HOW WOULD YOU HAVE ANSWERED THIS QUESTION?

I think college education would improve rather quickly if students would start asking more questions about the process. For most of them, it is their one and only shot at a college education. What they learn and then know for the rest of their lives is dependent on how well that process works. It is not something that they should take lightly. The efficiency of the process might be important to the teacher but it is essential to the lives of the students.

Personally, I believe transparency is a good idea. Plus, what a teacher does should be able to withstand a little scrutiny from the students that are involved. If I cannot explain why I am doing something, I probably need to rethink it.

However, we tend to train our young people to be very obedient – to do what their elders tell them to do without asking any questions. I have often speculated that I could walk into a college class and start giving nonsense assignments about Martians and the North Pole and most students would fall right in line and do exactly as they were told. Obedience is nice but I’d prefer for my thinking students to start asking questions.

Of course, some faculty members treat student inquiries as rude behavior much like W. C. Fields’ famous retort: “Go away kid, ya bother me.” That type of response will train any student to sit and be quiet.

I was pleased, therefore, to get a question recently from a college student about the educational process. Here is the question that was sent to me and below that I will give my response. However, before you read my response, stop reading and determine how you would have answered this question? I’ve got my answer but what is your answer?

From the student:

Dear Professor Hoyle, I am a 3rd year accounting major at University of Florida. I love reading your blog and even though I am not a teacher, your writings have tremendously helped me improve, both as a person, and as an accounting major.

I remember a story I read a long time ago and it gave me an idea which I want to share with you. “The story goes that Milo, a famous wrestler in ancient Greece, gained his immense strength by lifting a newborn calf one day when he was a boy, and then lifting it every day as it grew. In a few years, he was able to lift the grown cow. The calf grew into a cow at about the rate that Milo grew into a man. A rather freakish man apparently, since grown cows can weigh over 1000 lb. The point is, the calf grew old along with the boy.”

At UF, most of our accounting courses have 3 exams; 2 midterms and 1 final, thus each exam covers around 4-5 chapters. I understand that our accounting professors want to improve our critical thinking abilities during the course of the semester but I feel that bombing the first exam puts many students at a disadvantage and they have to end up dropping the course (even though they still might be able to bring their grades up eventually).

Wouldn't it be better if there were more exams and each exam was incremental? Hypothetically, the first exam covers only 1 chapter, the second covers 2 chapters, third covers 3 chapters and so on. Do you think this approach would still be useful in developing the critical thinking ability of students? Or is it going to defeat the purpose of “uncertainty” and just train the students on how to get better at taking the exam?
**

Okay, that is a very legitimate question. I think every teacher has had students who bombed the first test and then either dropped the class or just gave up. However, there are many reasons why a student might do poorly on a first test. They might have had one or two other tests on the same day. They might have been sick or a personal matter could have come up as a distraction. Most importantly, maybe they just needed that first test to gain an understanding of what the teacher wanted from them.

Given the importance of grades, how much emphasis should we put on the outcome of that first test?

Stop and think about it – this student clearly seems troubled by the approach that most of us use.
**

Here’s my answer to this question. When I initially got the email, I responded with a slightly different version but I’ve thought about it since that time and have done some editing. In truth, though, I’m actually much more interested in your response.

To the student from Joe Hoyle:

Thanks for the very insightful question -- and I really love the story of Milo. It is amazing how well a story like that can make a person's point so clearly.

You are obviously right -- a student can be devastated by a first test grade and either drop the class or stay in the class but just give up. Neither reaction is what a teacher really wants.

From a practical side, the problem is that the student and teacher often have different views of a test. For a student, it is extremely stressful and the grade is tremendously important -- potentially impacting careers and jobs and the like. One bad test grade can literally change a person's life. That is not an overstatement.

For a teacher, a test is a pain in the neck. They can be difficult to write and they are time consuming. Grading can be excruciating and coming up with a precise grade is hard to do (unless a teacher just has infinite confidence in their testing and grading abilities). Plus, every day that you give a test takes a day away from the learning process.

And, after the teacher gives the grade, he or she may have to endure student after student arguing about the validity of the grade.

