answers” in biology one week followed by “finding answers” in accounting the next followed by “find answers” in Shakespeare the next. Wouldn't the student come out with a wealth of knowledge? I have long argued that (in the day of Google) we have to get away from an obsession for the conveyance of information. If students can find the weight of the Earth in 10 seconds on Google, why do they need to memorize the formula for that calculation? Courses will become more interested in using information than memorizing it.
These are just a few of my thoughts on where college education is going between 2010 and 2020. I am probably 100 percent wrong but it is always interesting to speculate about such matters.
Today, I wanted to give you a few of my other predictions. Not sure that I entirely believe any or all of them but it is always interesting to contemplate how the world of education will evolve over the next ten years.
Here you go:
(1) – Accounting programs will begin to require less accounting coverage. I think it is unrealistic to expect students to learn more and more accounting in college before they have sufficient practical experience to grasp what they are learning. I could give you a list of 50 things we commonly teach students today that they cannot possibly understand fully without additional real life experience. I have long argued that the flaw in the 150 hour requirement is that the profession was dissatisfied with the amount that college students could absorb so more hours were thrown at the problem. That is like Congress throwing money at problems; it does not necessarily solve anything.
I think what will happen is that states will eventually require fewer hours of accounting in college and then require three years of practical experience to get certified. But, during that period, the states will require 200 hours of CPE per year. The new accountants can tailor these hours to help them gain the knowledge they need in parallel to their actual work experience. You still get the same amount of education but the last 600 hours are done while the person is also discovering how the working world operates.
There is just a limit to the amount of accounting, tax, auditing, systems, and the like that a student can actually grasp while in college. I think we have passed that limit.
(2) – Textbooks will change radically. Obviously, I am biased here since I just released a brand new Financial Accounting textbook that has a revolutionary new design (free online, Socratic method, videos). However, traditional textbooks today are not much different than they were 50 years ago. Like newspapers and magazines that are also in the information conveyance business, they have failed to evolve and probably face the same future. If you ask students about textbooks, the three phrases that you are most likely to hear are “costs too much,” “boring,” and “confusing.” Radically better textbooks would immediately enliven the college education experience from Maine to Montana and from Florida to Alaska. I would love to think that my new textbook is a step along that path. Regardless, a system where students pay $175 for a book they will not read and cannot understand is destined for eventual replacement.
(3) – All programs (from poetry to political science) will start including a “finding a career” component. As the cost of a college education skyrockets, the interest (of both student and parent) in career opportunities goes up each year. I love liberal arts; I love learning for the sheer joy of learning. However, students want to leave college with some reasonable chance of making a decent wage. I think if liberal arts programs are going to remain viable over the next ten years they will have to acknowledge and address that concern.
(4) – Some (maybe many) universities will stop having a physical campus. Historically, traditional colleges brought their students to a campus to live so they could sit at the feet of their professors. As courses become more innovative, then I think the amount of actual physical interaction will decrease. At some point, a school will say “listen, we can teach you just as well in England as we can here on campus.” When that happens, the need for the cost and maintenance of a campus will come into question. I do think, though, that before this happens, online courses are going to have to make some type of major breakthrough. At present, no one seems totally comfortable with the quality of online courses. Over the next ten years, though, I think someone is going to come up with better online ideas. When that happens, four years of living on a college campus may no longer be needed.
(5) – Courses will start being designed in many different time frames. Instead of 150 minutes of class each week for 14-15 weeks per semester, courses may be for just a few hours or may be for hundreds of hours stretched over years. The current course system is a “one-size-fits-all” type of box. Courses are expanded or trimmed to fit into the allotted time schedule. That might have been necessary in 1960 but do we still believe that such a high percentage of classes have to fit such a structured format?
(6) – Some courses will stop being subject matter driven. Instead, new courses will be created to bring about certain changes in a student such as thinking skills, finding answers, and critical analysis. Then, each week, a different discipline will address that central topic from its own perspective. Think about “finding answers” in biology one week followed by “finding answers” in accounting the next followed by “find answers” in Shakespeare the next. Wouldn't the student come out with a wealth of knowledge? I have long argued that (in the day of Google) we have to get away from an obsession for the conveyance of information. If students can find the weight of the Earth in 10 seconds on Google, why do they need to memorize the formula for that calculation? Courses will become more interested in using information than memorizing it.
These are just a few of my thoughts on where college education is going between 2010 and 2020. I am probably 100 percent wrong but it is always interesting to speculate about such matters.
Monday, 5 April 2010
What's The Payoff?
Remember you can read the brand new Financial Accounting textbook that I wrote with C. J. Skender by going to http://www.flatworldknowledge.com/printed-book/90996. It is free, online. Why not read it or let your students know it is there and ask them to look it over as a supplement?
**
If you have read my blog, you already know that I am somewhat obsessed with the importance of student preparation for class. In fact, my students would probably say that I’m “totally obsessed” with the importance of student preparation. I do not see how a teacher can accomplish much if the students have done no preliminary work. At that point, all they can do is sit quietly and take notes. That is not education; that is stenography.
