savageinfidel

A good friend of mine who teaches at a university in Texas wrote to me a few days ago and posed the following question. My guess is that all college teachers have felt this same way at times over the years. It is very difficult to get students to leap tall buildings with a single bound if you can’t get them to prepare for class. “For the past two semesters I have become so totally frustrated with the students in my classes. They do NOT come to class prepared AT ALL. They don't read the book. Some of them don't even get the book until the 3rd or 4th week of the semester. “Do you have a secret for getting students to read their textbook, especially in Intermediate? Do you threaten them with hanging at dawn? Do you give them a quiz every class? “I really want my fall Intermediate students to develop some better habits, so I'm looking for a way to facilitate that.” Okay, I think the first way to approach this quandary is to consider where most of the students are coming from in...

Okay, I post a blog entry like this about every six months but I think it is important enough to be redundant. If you ask your students to leap tall buildings in a single bound and they manage to do it, I think you owe it to them to acknowledge what they have accomplished. Simply putting an anonymous A on a grade report doesn't seem to properly recognize those students who have done truly outstanding work. Every semester, when I finish my grading and I sit down and write this note, I am amazed by how good it makes me feel. I had several truly outstanding students this semester and I wanted them to know that I did notice. I did recognize that they worked incredibly hard and learned an amazed amount. I noticed and I wanted them to know that I noticed. Thursday Dear Mr./Ms. XX, I just wanted to let you know that I have finished grading the final examination and computing course averages. Only six students in my two Accounting 201 classes earned the overall grade of A for ...

Football coaches across the country work constantly on getting their players to play especially hard at the end of each game. Often, the difference between winning and losing is based on who can put on the strongest push in the final moments. One last valiant effort can lead to a victory that will be remembered with fondness for years to come. When my students return from Thanksgiving break, they will have one more week of classes and then final exams. In less than 2 weeks, it will be all over. They can be lethargic or they can be energized. I know what I want. I don’t want them to coast out. I want them to finish strong. Why do all this work throughout the semester only to fade out at the very end? If the material is worth learning, now is the time to put on that push to add even more knowledge and understanding. Here at the end of the semester, I like to challenge my students to keep pushing forward. I think it is human nature; people need motivation. For studen...

Virtually all of the blogs that I have written over the past 8 months have been directed toward teachers. My goal has been to encourage teachers and give you folks something to think about that might stimulate a bit of improvement. It crossed my mind this morning to wonder: who encourages the students? Being a student is not easy. They study hard and are constantly under pressure to do well on papers, tests, class presentations and the like. They are human; they need encouragement—especially when things are not going well. Who encourages students? Well, I guess it should be their teachers. You need encouragement; you need assurance; you need positive feedback. And, so do they. If you genuinely want to teach students successfully, some small part of the job (I believe) must be to encourage them to do the work that is necessary. Do we do that? Or, do we simply ignore that aspect of the teaching process and then complain when students don’t live up to our expectatio...