Any time you have an event that is essentially important to one side but painful to the other, you have the potential for a problem. My bet is that most teachers would prefer to give no tests at all. Even if your suggestion is better for the students, it puts more work on the teacher -- time the teacher probably doesn't have because of other class work, research, and committee assignments. (If you are a student who has bombed the first test in an important course, that justification probably does not seem very satisfying.)

Isn't this a strange world where the good of one side is often a problem to the other?

I have friends who give periodic quizzes for just the reasons you mention and that seems like a reasonable approach. However, again, how much class time do you want to allocate to testing? And, how much time does the teacher want to allocate to writing and grading and discussing tests?

I don’t know if you know what a test bank is but test banks have become popular because they allow the teacher to outsource the testing process to someone who knows little or nothing about your class. The test is just as important to the student but requires less thought and work by the teacher.

Here's what I do. I teach 50 minute classes three times per week. Although this schedule has become much less popular over the years, I think having more repetition makes for better learning. In addition, having more classes makes it is easier to set aside additional days for testing.

I give three tests during the semester and a comprehensive final exam. In my Intermediate Accounting II class, I also require three short papers. With this system, each of the hourly exams counts 20 percent of the student's final grade.

When we come to the first test and the students are beginning to panic (some seem ready to have a nervous breakdown), I try to reassure them – “Whether you do great or whether you do awful on this first test, it is only 20 percent of your grade. This is just a first step in showing you what I want you to learn. If you have a problem, you've got plenty of time to make adjustments and get the grade up.”

I want to give my students a chance to see how I test. The grade on that first test is still important -- it is 20 percent of the overall grade -- but I don't want to crush their spirit if they have a bad day. I want them to focus on a longer term goal. I want each student to be great by the last class. I have no other objective. I think having a first test that counts 20 percent is a good way to push my students toward that goal.

But it is important for them to realize that if they do not do well on that first test, then they must make adjustments. If a student makes a 59 or 67, that better be a wakeup call that changes are necessary.

Every semester I will have students who bomb the first test but still make an A in the course because they wake up and say “this old guy is not kidding, he really does expect me to think about this material and learn it.” And, they immediately become better students and save their grades.

Those are often my favorite students because they didn’t quit or give up. That made adjustments and learned what I wanted them to learn.   They had time to do that and they made good use of that opportunity.  I wish I had more students like that.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING ENTIRELY DIFFERENT (NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION)

 

Before I get started today, I want to wish every teacher out there a wonderful 2013.   During the upcoming year, go out and make a positive difference in as many lives as you possibly can.   This teaching job might not always pay well but having the opportunity to be a positive influence on so many lives (especially the lives of young people) is absolutely priceless.   Enjoy every day you have in the classroom!!   Happy 2013!!!!

**

I want to experiment more in my teaching.   I guess that is my new year's resolution.   This is my 42^nd year in the classroom and it is easy to get into a rut.  There are days when I can do this job in my sleep.   Sometimes I really have to stop and push myself to get outside of my comfort zone.   I never want to get into a position where I just go through the motions.   I do better work when things aren’t so easy.

For that reason, in the coming spring semester, I am going to help teach an experimental course called “The Appreciation of Literature by Accountants.”   (That’s not the official title but close enough.)

Yes, you heard correctly.   I did use the words “Accountants” and “The Appreciation of Literature” in the same sentence.  

One of the outstanding English professors here at the University of Richmond has volunteered to teach the course (I am just serving as the teaching assistant) and 14 senior accounting majors and one junior accounting major are signed up to start class in two weeks.  

 Over these 14 weeks, we are going to read and study:

--North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell (my favorite of these books)

--Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

--The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

This course might turn out to be an abysmal failure.   But, in all honesty, I think we have a chance to have a genuinely positive effect on the future lives of these 15 young people.   Plus, it is something I have never done before.  And, that is important to me.

We might never teach this course again (whether it is a success or a failure, the scheduling might never work out again) but I wanted to see what the impact might be.   I believe college teachers should try more such experimentation.   There will always be some losing efforts but the successes will more than make up for that.  Don't let the fear of failure restrict what you try to accomplish.

Here is the backstory.

I wanted to teach a half-unit course (meeting for 75 minutes per week) this coming semester covering Governmental Accounting and Not-for-Profit Accounting.   Historically, we have not had a free standing course covering these areas and I thought we should.   The class was scheduled to meet from 1:30 until 2:45 each Monday.  The assigned room would hold 15-16 students in a seminar type setting.     That meant that the room would stand vacant on Wednesdays at this time.