Like most professors, I assign several pages for them to read prior to each class and give them some questions/problems to prepare so that we can hold a legitimate discussion/debate. However, most students have a lot of calls on their time and they will look at any such assignment and automatically calculate “what’s the payoff for me? What is the real benefit that I will gain by using my time to do this work rather than an assignment from another class?”
Obviously, the theoretical answer is that it makes the learning process go better in class. And, that alone should be enough. Unfortunately, “better learning” is pretty nebulous. My students seem to need a more solid payoff. I fear that too many teachers before me have given them assignments with no eventual payoff and they have learned to be cynical. We can argue all day as to whether it should be like that but I think it is human nature. Many students have to know the answer to the question—“how do I benefit from doing this assignment”—or they will simply not do it.
So, here is a technique that I find helpful on occasion. Wednesday, we will start covering liabilities in Financial Accounting. One topic that I like is “gift cards” because (a) students understand the concept very well, (b) a great many companies seem to sell them, and (c) the handling takes some thinking but it is certainly understandable to most students.
For Wednesday, I asked my students to read pages 294 to 296 which cover gift cards (including an illustration about Best Buy’s reporting of $479 million as “unredeemed gift card liabilities”) along with two embedded multiple-choice questions to provide feedback about their understanding. I could explain this liability to them and they could take notes but then the learning is dependent on me. Thus, my assignment was simple: Assume I’m the president of a company that sells gift cards and you are the accountant. Read these three pages in the book and tell me everything that I need to know (as president) about the financial reporting of gift cards. Assume I am a curious president and I really want to know how the reporting works.
They can do that and it puts the responsibility on them. Plus, it is a realistic sounding situation. They like that. They can all envision something like this happening.
In class, I will play the role of the president and start asking them questions as if they were the controller. I am betting that with 4-6 questions asked to 4-6 different students I can help navigate the group successfully through the topic. That is how I like to run my class. The answer comes from them but with my guidance. But it requires them to do some preparation/thinking in advance.
How do I know they will prepare: (a) they see from the nature of the assignment what they are expected to do (I have tried to eliminate any ambiguity) and (b) they can see that I’m going to be calling on someone to provide me with the information I seek (it might be them). I have tried to show them that there is a positive payoff from doing the preparation: when I call on them, they will be capable of responding without looking like they are totally lost. Students do not like to appear dumb. Plus, they have a sense that this is the kind of experience that they might encounter in the real world after graduation. If they see what they are expected to know and understand the payoff, most will put in a reasonable effort to have a decent response ready.
If you are not happy with student preparation in you classes, ask yourself what the real payoff is for your students and whether that payoff needs to be improved. If they don’t see the payoff, students are not inclined to do the preparation.
**
If you have read my blog, you already know that I am somewhat obsessed with the importance of student preparation for class. In fact, my students would probably say that I’m “totally obsessed” with the importance of student preparation. I do not see how a teacher can accomplish much if the students have done no preliminary work. At that point, all they can do is sit quietly and take notes. That is not education; that is stenography.
Like most professors, I assign several pages for them to read prior to each class and give them some questions/problems to prepare so that we can hold a legitimate discussion/debate. However, most students have a lot of calls on their time and they will look at any such assignment and automatically calculate “what’s the payoff for me? What is the real benefit that I will gain by using my time to do this work rather than an assignment from another class?”
Obviously, the theoretical answer is that it makes the learning process go better in class. And, that alone should be enough. Unfortunately, “better learning” is pretty nebulous. My students seem to need a more solid payoff. I fear that too many teachers before me have given them assignments with no eventual payoff and they have learned to be cynical. We can argue all day as to whether it should be like that but I think it is human nature. Many students have to know the answer to the question—“how do I benefit from doing this assignment”—or they will simply not do it.
So, here is a technique that I find helpful on occasion. Wednesday, we will start covering liabilities in Financial Accounting. One topic that I like is “gift cards” because (a) students understand the concept very well, (b) a great many companies seem to sell them, and (c) the handling takes some thinking but it is certainly understandable to most students.
For Wednesday, I asked my students to read pages 294 to 296 which cover gift cards (including an illustration about Best Buy’s reporting of $479 million as “unredeemed gift card liabilities”) along with two embedded multiple-choice questions to provide feedback about their understanding. I could explain this liability to them and they could take notes but then the learning is dependent on me. Thus, my assignment was simple: Assume I’m the president of a company that sells gift cards and you are the accountant. Read these three pages in the book and tell me everything that I need to know (as president) about the financial reporting of gift cards. Assume I am a curious president and I really want to know how the reporting works.
They can do that and it puts the responsibility on them. Plus, it is a realistic sounding situation. They like that. They can all envision something like this happening.
In class, I will play the role of the president and start asking them questions as if they were the controller. I am betting that with 4-6 questions asked to 4-6 different students I can help navigate the group successfully through the topic. That is how I like to run my class. The answer comes from them but with my guidance. But it requires them to do some preparation/thinking in advance.
