Bishop's Law of Minimums

I recently had met up with a colleague, Dr. Wes Fondren, who I dearly love, but had not seen in a long time. He mentioned "Bishop's Law of Minimums", so I thought I should preserve it here.  It is a bit long, but some may find it worth the read.

Everyone follows the Law of Minimums out of necessity.  We cannot put all our energy and effort into low-value mundane tasks, or else there is nothing left for important demanding work.

As a prof, I intentionally follow the Law of Minimums.  I figure every class has at least three major groups:

1)      Those who will learn despite what I might do.

2)      Those who will NOT learn despite what I might do.

3)      Those who do NOT know whether they are in group 1 or 2, and that is where we have to focus most of our efforts.

Group #1 deserves more than minimum attention by merit.  Group 2 gets minimum by their own preference.  Group #3 gets the most attention, because they offer the biggest potential payoff.

University freshmen have figured this out, whether they realize it or not.

When students convince themselves something is WORTH the effort, we get more than minimum effort.

Ways I convince myself of the worth of some material:

Interesting presentations:  novelty, excitement, changing stimuli.  This can be done by:  a) small group tasks perceived as enjoyable, worthy, exciting; b) peer teachers; c) rotating teachers; d) using strategic videos (there are some good ones now).

Maxim:  Maximal learning requires Maximal Engagement.  Students have to be engaged.

But this must be founded upon topics of interest: 

·       Sex

·       Alcohol

·       Wealth

·       Social issues including social media.

(Dr. Fondren has a long student-generated list.)

There must be incentives including:

Grades

Rewards (e.g. perfect attendance and a B or better= no Final exam.  That works for me to get students in class).

I have a talk about how to raise your GPA 1.0 requiring NO nights or weekends working.  I can send if interested.

Crucial role of Relationship

As Dr. Fondren can tell you, building RELATIONSHIP with students is crucial to getting them to do what they need to do.  He is an expert at this and can give a lot of good direction.

To Be honest, I don’t know how to resolve this.