savageinfidel

I began giving teaching presentations about 10-12 years ago.    As I have said many times, I enjoyed that experience immensely because it forced me to spend serious time thinking more deeply about my own teaching.    I cannot begin to guess the number of times in the last few years that I have asked myself: --What really happened in class today?    --Why didn’t this work? --How should I have changed what I did? --What was wrong with that particular question? --Why did the class seem unorganized? --How did I manage to confuse so many students in that discussion? All those questions eventually led me to begin writing about teaching and now I am up to over 250 pages.    And, I am still asking questions and still learning. One of the very first teaching concepts that I ever developed for myself was “the learning triangle.”    I remember standing in front of 100 or so brilliant professors one day a number of years ago in one of my very firs...

At this moment, I am half-way through my 42 nd year as a college professor.    Tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. I walk back into class to see if I can do it all again.    This semester, I have 28 students in one Intermediate Accounting II class and 26 students in another Intermediate class.     I also have 15 students taking my Governmental Accounting course.    I have an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of these 69 young people.    Hopefully, that will be a positive difference.    That is not a responsibility that I take lightly.    Whether each of these students is better off on the last day of the semester depends in large part on how well I do my job.     After all this time, I am still thrilled when I think about going into class and leading the conversation.    I never fail to get a stomach full of butterflies before the first class.    You could describe my feel...

A few days ago, this blog moved over 65,500 page views since its inception.    It is amazing how often I receive emails from teachers (around the world) who start out by saying “A friend of mine who teaches at my school told me about your blog.”    Consequently, I like to stop now and then and say Thanks!!! to everyone who passes along a good word about this blog.    If not for you, I would be writing all this stuff to myself.    Whether you agree or disagree, I really appreciate your passing along the blog entries. ** One of the things that I try to do in my classes is talk with my students about my teaching philosophy.   I want them to understand that I do not do things randomly.    I try to have a reason for what I do and I want that reason to be logical.    I think students appreciate being brought into the conversation about their own education.    I think they are more likely to do what the teacher asks i...

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 ...

The following link will prove that if you scare enough students over enough years, you will wind up with your picture on the Internet: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-09-10/favorite-professors-richmonds-joe-hoyle ** I think one of the most detrimental myths of teaching is that a person has to be funny or easy or entertaining to be popular with students. I think this idea has ruined a lot of good teachers. I cannot even estimate how many teachers have told me over the past 42 years “if I try to hold the line and make the students work, they will dislike me and kill me on the student evaluations. Students only want teachers who make them laugh and give them A’s.” Students only want teachers who make them laugh and give them A’s. If that line is true, the future of education is truly bleak. Often, I believe that line is merely a scapegoat – not always, but often. What I think those folks are really saying is “whether it is true or not, the students believe that I am giving them ...

We completed our first week of school yesterday. I always believe that this is an important juncture. Is the class going to fall into a lethargic mediocrity or begin to take off? We only have about 14 weeks. If we are going to have something great, we need to start building on that almost immediately. If you begin to lose student enthusiasm, you may never get it back. So, this morning, I wrote my students a note to make sure they each understand what it takes to be good in my class. The goal is not to cram the night before the test. The goal is to understand the material today so that you can answer more questions tomorrow. I’m hoping they’ll buy into that as a goal worth taking seriously. Here’s the note that I wrote to my students in Intermediate Accounting II. “I thought we had an excellent first week. That’s what I want and that’s what I want every day and every week. Success is never earned by an occasional good day of work. I want you to be consistently excellent. “I have three p...

This blog went over 45,000 page views (since its inception) this past Monday. As I wish I could do every day, I want to thank everyone who passes along a word to friends and colleagues about the blog. Obviously, there would be no page views at all without you folks. I firmly believe that we need more conversation about teaching, learning, and education if we are going to solve the problems of our world. I appreciate your helping my blog to be a part of that conversation. ** Here are my previous four favorite quotes about teaching: “The process of learning is asking sharper and sharper questions." “The real purpose of books is to trap the mind into doing its own thinking.” “Figure it out.” “If you think your teacher is tough, wait until you have a boss.” I think those four quotes are very insightful and have led me to think more deeply about my own classes. However, the quote for today goes beyond that – it is one that has had a genuine impact on my own teaching. I d...

I started a new semester last week. Last night, at the end of that first week, I sent the following email to my students. Now that they see what we are doing, I want them to understand my goals. I want them to see what I am trying to accomplish. I want them to believe that the work that I am asking them to do is worth the effort. To achieve your ambitions, your students have to buy into the process. If they do the work just because they are scared of you or your tests, the amount they can achieve is truly limited. To: Accounting Students From: JH Okay, you’ve had my class now for a week. It is obviously a different approach. Some people like it and some people hate it. I can live with that. But, I do want you to understand what I’m trying to do. I think you’ll do better if you see what my goals are. I realize that you are more used to lecture and memorization and may not even see what benefit comes from what we are doing. If you have a free ten minutes this w...

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 ...

