Author Archives: WMillhiser

Posts: 26 (archived below)
Comments: 27

Web-based Homework?

Posted on January 12, 2009 by WMillhiser

Have you noticed that textbook publishers are promoting web-based homework systems such as Prentice Hall’s Grade Assist (PHGA), McGraw-Hill’s Homework Manager and Wiley’s eGrade?

All 20 sections of Finance 3000 are using the McGraw-Hill product. Students do homework online and receive instantaneous feedback (with solutions), professors enjoy automated grading, and the coordinator appreciates bolstered grading fairness across sections. No two students get the same question due to randomized seed numbers (e.g., student 1: “solve X + 219 = 567”; student 2: “solve X + 98 = 673”). If a student doesn’t like his/her score, the entire problem set may be redone, with new seed numbers, and the professor’s grade report includes the score of every attempt.

I trialed PHGA with 80 MGT 3121 students, spring 2008. Students complained that they often reasoned correctly, but made errors inputting numeric answers in the software, and thus redid entire assignments (with new seed numbers) to get the points they felt they deserved. In some cases I had to agree with the students—the software is not perfect. My larger concern is that none of the types of questions that promote deep learning are available in the software. Rather, standard “textbook” questions—questions with a single correct answer such as “determine the reorder point and reorder quantity” or “forecast demand on day 150″—lulled students into deep comas. It’s about as exciting as the computerized SAT test.

Worried that web-based homework trades richness of student thinking for my convenience, I stopped using the software.

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Posted in Grading, Teaching Large Classes, Using Technology | 4 Comments

Understanding “the Pause”

Posted on November 26, 2008 by WMillhiser

One of my saxophone mentors told me that “a great jazz solo is the buildup and release of tension.” For nearly a decade, I’ve been wondering if good teaching is the same. There are all sorts of ways we build and release this tension in the classroom and many of us do it.

I was recently reminded of a simple way to create tension and intrigue—something the orators of this nation have been doing for centuries. It’s called “the pause.” One of the masters was Samuel Clemens, aka, Mark Twain. Consider this quote from the Ken Burns documentary (Mark Twain, PBS, 2000) about Twain’s days on the California lecture circuit:

“He was an unintentional genius of the stage. He had this shambling gait and he had this bewildering drawl—his mother called it ‘Sammy’s long talk.’ Some people thought he was drunk when he wandered out on stage and kind of mumbled about like this. But as the act went on—as the lecture went on—they began to see that the pauses were the great formulations; the pauses were the great preludes to the cascade of humor. So the silence on stage led to something else and as he started to understand that himself, he developed it into a great art form. He understood the pause. And one night he decided to take it as far as it would go. He walked out on stage and looked at the audience [pause] and looked at the audience [pause] and looked at the audience [pause]. The silence went on; the tension built until someone in the crowd snickered. And when that happened, the cascades of laughter came and he knew that the audience was his.” —Ron Powers, writer

Is the “audience” yours?

And we now know that the real value of the pause is the opportunity it gives students to think, digest and reflect.

Posted in Classroom Management | 4 Comments

Breaking the Ice

Posted on October 27, 2008 by WMillhiser

Did you meet Mel Silberman, Temple University’s guru of active classroom participation, when he spoke at Baruch in 2006 or 2008? I recently came across a four-page paper (here) that Silberman wrote on the subject of classroom icebreakers. Who would have known that you can promote social interaction while simultaneously engaging students in the course content?

Posted in Classroom Management, Student Participation | 1 Comment

Teaching the Work-Life Balance

Posted on October 13, 2008 by WMillhiser

Is it me or are many of our BBA students preoccupied with securing the type of prestigious, high-paying jobs that can take a terrible toll on the personal life? How many undergraduate students do you know whose life ambition is to be an investment banker, management consultant or auditor for the Big Four? Don’t get me wrong—I know many who are happily employed by such firms (even in this economy), and it reflects well on Baruch College every time we place a student. My question is this: should professors push their students to think more about their future work-life balance?

Over the years, I discovered some interesting comments on careers and job hunting that I share with students every semester. I’d like to share a sample with you.

1. Michael R. Bloomberg’s commencement address, Johns Hopkins, May 22, 2003 (click here for transcription). Read the two paragraphs that begin, “Whether or not you go to graduate school…”

2. Steve Jobs’ commencement address, Stanford, June 14, 2005 (click here for transcription). Read the two paragraphs that follow the “My third story is about death” subsection, or fast forward to time 8:45 in the following video.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA[/youtube]

3. “Stupid Interview Questions,” by Liz Ryan, Business Week, Sept 21, 2005 (click here for full text).

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Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments

Multiple Choice Questions for Quants?

Posted on October 2, 2008 by WMillhiser

Lately, I’ve been wondering about the efficacy of multiple choice exams in quantitative disciplines, like operations management, calculus, finance, etc., and discovered this little study that García Cruz and Garret presented at the 2006 International Conference on Teaching Statistics in Brazil (link to proceeding). Using a combination of multiple-choice and open-ended questions about descriptive statistics, they found, “that many students who choose the correct answers in multiple-choice questions were completely unable to demonstrate any reasonable method of solving related open questions.” Food for thought.

Posted in Assessing Learning | Comments Off

What’s in a Name?

Posted on September 25, 2008 by WMillhiser

Physicist and award-winning master teacher Robert Brown [1] taught me several years ago to learn every student’s name every semester. This begs a related question: what should students call you?

At many independent secondary schools (for example, Quaker Friends schools) and progressive liberal arts colleges, students have been on a first-name basis with teachers for decades. But there seems to be a formality at the university level in general and at Baruch in particular (even my administrative assistants call me “Professor”). Why is this?

Struggling with this question, I thought about Brown. He insists on being called “Doctor Brown,” and yet his students consistently rate him as the most helpful and approachable person they know. Brown tells me that he knows of many faculty who are called by their first name, and their popularity with the students, in his opinion, is really not closely correlated with whether they are on a first-name basis.

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[1] Brown, R. 2005. “‘Lowfalutin’ Learning List”, The Physics Teacher, 43(1), 55-56. (This collection of 10 suggestions for young teachers is a “must read” for all junior faculty of any discipline.)