We hope , we dream, we learn

New Years is a time of reflection and perspective. We close out the old year. We wrap up the books and accounting of our wins and losses.  It's a time to put things behind us.  A time to start a fresh new year, a new set of books and a new score of wins and losses.  We have hopes of good fortune for profits, companionship and meaningful endeavors.  New Years is a time to dream of possibilities, to wonder what the new will bring.  It's that time when we reflect on what failed this year, or at least did not work out as well as planned.  For a brief moment after the clock strikes twelve, we are all virgins again.

The new year brings a time of resolution.  We promise to ourselves things that we cannot change and attempt to change them.  Resolutions only work when the motivation is there.  New Years does not always usher in a stunning lightening bolt of motivation. When I have made resolutions to change that have worked, it was at anytime of the year. New or not, but when I did make a resolution it was a new beginning.  Motivation is some deep inner self directed slave driver within us that makes us do things.  Some of the best motivations have not been financially motivations.  Intrinsic motivation is the desire to do something even if you were not being paid to do it.

We have hope that things will turn out better next year. Maybe after the great recession we hope only to not repeat another year like this one.  In the task of tallying the winners and losers, which we inevitably do, we wrap up the fortunes and misfortunes of the year and send them all away to our tax accountant.  If I were to really make an honest assessment I would say that character was a winner this year.  In the end, people can lose their business, lose property, lose wealth in a time like now.  But one thing is certain, the character, will and the intelligence that is the backbone of so many entrepreneurs in America is never lost.  Small business owners were smart people when they built their successful businesses and after these "Loss Years" , small business owners will still be smart capable people.  And it's not just business owners.  Knowledge is something you can sell over and over and over again and still have it to sell again.  The inventory never runs out.

So for that brief moment when we all have a virgin slate before us, think about what knowledge can be shared over and over and over again in the new year? What can I learn ...to add to my knowledge inventory this year?

May we all have a profitable new year and many more,
Terri Campbell

Learning Culture in a CPA Firm

It has often been said that formal learning is 30% of what we learn and informal learning is 70%.

We are all familiar with the process of formal CPA training. From the university level, where we are educated in the classical manner of lectures, assignments, reports and a graded evaluation to the continuing education series we are required to obtain. Where we obtained our degree is often the hallmark when we begin our careers in public accounting. The industry places a prestigious emphasis on obtaining a CPA designation that demonstrated competence by passing a rigorous exam. Formal education is characterized by assessment of learning outcomes. And all that accounts for 30% of what we know in this knowledge business!

Informal learning is a haphazard concoction of life experiences, on the job training, coaching, self discovery, and mentoring relationships (just to name a few). They are often unplanned, seldom have stated goals and objectives, most likely have little evaluation of outcomes and possibly with the exception of mentoring relationships rarely train the "teacher" of the informal learning experience.

For a moment put yourself in the shoes of a new accounting intern, who just came from a formal learning environment where maybe 80% of learning is formal and 20% is informal. Then ZAP ZING ZONG !!! you are transported to a learning environment where formal learning is 30% . What's the first thing you are going to think? Most likely that you are not learning as much. A withdrawal from taking tests and getting feedback on what you learned immediately takes place in the intern to 1st year. In most situations the accountant is not aware of the informal learning that is taking place.

Now let's take a look at the firm learning objectives. Most CPE plans are done to achieve the requirements of AICPA, State Licensing, Quality requirement of an industry (such as government audits) and lastly, firm strategy to develop people in the ever expanding breath of service needs to grow a successful firm. If you take a good look at the CPE plan chances are it only addresses the 30% of formal learning. Some firms can add another 10% for having written mentoring plans. So how do we know that the balance of 60-70% of the learning objectives are in alignment with firm strategies?

In my opinion, and that's what a blog is for, there are methods to better plan the informal learning goals and objectives to achieve a learning culture that is one of the keys to a firms success. The first method involve practice based inquiry. According to Johnson and Pratt(2005) for the type of intellectual or cognitive learning to take place in an informal learning the "teachers must expressly articulate their thinking to learners in order to make it visible to them and the learner must also make visible their thinking." On the job training, situational learning, life experiences, and self discovery are all forms of apprenticeship of intellectual cognitive thinking skills. By exercising practice based inquiry at or near the conclusion of an audit the informal learning becomes solidified and recognized in the mind of the learner. Once this visibility is achieved the learner can then apply the knowledge to ever increasing complex intellectual questions and increasingly complex thinking.