As my friends will tell you (or my wife, for that matter), I’m not a terribly modest person. It is a fault of which I am aware. So, I am a bit embarrassed by my third favorite quotation about teaching because it comes from, well, me. Yes, I am quoting myself. But, in truth, it is a quote that I like. And, it is a quote that I genuinely believe can help make any person a better classroom teacher. I was reminded of this yesterday in two emails that I received from former students. This past semester, I worked with 65 students and 11 of them earned the grade of A. As I mentioned in a recent blog entry, I wrote each of those 11 to pass along my congratulations and to ask them to write a short essay on how they earned that A, an essay that I will pass along as guidance to my class in the spring. Yesterday, two of those students separately mentioned my tendency in class to throw out random questions and then direct them to “figure it out.” (They both said something like “when ...

In 1980, I started writing my Advanced Accounting textbook. I was so young and innocent that I really didn’t understand that writing a textbook by myself of that size and complexity was almost impossible. However, after 3-4 years of intense writing (I remember one Christmas day when I sat typing on my little blue portable typewriter trying desperately to finish the project before it was out of date), I managed to complete the book. Several editions later, I added two wonderful co-authors and the book is now going into its 11th edition as the market leader. When I finished the first edition of this textbook, I wanted to add a quote at the beginning to put forth my feeling about textbooks and education in general. I looked everywhere and couldn’t find a quote that I liked. I was about ready to give up on the quest. One day I went to get my hair cut and was talking to the young woman who was cutting my hair. I told her about my search for the perfect quote and she casually r...

My Favorite Quotes About Teaching – Number One (I’m writing this in the middle of a final exam. I figured I might as well do something useful while I sit here.) I am a person who likes quotes. I have numerous books of famous quotations and I’m surprised by how often I read through them. They can be inspirational; they can make you think. In each book, there are always several quotes that I find touching or meaningful. Certain of those thoughts seem to have been lifted directly from my brain without me ever having formed them consciously. I am surprised by how often I find myself muttering “oh, yeah, that’s what I believe.” There are a number of quotes about teaching that I really like. Over the years, they have come to mean something special to me as I try to do my job well each day. They have helped me better consider what I am attempting to do in this life as a teacher. Several days ago, I decided to write a blog entry about several of my favorite quotes on teaching. ...

If you have followed this blog for long, you probably know that I use the Socratic Method to teach Financial Accounting (sophomores) and Intermediate Accounting (juniors). My students are stunned at first when I start asking them questions. Most of them have never experienced anything like this. My goal is to get them comfortable (but not too comfortable) after the first 2-3 classes. We have now had 8 classes (we start early). Class is moving along nicely (I think). I really want them to enjoy the give and take of learning. A roller coaster will scare you to death the first time you ride it but about the third time “scary” becomes “fun.” I am not interested in scaring anyone but I do want to help them develop their critical thinking skills. That is rarely easy. So, I like to get them to buy into what we are doing. I also believe in being totally honest and open with my students as to what I am doing and why. I think they deserve to know the why. After all, it is...

My first class of the 2011-2012 academic year will be next Monday at 9 a.m. If you have followed this blog for long, you know that I only teach by using a Socratic Method approach. I distribute questions in advance and then discuss those or related questions for the entire class time. I want a thoughtful conversation. This allows me to stick with my 50-50 goal (I do 50 percent of the talking and they do 50 percent of the talking). I am a big believer that it is important to get each new class off to the proper start. You set a tone at the beginning that carries through for the entire semester. If you are funny, they’ll expect you to be funny from now on. If you do 100 percent of the talking, they’ll assume that this is the way you teach every single day. Consequently, I spend a lot of time thinking about the tone I am creating during that first class. By now, I have already sent my students 4-5 emails so I fully expect them to be prepared on Monday morning and ready to...

I was talking recently with a friend who asked something like: "You have had nearly 33,000 page views on your teaching blog. Which of your entries have drawn the most traffic?" In truth, some entries have had almost no readers while others have had thousands of page views. Not really sure what makes such extreme differences. If you want to go back and check to see the most popular entries over the last 16 months or so, here they are. 1 - What Do We Add? July 22, 2010 2 - Big Mistakes March 26, 2011 3 - Need Some Inspiration? September 13, 2010 4 - What Do You Tell Your Students? August 19, 2010 5 - The $10 Million Question January 16, 2011 6 - The Opening August 24, 2010 7 - Using Power Point Slides March 17, 2010

This entry on my blog should prove two things: (1) I lead a relatively boring existence and (2) I spend way too much time thinking about teaching. Yesterday for lunch, I went to a nearby Jimmy John’s Deli and got a sandwich. As I sat there eating it, I pulled out a piece of paper and across the top I wrote: What are the biggest mistakes that college teachers make? I immediately listed out 9 or 10 mistakes that I think college teachers are prone to make, mistakes that prevent them from moving from good to great. Then, I decided to whittle the number down to a “Top Five” list. That was tricky because several of my items appear to be quite prevalent. Finally, about the time I had taken the last bite of my sandwich, I turned my final five into a countdown somewhat like a David Letterman list on late night television. So, straight from Jimmy John’s Deli in Richmond, Virginia, here are my “Top Five Mistakes That College Teachers Make.” If you think I left something off, let...