How do I know they will prepare: (a) they see from the nature of the assignment what they are expected to do (I have tried to eliminate any ambiguity) and (b) they can see that I’m going to be calling on someone to provide me with the information I seek (it might be them). I have tried to show them that there is a positive payoff from doing the preparation: when I call on them, they will be capable of responding without looking like they are totally lost. Students do not like to appear dumb. Plus, they have a sense that this is the kind of experience that they might encounter in the real world after graduation. If they see what they are expected to know and understand the payoff, most will put in a reasonable effort to have a decent response ready.
If you are not happy with student preparation in you classes, ask yourself what the real payoff is for your students and whether that payoff needs to be improved. If they don’t see the payoff, students are not inclined to do the preparation.
Thursday, 25 March 2010
Deferred Learning
If you are in the Cincinnati area, I will be giving a program on teaching effectiveness next Tuesday, March 30, (followed by a panel discussion) at Northern Kentucky University. I think it should be a lot of fun. I love to talk about teaching. It is open to the public. If you would like the place and time, drop me a note at Jhoyle@richmond.edu.
**
Over 2,000 years ago, the poet Horace wrote “Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero” which translates as “Seize the day, trusting tomorrow as little as possible.” Yesterday, I talked with my students about “deferred learning.” That is the strategy of doing as little work today as possible with the promise that you’ll do a whole lot more work tomorrow (or, more specifically, right before the test). In college, deferred learning is a very popular strategy. “I’ll do it tomorrow” is never far from the lips of most students.
But, let’s be realistic. If a student is going to be tested based on memorization, isn’t this the best possible strategy? Memory tends to fade pretty quickly over time so, for a memorization style test, isn’t it best to memorize as much material as possible the night before the test?
Let’s carry this one step further. From kindergarten on through college, aren’t most tests really based on memorization? So, can you blame a student for using a “deferred learning” approach? They have been well trained over the years; this is a strategy that does work to get good grades. Deferred learning is human nature, I will grant you that, but isn’t it also a result of many years of training by our schools, including their current college?
I want to help my students pick up a different strategy that I refer to as “understand and review.” Before they leave a topic, I want them to actually understand what we are doing – right then. Do the learning today (right now) and don’t put it off until tomorrow. If they do that, the study process for the test should be merely reviewing what they already understand. That review is just to freshen up the knowledge in their brains.
Okay, how does a teacher get a student to learn material as it is covered and not defer the learning process? One thing that I like to do is write a short question right after class and send it to them by email. I always start it off with “if you properly understood what we did today in class, you should be able to work the following problem in 5-10 minutes. I’ll leave the answer on my door for 48 hours so you can check your answer. Before our next class, I want you to make sure that you learned today what I wanted.”
For example, in class tomorrow, we will talk about depreciation: straight-line, double-declining balance, half-year convention. After class, I will probably send a question somewhat like the following to my students by email. If they can answer these questions, then I think they have a pretty good handle on what we covered in that class. They have established a real understanding rather than relying on deferred learning.
Company A buys a machine for $100,000 on April 1, Year One. It has a five-year life and a $20,000 salvage value. It is sold on October 1, Year Three for $79,000. The company uses straight-line depreciation and the half-year convention. Company B also buys a machine for $100,000 on April 1, Year One. It has a five-year life and a $20,000 salvage value. It is sold on October 1, Year Three for $79,000. The company uses the double-declining balance method and does not use the half-year convention. Answer the following questions:
--What does the recognition of depreciation have to do with the matching principle?
--What gain or loss will Company A report at the time of sale?
--What gain or loss will Company B report at the time of sale?
--Why is there a difference in the gain or loss reported by the two companies?
--What is the rationale for using the half-year convention?
--What is the rationale for using the double-declining balance method of depreciation?
“Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero” I want my students to learn this stuff right now. I want the students to understand this material when we cover it. I do not want the students to defer the learning process.
**
Over 2,000 years ago, the poet Horace wrote “Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero” which translates as “Seize the day, trusting tomorrow as little as possible.” Yesterday, I talked with my students about “deferred learning.” That is the strategy of doing as little work today as possible with the promise that you’ll do a whole lot more work tomorrow (or, more specifically, right before the test). In college, deferred learning is a very popular strategy. “I’ll do it tomorrow” is never far from the lips of most students.
But, let’s be realistic. If a student is going to be tested based on memorization, isn’t this the best possible strategy? Memory tends to fade pretty quickly over time so, for a memorization style test, isn’t it best to memorize as much material as possible the night before the test?
Let’s carry this one step further. From kindergarten on through college, aren’t most tests really based on memorization? So, can you blame a student for using a “deferred learning” approach? They have been well trained over the years; this is a strategy that does work to get good grades. Deferred learning is human nature, I will grant you that, but isn’t it also a result of many years of training by our schools, including their current college?
I want to help my students pick up a different strategy that I refer to as “understand and review.” Before they leave a topic, I want them to actually understand what we are doing – right then. Do the learning today (right now) and don’t put it off until tomorrow. If they do that, the study process for the test should be merely reviewing what they already understand. That review is just to freshen up the knowledge in their brains.