I have always felt that accounting majors (who tend to be left brained) need a better appreciation of liberal arts in order to have a more satisfying and well-rounded life after graduation.   No matter how exciting a person finds debits and credits, adult life should also be full of theatre, the arts, good books, and the like.   In my mind, accounting programs often take some of the brightest members of our population and make them too one dimensional by failing to help them learn to appreciate aspects of life beyond business. 

In my opinion, we make a tactical mistake in the way our college programs are structured.   We force accounting and other business students to take liberal arts courses when they first come to college (their “gen ed” requirements).   Thus, they often rush through these initial courses to get to the material they really want to learn.   Furthermore, the left-brained accounting majors take art, literature, philosophy, and the like with students who want to become art majors, English majors, and philosophy majors.   The accounting students often hide in the background because they feel inferior to these students who appear more verbal and in tune with the liberal arts mentality.

Ask your senior students what they think about liberal arts courses and they will often roll their eyes and complain that they weren’t as good as the other students and wanted to get on with the important work of learning business and accounting.   The liberal arts courses were to be endured rather than appreciated.   In other words, many of them do not leave school with much inclination to continue reading good books, going to museums, seeing plays, and the like.   I think that is a shame.   Why take liberal arts courses if it all ends when the course is over?  

Consequently, I went to my dean and asked her if I could use that empty classroom from 1:30 to 2:45 on Wednesdays to create a literature appreciation class for senior accounting majors.   I liked the idea for two reasons:

(1) – It would be taught to these students right before they graduated so the influence might be more likely to carry over into adult life.   Once the pressure of classes, papers, and testing has ceased, students might find reading a great activity to continue.

(2) – Only accounting majors would be taking the class.   The students would all know each other and not feel intimidated or embarrassed by being put up against English majors.   In other words, I wanted to form a comfortable community to study these books as a group.   The class would not be a competition but a shared exploration.

My dean was kind enough to let me try this experiment one time to see what would happen.   I was able to talk Dr. Elisabeth Rose Gruner of our English department into leading this class of senior accounting majors (Dr. Gruner is clearly being brave and going outside of her comfort zone).  

I then went back to our seniors and told them that I had room for 16 students in my Governmental Accounting and Not-for-Profit Accounting course.   Because the number of seats was so limited, I would only take students who were also willing to sign up for the Literature course.   Each course was one-half unit.

 Many students simply could not work these two classes into their schedules.   Other students expressed shock and amazement that they would even have to consider taking a Literature course (“I majored in Accounting solely because I didn’t want to write papers”).   But, we also had a number who were delighted by the idea and even wanted to suggest books for the course.  

We wound up with 15 students.   

Several people have asked me how I knew whether the course would work.   My answer is always the same “I have absolutely no idea whether it will work.   If I knew that, I wouldn’t have to teach the course.   I am doing this purely because I am curious as to whether the students will view it as a favorable or unfavorable experience.   And, maybe in a couple of years, we’ll follow up to see if they have been more likely to continue reading because of this experiment.”  

 

Passing the CPA Exam and making partner with a CPA firm is not the only measure of success for a college education.

I love accounting and business but, if all students get from a college education is the ability to get a job, then we have failed them in some fundamental way.   Life has to be lived 24/7 and that leaves a lot of time outside of the typical work day.   I think both business schools and liberal arts programs should do a better job of helping students fulfill both halves of their future lives:   the part inside the work day and the part outside of the work day.  

I am hoping the Governmental Accounting and Not-for-Profit Accounting will assist the students as they pursue their careers after graduation.   Just as strongly, I hope the literature class helps make their lives richer outside of the work day.   To me, that really is a win-win situation.

Okay, that is my big experiment for the upcoming semester.   But, what are you going to do?   What is your new year's resolution for 2013?    Don’t sleep walk through your job no matter how long you have been teaching.   Do something that will serve to push you beyond the boundaries of your comfort zone.   You might be able to help the students as well as yourself have a great 2013.

