John Norwood, April 2018 Wally Cordes Chair and Professor of Accounting in the Walton College of Business, led a discussion on teaching-related challenges such as attendance, exams, grades and having fun in the classroom.

In this discussion, Professor Norwood talked about his use of YouTube videos in class, many of which had a moral value. Professor Norwood tends to pick out a theme for the year and have various videos within that theme that he plays throughout the semester. This year’s theme is “Never give up.” When his students start looking tired and distracted, he pulls up a two minute YouTube video to give them a break. Some of his YouTube videos include:

He discussed his evolving attendance policies. Over the course of his career in teaching, he has tried many different methods. On his first day teaching in 1973 he told the students, “I will be lecturing as well as I can. You can attend if you wish.”  Since then he’s tried several different methods, including this semester when each student began the semester with 50 points in attendance and lost 5 points for every class they did not attend. However, if they came to his office the following Saturday at 9 AM they could earn those points back. After ten Saturdays of this, it got a little old and he will be adapting his policy once again. His willingness to adjust his policies shows a valuable awareness of the changing needs of students and the importance of being flexible and willing to modify classroom plans.

This content was developed from a presentation by John Norwood which was sponsored by the The Wally Cordes Teaching and Faculty Support Center (TFSC) at the University of Arkansas.