Okay, how does a teacher get a student to learn material as it is covered and not defer the learning process? One thing that I like to do is write a short question right after class and send it to them by email. I always start it off with “if you properly understood what we did today in class, you should be able to work the following problem in 5-10 minutes. I’ll leave the answer on my door for 48 hours so you can check your answer. Before our next class, I want you to make sure that you learned today what I wanted.”
For example, in class tomorrow, we will talk about depreciation: straight-line, double-declining balance, half-year convention. After class, I will probably send a question somewhat like the following to my students by email. If they can answer these questions, then I think they have a pretty good handle on what we covered in that class. They have established a real understanding rather than relying on deferred learning.
Company A buys a machine for $100,000 on April 1, Year One. It has a five-year life and a $20,000 salvage value. It is sold on October 1, Year Three for $79,000. The company uses straight-line depreciation and the half-year convention. Company B also buys a machine for $100,000 on April 1, Year One. It has a five-year life and a $20,000 salvage value. It is sold on October 1, Year Three for $79,000. The company uses the double-declining balance method and does not use the half-year convention. Answer the following questions:
--What does the recognition of depreciation have to do with the matching principle?
--What gain or loss will Company A report at the time of sale?
--What gain or loss will Company B report at the time of sale?
--Why is there a difference in the gain or loss reported by the two companies?
--What is the rationale for using the half-year convention?
--What is the rationale for using the double-declining balance method of depreciation?
“Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero” I want my students to learn this stuff right now. I want the students to understand this material when we cover it. I do not want the students to defer the learning process.
Friday, 19 March 2010
Second Test in Financial Accounting
Very quick note. I am giving my second test today in my Financial Accounting course. The first test is to help them recognize the kind of understanding that I want from them. So, I am always keenly interested in how well they do on their second test. Have they made the adjustments that I was hoping for them to make?
If you are interested in a copy of my second test, send me a note at Jhoyle@richmond.edu. Unfortunately, because of some family issues, I had to write this test very quickly. I really hope that I made it fair and not too confusing. I guess I will find out later today. Always an interesting question on test day.
If you are interested in a copy of my second test, send me a note at Jhoyle@richmond.edu. Unfortunately, because of some family issues, I had to write this test very quickly. I really hope that I made it fair and not too confusing. I guess I will find out later today. Always an interesting question on test day.
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Using Power Point Slides
When I was in college, I took a class on the American Presidents. It sounded so interesting in the college catalogue that I did not check it out in advance. Unfortunately, the teacher walked in with a notebook full of yellowed class notes that he proceeded to read to us day after day. He read and we copied (or slept). It was a horrible experience. And, although Richard Nixon was then president of the United States at the time, the class ended with Harry Truman because that is where the professor’s notes ended. I honestly do not believe he had updated those notes in two decades. Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson didn’t exist in that class of American Presidents.
A few years ago I was talking with some of my favorite students about education. I asked them what they liked least. I was surprised that they all expressed the same objection which was verbalized by one as “I hate it when a teacher comes into the room and throws up some Power Point slides and then proceeds to read them to us. I can read for myself.” Is Power Point the equivalent of my teacher reading his ancient notes to us? Yeah, maybe it is.
I have never used Power Point in a college class but I can understand why it is popular with teachers. First, it provides an easy way to organize the material in a logical fashion. Second, once they are made, they can be kept from year to year and save time in the future (hmm, now we are backed to the yellowed notes). Third, many textbook publishers will prepare them for you so the amount of work is slight. Fourth, at many schools, Power Point slides can be made available to the students to serve as study guides.
So, Power Point does have some benefits but what do your students think? I have a couple of suggestions.
--If your student evaluations allow you to do this, add the following question: “Does the teacher use Power Point slides too much, too little, or just the right amount?” Power Point slides can be a lot like bad breath—everyone might know you have a problem before you do. Although I am a heavy critic of student evaluations, I think that kind of question can be very helpful and should be more used on student evaluations.
--If your textbook publisher has Power Point slides available, send those to the students for study purposes. For class, make your own slides. It is your course—for goodness sakes—so design it the way you want. If nothing else, it forces you to think about the material more.
--Never put more than 10 words on a slide. That will break you of the habit of reading them to the students. When I give teaching presentations, I do use Power Point slides but I use them as a prompt for discussion. For example, we discussed inventory today in my Financial Accounting class here at the University of Richmond. If I had used Power Point slides, here are a few that I would have prepared because each of these would have prompted (I believe) some excellent class discussion.
Slide One: Who would possibly use a periodic system in 2010?
Slide Two: Inflation takes place: compare FIFO with LIFO
Slide Three: If you look poorer, why use LIFO?
Slide Four: LIFO conformity – what does it really mean?
Slide Five: You start a business: Would you choose FIFO or LIFO?
Slide Six: IFRS and LIFO - what is going on?