TWO STUDENTS I MISJUDGED

I am now halfway through my 42^ndyear as a college teacher.   This semester (like all semesters) had its ups and downs.   There were days when every student seemed brilliant and days when no one seemed to be able to count to four.     I don’t think I taught any geniuses but almost every student appeared capable and, hopefully, gained something of lasting benefit.   I started with 73 students and a total of 16 finished with the grade of A.   I always hope for more excellent work but 21.9 percent was not bad.   I try not to contribute too heavily to grade inflation.

At the end of every semester, there are always a few students that I wish I had handled differently.   I often ponder them long after class has ended.   With 73 students, it can be difficult to get an accurate read on each student at the beginning of the semester.   Some need carrots to do well and some need sticks.   Often, I feel frustrated because I do not have the time needed to determine what buttons to push to get individual students excited about the learning process.    In those cases, I am left wondering if I helped or hindered the student’s learning.

When I travel around the county speaking to teachers, I get to talk with a lot of folks.  One common theme I hear is that students do not always appreciate what teachers do for them.   “If I work them hard, they are unhappy.”   “If I challenge them to go deeper, they rebel.”   “Why should I work so hard when the students prefer the easy way?”   Teaching can be really frustrating.

And, in truth, human beings (even teachers) need motivation.   Everyone needs a pat on the back as often as possible.   It is hard to beat your head against a wall if no one really appreciates what you do.

Occasionally, though, I am brought back to reality and reminded that many (if not most) students really do care about their education.   But, they do not always have an easy way to show their appreciation for what you do.   Last week, I got emails from two of my fall students, two students that I never expected to hear from because I was not sure whether I had taught them anything or not.   Until I got their emails, I would have included them on the list of:   “I didn’t get through to these students very well.”   I guess that is my point:   Sometimes you just never know.

Student A

Student A seemed extremely quiet.   He was a student in my Introduction to Financial Accounting class.   When I called on him each day, he would take a long time to answer and his answers frequently seemed very hesitant and unsure.   As a result, if you had asked me, I would have said that he was not well prepared.  I assumed his hesitancy was because he was not terribly interested in the material.   From my vantage point, that was how it appeared.

The email I got from Student A last week was 1,276 words long.   I cannot remember ever getting such a long email from a student.   All semester, I thought he was a relatively nonverbal student when, in fact, he was just quiet.   He was not uninterested, he was quiet.   If this email was any indication, he was actually a very very verbal student.  

This student that I thought was basically uninterested in financial accounting was, in fact, one of the most interested.   I would have said that he did not appreciate what I did when he really did.   I misjudged him completely.   I am not sure how I should have taken advantage of that knowledge but I judged him incorrectly and probably should have pushed him harder.

Here are just a few (494) of those 1,276 words.

“I wanted to wait to message you until after I received my final numbers so I didn't appear as a brown noser pleading for a better grade. I just wanted to thank you for a great semester. Regardless of whether my letter grade ended as an A, B or C, I can honestly and confidently say that I walked away from your course knowing a great deal of new information about accounting. This class was unique for me- instead of studying just enough so I could pass a test and then forget everything I had learned, the accounting information became ingrained in my head. I began to, actually, like my accounting course. What impresses me most about your teaching abilities is that you instruct a course (accounting) that is considered to be boring/monotonous/dreary by so many people, and you manage to spark an interest within your students. . . . You ran a very tight ship, but that is what you told us to expect from the beginning. From day one, and through each and every email and paper you sent to us, you reinforced the fact that you would expect a lot of time and dedication from us. I appreciate your honesty. I appreciate your strategy of pushing your students to their academic limits. . . .  The thing that had the biggest impact on my thinking was the comparison you made one day between professional athletes and business world professionals. You said that when we look at professional athletes, we automatically assume that they had put in countless hours of perfecting their craft to be where they're at now but, for some reason, the same generalization is not made about those who work in the higher levels of business. This statement was very true and I thought about it for a long time after class. I questioned my own efforts and settled on the fact that I had not previously been putting in the time to my studies that I should have been. I do not lack any work ethic in the athletic department, probably because it is what I love to do the most. A few hundred swings and hours in the weight room are no hassle to me. However, I could honestly say that during my freshman year, and during most of this past semester, I was doing enough to get by and do 'well enough' but was I really pushing myself to become substantially better in the classroom? The answer was no- not at all. Your words that day helped me redefine my work ethic when it came to school. I started taking a little more pride and setting aside a little more time for my studies. I kept my new approach through the end of this past semester and I was pleased with my final grades. I am not saying you are the sole reason why I did well overall this semester, but your lessons definitely helped me.”

