savageinfidel

Several weeks ago, I wrote a blog entry describing my discussion each semester with my juniors about the best book that they have ever read. In the blog, I explained that I thought education needed to be more than just conveying material. It also needs to be about helping students to broaden their horizons and become better rounded members of our society. If we are just going to teach stuff, computers can probably do that better than we can. I got quite a number of emails about that post – most were positive although some were a bit mystified as to why I would do that in an accounting class. Heck, I would do that in any class. So, okay, let’s take this thought a step further. What is your favorite class memory of the spring semester? I assume virtually everyone who reads this post is a teacher. What is your favorite teaching memory from the spring? (If you don’t have one, you probably need to make some serious changes.) One of my favorite memories is of a photograph (now taped to m...

A few weeks ago, I wrote about sending out an initial email to start reprogramming my students to be the type of students that I wanted them to be.  Below is the second step in this process.   It is my second email to the students for the fall semester.   I emailed this note to my students this morning. To: Accounting 302 Students From: JH Okay, I’m sending out a bunch of material to you folks occasionally over the course of the summer. You already have the course outline and I assume you have looked over that pretty carefully by now. Attached is something entirely different. Everyone knows this class is challenging and that making an A takes an excellent effort. I want to help you understand (before we get started) what you need to do in order to do well in this course. So, every semester, I ask the 11 – 25 percent of the students who make an A to write a paragraph or two to explain how they managed to do so well. I cut and paste all the student responses into ...

Before I start today, I want to wish everyone in the US a very happy July 4.   Politically, we all tend to fuss and fight way too much but I think we can all agree that we are so incredibly lucky to live in a country where we can celebrate our freedom, liberty, and independence.   For that reason, every day around here should be July 4. ** If you have ever been at one of my teaching presentations, you know that a main theme (obsession) of mine is that you have to reprogram your students to do what you want them to do. They have already been in school for many years and most have picked up sloppy habits and poor attitudes. Students are very much a product of the educational system; they are very well-trained, but often trained to be bad students. I believe it is the teacher’s job to start the reprograming process as quickly as possible. For example, my first class in the fall is on August 27. I sent my students an email back in April suggesting some things they could ...