Well, you get the idea. I’ve accomplished what I wanted. I have organized the class in some logical manner and I can either explain the meaning of what I have written or I can ask the students about the meaning. Reading is not a real option. And, these slides don’t take long to prepare and I can use them again.
But, if you do choose to use your slides again next semester, I would urge you to always edit and freshen them up. Don’t simply rely on the same slides each semester from now until 2030. Each semester rethink what you want to cover and how you want to do it and change your slides accordingly.
Used correctly, I think Power Point can be great. However, used poorly, I think we are back to 1969 with my political science teacher reading notes to me that he hadn’t revised since the end of World War II. That's what my students were fussing about.
A few years ago I was talking with some of my favorite students about education. I asked them what they liked least. I was surprised that they all expressed the same objection which was verbalized by one as “I hate it when a teacher comes into the room and throws up some Power Point slides and then proceeds to read them to us. I can read for myself.” Is Power Point the equivalent of my teacher reading his ancient notes to us? Yeah, maybe it is.
I have never used Power Point in a college class but I can understand why it is popular with teachers. First, it provides an easy way to organize the material in a logical fashion. Second, once they are made, they can be kept from year to year and save time in the future (hmm, now we are backed to the yellowed notes). Third, many textbook publishers will prepare them for you so the amount of work is slight. Fourth, at many schools, Power Point slides can be made available to the students to serve as study guides.
So, Power Point does have some benefits but what do your students think? I have a couple of suggestions.
--If your student evaluations allow you to do this, add the following question: “Does the teacher use Power Point slides too much, too little, or just the right amount?” Power Point slides can be a lot like bad breath—everyone might know you have a problem before you do. Although I am a heavy critic of student evaluations, I think that kind of question can be very helpful and should be more used on student evaluations.
--If your textbook publisher has Power Point slides available, send those to the students for study purposes. For class, make your own slides. It is your course—for goodness sakes—so design it the way you want. If nothing else, it forces you to think about the material more.
--Never put more than 10 words on a slide. That will break you of the habit of reading them to the students. When I give teaching presentations, I do use Power Point slides but I use them as a prompt for discussion. For example, we discussed inventory today in my Financial Accounting class here at the University of Richmond. If I had used Power Point slides, here are a few that I would have prepared because each of these would have prompted (I believe) some excellent class discussion.
Slide One: Who would possibly use a periodic system in 2010?
Slide Two: Inflation takes place: compare FIFO with LIFO
Slide Three: If you look poorer, why use LIFO?
Slide Four: LIFO conformity – what does it really mean?
Slide Five: You start a business: Would you choose FIFO or LIFO?
Slide Six: IFRS and LIFO - what is going on?
Well, you get the idea. I’ve accomplished what I wanted. I have organized the class in some logical manner and I can either explain the meaning of what I have written or I can ask the students about the meaning. Reading is not a real option. And, these slides don’t take long to prepare and I can use them again.
But, if you do choose to use your slides again next semester, I would urge you to always edit and freshen them up. Don’t simply rely on the same slides each semester from now until 2030. Each semester rethink what you want to cover and how you want to do it and change your slides accordingly.
Used correctly, I think Power Point can be great. However, used poorly, I think we are back to 1969 with my political science teacher reading notes to me that he hadn’t revised since the end of World War II. That's what my students were fussing about.
Thursday, 11 March 2010
Spring Break
I watch the television show Lost and each week it begins the same way. A serious voice intones “Previously – on Lost” and the station then runs through some clips of what happened the week before so that audience members can get back up to speed before the new action begins.
My students are on Spring Break this week and, although I might dream that they are studying financial accounting, I imagine that few are. They were doing great right before Spring Break but they will have been away from the subject matter for 10 days by the time I see them again next Monday. We had done a lot of good work on the reporting of inventory but it is likely that much of that information is now jello knowledge (a term from an earlier post).
So, next Monday, I will start out with my version of “Previously – in reporting inventory” and try to get them back up and running as quickly as possible. I will do this by starting out with a series of quick questions designed to rebuild the knowledge that may have slipped away. These are reminder questions. There is no new information here. That is not the point. However, I don’t want to simply tell them the information again. They would just fall into their stenographer mode and start copying down notes.
Instead, I start asking people these quick questions designed to “remind” them of what they already know. Here are the questions that I will ask on Monday (as well as the expected answers). They may not get every question right immediately but I would expect that, in ten minutes, we will be up and running.
(Do note that I teach both periodic and perpetual inventory systems. I have friends who question the inclusion of periodic inventory because it is “antiquated.” My response is that a lot of small businesses such as beauticians, kennels, barber shops, restaurants, health spas, and the like still use periodic inventory. Despite the wide scale availability of computers, it is not an obsolete system. More importantly, I think working with the cost of goods sold formula of beginning inventory plus purchases less ending inventory helps students better visualize the interconnected relationship of ending inventory and cost of goods sold.)
“Previously—in reporting inventory”
1 – If you look at a balance sheet and see $124,889 reported for inventory, what are you seeing? (The lower of the inventory cost or its market value.)