 

Student B

Student B was in my Intermediate Accounting II class and seemed completely uninterested.   His answers were almost flippant and I kept wanting to ask him why he was in the class if he cared so little.   His work on tests was all over the place from a 71 to a 92.   I fully expected him to make a D or an F on the final exam and perhaps a D in the course.   In my own mind, I had him firmly labeled as “having not one iota of interest in accounting.”

But then, Student B made a strong A on the final exam, a test that I considered incredibly complicated.   I was stunned.   I wondered if he had sent in a clone to take the test for himself.   I would have bet that he did not appreciate one thing about my teaching of that class so I didn’t understand that excellent work on the final exam.

Then, out of the blue, I got the following email.

“I just want to thank you for a fantastic semester. I can honestly say I enjoyed coming to your class every day of the week, as it was one of the only classes where I felt that I could sit and figure things out instead of scrambling to write down every word the professor says, to try and "learn" it later. After this semester I feel that I have grown much as a person, and more than ever find pleasure in things intellectual and thought-provoking. In car rides that used to be filled by whatever mindlessly popular music the radio station chose to broadcast, I now find myself either listening to talk radio or turning off the radio all together and pondering different facets of my life or humanity as a whole.   Not only has this class enriched my ability to think about life, but I feel to have gained a real understanding of financial accounting. While during the semester I may have seemed somewhat uninterested, I promise you this was never the case. My problem was that I easily understood about 85% of the material, and thus didn't feel particularly pressed to immediately work for the other 15%. Interestingly enough, when I sat down to begin studying for the final, I found that going back through the material was not as stressful as I expected it to be. The concepts I had learned throughout the entire semester were clear and seemed to flow together perfectly. I honestly enjoyed the 4 hour final, as it gave me a chance to sit down and think through problems, and the fact that I was able to easily reason through them was actually fairly exciting for me.”

I had 73 students this semester.    Only 3 or 4 chose to write me an email about the semester.   And, much to my surprise, two of the most interesting emails came from students that

(a) I clearly did not understand too well during the semester and

(b) I would have labeled as not at all appreciative of the class.

As I have said before, I write these blog entries for me more than for you.   So, what should I take away from these two emails?

First – don’t rely too much on external appearances.   Work harder to get to know the students as best you can.   One of the absolute great things about teaching is that every student brings his or her own issues and personality to your class.   After all, you don’t teach a class; you teach people.  

Second – don’t waste so much time worrying about whether students appreciate what you do.   You simply may never know.   If you work hard and if you understand what you want your students to learn and if you challenge them (but do so fairly), they will come to appreciate what you do.   Yeah, there may never be a way for them to express that appreciation but it is there.

 

THE MISSING COMPONENT

College education has numerous critics these days.   I believe the recent fascination with MOOCs comes – at least in part – from dissatisfaction with the perceived quality of the current educational experience.   We promise development of critical thinking skills in our students but often appear to deliver little more than well-rehearsed memorization.    The argument then follows that we don’t need small classes and individual attention simply to teach memorization.   Massive online courses can achieve that goal with much less cost.

In my spare time, I often ponder how modern college education can become better.   For example, is the education that a college student gets today really superior in any way to the norm 40 years ago?   Cars get more miles per gallon of gas than they did back then.   Computers run thousands of times faster.   But, has college education gotten better during that same period?   We are certainly able to teach more students but has the average education actually improved in any significant way? 

About 20 years ago, I read an article that I remember well to this day.    The article argued that society’s best teacher was the drill sergeant in charge of new Marine recruits during their stay in basic training.    This officer gets paid a relatively small amount but will work 24 hours per day, 7 days a week, for weeks on end to make sure the new recruits are properly trained.   The drill sergeant will push, cajole, and drive each person toward success.   At the end of that time, the recruit will be basically a new person – gone are laziness and bad habits.  The person is now a well-trained soldier.  