2 – What is included in the cost of inventory? (Any amount that was incurred which was normal and necessary to get the inventory item into position and condition to be sold.)
3 – What is the difference in a periodic and perpetual inventory system? (A periodic system does not maintain a record of either the current inventory or cost of goods sold whereas a perpetual system does.)
4 – What are the advantages of a periodic inventory system and a perpetual inventory system? (A periodic system is very cheap to maintain while a perpetual system provides up to date financial information about the inventory on hand and the amount that has been sold this period.)
5 – When inventory is bought, what entry is made in a periodic system? In a perpetual system? (“Purchases” is debited in a periodic system so that a record of the cost incurred is maintained. “Inventory” is debited in a perpetual system so that the current asset balance is available.)
6 – What entry is made at the point of sale in connection with inventory? (In a periodic system, no entry is made because balances are not maintained. The cost is not known. In a perpetual system, cost of goods sold is debited and inventory is credited.)
7 – In a periodic system, no entry is made to record the cost of goods sold when a sale is made. How then is cost of goods sold determined for reporting purposes? (A physical inventory count is taken and cost of goods sold is calculated by formula: beginning inventory plus purchases less ending inventory equals cost of goods sold.)
8 – When is the physical inventory count taken? (In a periodic system, the count is made at the end of the reporting period so that the asset balance and cost of goods sold can be determined. In a perpetual system, the count is normally made at some convenient time to ensure the accuracy of the accounting records. In a perpetual system, a year-end count is not needed unless the accuracy of the records is questioned.)
9 – When is a cost flow assumption such as LIFO and FIFO needed? (A cost flow assumption is needed whenever a company holds inventory items that were bought at different costs. If the costs are all the same, a cost flow assumption is not necessary.)
10 – When is a cost flow assumption actually used in a perpetual inventory system? (In a perpetual system, the cost flow assumption is used at the time of each sale to determine which cost is moved from inventory to cost of goods sold.)
11 – When is a cost flow assumption actually used in a periodic inventory system? (In a periodic system, the cost flow assumption is needed after the physical inventory is taken in order to determine the cost of those items. When the resulting cost of the ending inventory is entered into the cost of goods sold formula, it creates the assumed pattern in arriving at the expense.)
12 – An item is bought for $10 on Monday and a second identical one is bought for $11 on Tuesday. One is sold on Wednesday. Which item was sold? (We don’t know and we don’t care. We are not trying to determine the identity of a sold unit. Instead, we are trying to decide which cost should stay in the inventory ledger account and which cost should be moved to cost of goods sold. That is why we call FIFO and LIFO “cost flow assumptions.” We are making an assumption about the movement of the cost.)
13 - An item is bought for $10 on Monday and a second identical one is bought for $11 on Tuesday. One is sold on Wednesday. Which cost is moved from inventory to cost of goods sold? (If FIFO is the cost flow assumption, it is the $10 [the first cost] that moves to cost of goods sold. If LIFO is the cost flow assumption, it is the $11 [the last cost] that moves to cost of goods sold.
Okay, there are 13 lucky questions here that I will ask my students at the start of class on Monday. Hopefully, there is nothing in these questions that they cannot get pretty quickly. After about 10 minutes, they should be back up to speed (hopefully) and ready to move into new territory.
My students are on Spring Break this week and, although I might dream that they are studying financial accounting, I imagine that few are. They were doing great right before Spring Break but they will have been away from the subject matter for 10 days by the time I see them again next Monday. We had done a lot of good work on the reporting of inventory but it is likely that much of that information is now jello knowledge (a term from an earlier post).
So, next Monday, I will start out with my version of “Previously – in reporting inventory” and try to get them back up and running as quickly as possible. I will do this by starting out with a series of quick questions designed to rebuild the knowledge that may have slipped away. These are reminder questions. There is no new information here. That is not the point. However, I don’t want to simply tell them the information again. They would just fall into their stenographer mode and start copying down notes.
Instead, I start asking people these quick questions designed to “remind” them of what they already know. Here are the questions that I will ask on Monday (as well as the expected answers). They may not get every question right immediately but I would expect that, in ten minutes, we will be up and running.
(Do note that I teach both periodic and perpetual inventory systems. I have friends who question the inclusion of periodic inventory because it is “antiquated.” My response is that a lot of small businesses such as beauticians, kennels, barber shops, restaurants, health spas, and the like still use periodic inventory. Despite the wide scale availability of computers, it is not an obsolete system. More importantly, I think working with the cost of goods sold formula of beginning inventory plus purchases less ending inventory helps students better visualize the interconnected relationship of ending inventory and cost of goods sold.)
“Previously—in reporting inventory”
1 – If you look at a balance sheet and see $124,889 reported for inventory, what are you seeing? (The lower of the inventory cost or its market value.)
2 – What is included in the cost of inventory? (Any amount that was incurred which was normal and necessary to get the inventory item into position and condition to be sold.)
3 – What is the difference in a periodic and perpetual inventory system? (A periodic system does not maintain a record of either the current inventory or cost of goods sold whereas a perpetual system does.)
4 – What are the advantages of a periodic inventory system and a perpetual inventory system? (A periodic system is very cheap to maintain while a perpetual system provides up to date financial information about the inventory on hand and the amount that has been sold this period.)
5 – When inventory is bought, what entry is made in a periodic system? In a perpetual system? (“Purchases” is debited in a periodic system so that a record of the cost incurred is maintained. “Inventory” is debited in a perpetual system so that the current asset balance is available.)
6 – What entry is made at the point of sale in connection with inventory? (In a periodic system, no entry is made because balances are not maintained. The cost is not known. In a perpetual system, cost of goods sold is debited and inventory is credited.)
7 – In a periodic system, no entry is made to record the cost of goods sold when a sale is made. How then is cost of goods sold determined for reporting purposes? (A physical inventory count is taken and cost of goods sold is calculated by formula: beginning inventory plus purchases less ending inventory equals cost of goods sold.)
8 – When is the physical inventory count taken? (In a periodic system, the count is made at the end of the reporting period so that the asset balance and cost of goods sold can be determined. In a perpetual system, the count is normally made at some convenient time to ensure the accuracy of the accounting records. In a perpetual system, a year-end count is not needed unless the accuracy of the records is questioned.)
9 – When is a cost flow assumption such as LIFO and FIFO needed? (A cost flow assumption is needed whenever a company holds inventory items that were bought at different costs. If the costs are all the same, a cost flow assumption is not necessary.)
10 – When is a cost flow assumption actually used in a perpetual inventory system? (In a perpetual system, the cost flow assumption is used at the time of each sale to determine which cost is moved from inventory to cost of goods sold.)
11 – When is a cost flow assumption actually used in a periodic inventory system? (In a periodic system, the cost flow assumption is needed after the physical inventory is taken in order to determine the cost of those items. When the resulting cost of the ending inventory is entered into the cost of goods sold formula, it creates the assumed pattern in arriving at the expense.)
12 – An item is bought for $10 on Monday and a second identical one is bought for $11 on Tuesday. One is sold on Wednesday. Which item was sold? (We don’t know and we don’t care. We are not trying to determine the identity of a sold unit. Instead, we are trying to decide which cost should stay in the inventory ledger account and which cost should be moved to cost of goods sold. That is why we call FIFO and LIFO “cost flow assumptions.” We are making an assumption about the movement of the cost.)
13 - An item is bought for $10 on Monday and a second identical one is bought for $11 on Tuesday. One is sold on Wednesday. Which cost is moved from inventory to cost of goods sold? (If FIFO is the cost flow assumption, it is the $10 [the first cost] that moves to cost of goods sold. If LIFO is the cost flow assumption, it is the $11 [the last cost] that moves to cost of goods sold.
Okay, there are 13 lucky questions here that I will ask my students at the start of class on Monday. Hopefully, there is nothing in these questions that they cannot get pretty quickly. After about 10 minutes, they should be back up to speed (hopefully) and ready to move into new territory.
Tuesday, 9 March 2010
Teaching Is Serious Business
I was talking with a friend by email yesterday who teaches in Georgia. I mentioned that I had been named one of seven “Tough Love” teachers at the University of Richmond a few years back because, I suppose, I push the students pretty hard. This conversation reminded me that I had written an essay at that time on “tough love teaching” for our alumni magazine. Now that I am halfway through the current semester, it seems like a good time to remind myself why I believe that pushing students to excel is so important. Here is that essay.
**
Teaching is serious business. We have wonderfully bright and talented students here at Richmond. They have almost unlimited potential. For most, this is their one shot at college; they deserve nothing less than an excellent education, an academic experience that challenges them to excel from their first day to their last.
Faculty members have a responsibility to the world to coax the very best from their students because they will certainly become the next generation of leaders. Where they go from here, what they accomplish, how they impact the world, depends in large part on how much we are able to push and nurture their development. I want every student to leave my class at the end of the semester saying, “I didn’t know that I could work so hard, and I didn’t realize that I could learn so much.” Anything less is unacceptable.
If a teacher challenges students to think and do their best, word gets around campus quickly, but having a tough reputation is both good and bad. When students walk into my class on the first day, they tend to be very quiet and pay attention right away. On the other hand, I am always so disappointed when a student says to me “I hear you are a good teacher, but I didn’t take your class because I know you are very demanding.” Isn't that just incredibly sad? I think Richmond will be a better school when students sign up only for classes where teachers push them each day to do their best.
Many times during each semester, I point out to my students that the grade of A, according to the University catalogue, reflects “outstanding” work. A student does not earn the grade of A for a good effort, only for consistently outstanding work. Grade inflation has hurt college education across this country and could be fixed simply by faculty members saying, “You earn an A when the work that I see is truly outstanding.” Don’t fool yourself; students are well aware of the difference between “good” and “outstanding.”