 

Why does the drill sergeant work so hard without much real compensation?   According to the article, the sergeant is training each new recruit on how to stay alive during combat and other dangerous situations.   For the drill sergeant, the very life of the recruit is on the line.   A properly trained soldier stays alive whereas a poorly trained one might not.   Failure to teach the young soldier well can possibly lead to an avoidable death.   It is the urgency of the education that pushes the drill sergeant to go all out, night and day, to train the recruit.   The recruit might actually hate the sergeant but also might owe his life to that teacher.  

I was reminded of this article recently.   My wife and our daughters occasionally watch a television show called “The Biggest Loser.”   I have never seen a complete episode but I will sometimes watch a few minutes as I pass through the room.   As you might know, a group of very heavy contestants are chosen.   These folks typically weigh between 280 to 500 pounds and their lives are in jeopardy simply because of their extreme heaviness. 

Over a period of weeks, these contestants eat less and exercise so much that they often lose hundreds of pounds.  They become new people ready to resume more active rolls in society.

My favorite characters on this show are the trainers who work with each of the contestants.   I know that one of them is named Jillian.   Jillian will get in the contestant’s faces and push them unmercifully to do their exercises.   She will beg them; she will yell at them; she will use whatever trick it takes to get them to work harder and harder so that the excess weight is lost.  From what I have seen, no one does more than Jillian to get the results she wants.   I often wonder what college would be like if we had a few people like Jillian on our faculty.

By the end of the television season, these folks have had their lives completely turned around.   They might have weighed 390 pounds at the start of the competition but be down to 180 by the end.   

Clearly, they do not like the amount of pushing that Jillian does.   The work can be incredibly hard.   They are used to being lazy; she wants them to do real work.   They have always made excuses; she won’t let them make any excuses.    I am always expecting one of the contestants to pick Jillian up one day and throw her out the window.   However, at the last week of each show, almost every contestant will hug Jillian and tell her thanks.  Thanks for not giving up on them.   Thanks for continuing to push them to get better and stronger.   Thanks for guiding them to lose so much weight.   She is not their best buddy and doesn't want to be but she has helped them to change their lives for the better.

Why does Jillian push these people so hard?   Well, like the drill sergeant, there is a real urgency present.   Improvement is needed and improvement is needed immediately.   These people are so heavy that they will likely die before their time if they don’t make a change right now.   Today.   Each contestant is hundreds of pounds overweight and could have a heart attack at any moment.  

This is what I call “educational urgency.”   The teacher imparts an urgency that requires serious work and lots of it and all of it right now.   No procrastination.   No laziness.   No excuses.   There is work to be done and it needs to be done now.  

How many teachers have you ever had that seemed to indicate that there was any urgency at all in the learning of class material?   I have had dozens of teachers and I don't remember ever having any urgency.   I meandered forward at my own leisure.

Students are human beings (believe it or not).   Ask yourself this question:   How much real work will they do without a sense of urgency?

Most teachers want their students to learn and most do become annoyed if the students don’t learn.   But, is there ever any real urgency?   And, if there is not, why would in teacher expect a college student to do the work or even care about the class?

I believe that one of the reasons college teaching is under attack is that our classes often don’t ring with any urgency at all.   If the student learns the material, that is great but, if not, it is really no big deal.   In the end, it really doesn’t make much difference.   That's an attitude that can lead to general dissatisfaction.

Whether you teach Shakespeare or philosophy or political science or, even, accounting, is there any urgency at all to the learning process?   If there is no urgency, why should your students really do anything for you?   Of course, there are always a few great students who love the material and do the work because of that interest.   Trust me, they are not the problem.   It is the other students we need to reach and spur on to better habits and deeper thinking.

In my classes, I give out questions every day for the next class.   At that subsequent class, I call on every student to explain these questions and provide potential solutions.   I argue with them if I don’t like their answers.   I do worse if I don’t feel they are prepared.   I am trying to create a sense of urgency because I want them to do well and do well every day.  I am not trying to scare them.   I just want them to view every day as essential.   I want my students to feel a need to prepare so that they can be ready to be engaged in our class discussion.

Does it work?   Sometimes yes and sometimes no.   No system is perfect.   But, if you are not satisfied with what your students are learning, it may well be that they feel no urgency to do any better.

 

Add a little urgency to the mixture.