I use the Socratic method. I call on every student every day in class. I don't ask them to regurgitate material; I ask them questions that I believe will cause them to think and reason—on the spot. That is what adult life is like, especially in the business world. I then follow my initial question with others based on their answers. If I don’t get good replies from a student, I don’t just nod and smile; I demand better of them. A student once compared my class to a contact sport. Richmond students should be ready, willing and able to discuss and debate issues. This is college, not high school.
I want a reasonable effort from my students because students get back based on what they put in. I expect them to study four to six hours each week outside of class so they’ll be ready to participate in class discussions. I use carrots and sticks. I say, “Good job!” when a student gives me a thoughtful, well-conceived answer, and I say, “Listen, you can do better than that!” when a student gives me a bad answer. I don’t view that as being disagreeable, although I do realize that it injects a bit of tension into the class. But this is not Sesame Street; a bad answer is a bad answer. There is only one primary goal in my class: to improve each student’s ability to think, reason and understand. Our students realize how capable they are, but human nature loves to take the easy path.
A good basketball coach adapts to the talents of his or her players. A good teacher does the same. You cannot take an identical approach with every student. Some love to be pushed and pushed hard. They enjoy “in-your-face” challenges. Others are more fragile. You have to coax and nurture them. So toughness comes into my class where toughness is necessary. You teach each student, not each group. However, every student needs to be willing to prepare and to think. That is not negotiable.
One of the keys to becoming a good teacher is learning to walk into a room of students and “see” what is happening to the individual members: Billy needs a few extra seconds to formulate an answer, Susan loves to be called on, Andy doesn’t know what is happening right now, Ellen is not prepared. You have to be able to adapt to your students on the spot every day.
Our students can do amazing things, but if we don’t challenge them fully, they will never realize what marvelous talents they truly possess. Signing up for demanding classes might hurt a student’s GPA, but which is more important: developing a good mind or a good GPA?
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Teaching is serious business. We have wonderfully bright and talented students here at Richmond. They have almost unlimited potential. For most, this is their one shot at college; they deserve nothing less than an excellent education, an academic experience that challenges them to excel from their first day to their last.
Faculty members have a responsibility to the world to coax the very best from their students because they will certainly become the next generation of leaders. Where they go from here, what they accomplish, how they impact the world, depends in large part on how much we are able to push and nurture their development. I want every student to leave my class at the end of the semester saying, “I didn’t know that I could work so hard, and I didn’t realize that I could learn so much.” Anything less is unacceptable.
If a teacher challenges students to think and do their best, word gets around campus quickly, but having a tough reputation is both good and bad. When students walk into my class on the first day, they tend to be very quiet and pay attention right away. On the other hand, I am always so disappointed when a student says to me “I hear you are a good teacher, but I didn’t take your class because I know you are very demanding.” Isn't that just incredibly sad? I think Richmond will be a better school when students sign up only for classes where teachers push them each day to do their best.
Many times during each semester, I point out to my students that the grade of A, according to the University catalogue, reflects “outstanding” work. A student does not earn the grade of A for a good effort, only for consistently outstanding work. Grade inflation has hurt college education across this country and could be fixed simply by faculty members saying, “You earn an A when the work that I see is truly outstanding.” Don’t fool yourself; students are well aware of the difference between “good” and “outstanding.”
I use the Socratic method. I call on every student every day in class. I don't ask them to regurgitate material; I ask them questions that I believe will cause them to think and reason—on the spot. That is what adult life is like, especially in the business world. I then follow my initial question with others based on their answers. If I don’t get good replies from a student, I don’t just nod and smile; I demand better of them. A student once compared my class to a contact sport. Richmond students should be ready, willing and able to discuss and debate issues. This is college, not high school.
I want a reasonable effort from my students because students get back based on what they put in. I expect them to study four to six hours each week outside of class so they’ll be ready to participate in class discussions. I use carrots and sticks. I say, “Good job!” when a student gives me a thoughtful, well-conceived answer, and I say, “Listen, you can do better than that!” when a student gives me a bad answer. I don’t view that as being disagreeable, although I do realize that it injects a bit of tension into the class. But this is not Sesame Street; a bad answer is a bad answer. There is only one primary goal in my class: to improve each student’s ability to think, reason and understand. Our students realize how capable they are, but human nature loves to take the easy path.
A good basketball coach adapts to the talents of his or her players. A good teacher does the same. You cannot take an identical approach with every student. Some love to be pushed and pushed hard. They enjoy “in-your-face” challenges. Others are more fragile. You have to coax and nurture them. So toughness comes into my class where toughness is necessary. You teach each student, not each group. However, every student needs to be willing to prepare and to think. That is not negotiable.
One of the keys to becoming a good teacher is learning to walk into a room of students and “see” what is happening to the individual members: Billy needs a few extra seconds to formulate an answer, Susan loves to be called on, Andy doesn’t know what is happening right now, Ellen is not prepared. You have to be able to adapt to your students on the spot every day.
Our students can do amazing things, but if we don’t challenge them fully, they will never realize what marvelous talents they truly possess. Signing up for demanding classes might hurt a student’s GPA, but which is more important: developing a good mind or a good GPA?
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