Here's a sample of some of the practice based inquiry I use at the end of an audit:

• INDUSTRY- How did you come to understand the industry sector of the recent audit? By hearing? By reading? By experience in the audit? By discussion with client employees? Did you do any self inquiry (such as google)?
• LEVERAGE OF TECHNOLOGY- How was learning accomplished in terms of the new technology? By training sessions? By experience learning? By trail and error? By sharing with co workers?
• RESOURCES- Did having a whiteboard listing the assigned and unassigned areas of the audit help you manage your time? Feel a sense of accomplishment? Did it help you experience the project management tools at work? Did you make use of knowledge based tools during the audit? Did you make any self inquiry or refer to textbooks, CPA review either physically or by recall?
• RISK ASSESSMENT- How did your experience enhance your understanding of audit risk? How did you feel about materiality?
• COMMUNICATION- What opportunities did you encounter? To write? To listen? To communicate?
• PROBLEM SOLVING- Where there any instances in any context in the recent audit?

Keep in mind when asking questions and listening to answers that the intellectual apprenticeship is to "involve you within" rather than "tell you about". The steps are to Model the skill, provide scaffolding support to encourage self discovery, coach with hints and feedback, and finally self directed learning by generalizing the intellectual knowledge and apply it to other situations.

The questions are aligned with the AICPA educational core competencies that were developed for the formal university educational goals. The alignment helps the new accountant transition from the goals and objectives in the formal systems to work life experiential learning. Making visible the 70% informal learning provides sense of accomplishment and clarity of purpose.

----Terri, 8/11/2010

Johnson J. and Pratt, D. (2005) The apprenticeship perspective: modeling ways of being. Ed. Five perspectives on teaching in adult and higher education. Kreiger: Malabar FL.

An interview with an adult life-long learner, my mother, 80 year old Margaret Campbell.(M)

Q: Are you still learning things now? How?
M: By reading things now. I am not going to school.
Q: What do you read and learn about?
M: Nutrition, crafts, religion and spiritual readings. Nature that covers a lot of subjects. Some health and natural alternatives. Mainly toward the natural stuff.
Q: What is the most significant thing that you have learned in the last five years?
M: Five years? I can’t do this without getting spiritual so I don’t know how this affects your interview.
Grief is temporary, God will provide, He has been with me thru the lonely hours and with His help I will survive on my own. Just make sure you capitalize Divine Providence. Significant. That’s about it.
Q: Over your life time what was the method you learned the most from? Visual, hearing, reading or doing?
M: What was that? Visual, hearing, reading or what? Doing. Probably reading.
Q: Life time reader
M: Yeah my earliest books were Bobbsie Twins and Nancy Drew. I read before that but don’t remember them.
Q: What part of education best served you?
M: Religion and Reading.
Q: Go on
M: When I say religion I don’t mean the study of a particular denomination. It’s the overall basic tenants of Christianity. I don’t know how people without God can get thru anything. I couldn’t get thru it. I said in Bible class just last week, I don’t know how people do it without God.
Q: and reading?
M: I think some reading enlightens me, some gives me pleasure, some gives me food for thought, and some makes me want to go on learning about something. My main problem in reading is reading instructions or directions, like in a board game. Just do it and I‘ll pick it up with you.
Q: What have you learned that way by doing set instructions?
M: Crocheting back when I did it. Crafts. I’d like to write, in a way, but I don’t believe an in journals. I know a lot ob book say to write in journal but I don’t believe in that. I’d like to design houses and clothing but I don’t know how to do it. I’d like to do that for all the people. It’s amazing when you get older you start to see living from a different angle.
Q: Doing?
M: Eating better nutrition. I have learned to enjoy reading.
Q: You mentioned different reading enjoyments. What makes you want to go on learning something? Example?
M: Well onetime a situation come and someone asked does anyone know Spanish and no one says they can help. Wanting to know Spanish would have helped. I am going to go on learning crazy quilting. It takes in color and design. That’s one of the reason I want to tackle it. It’s piecing together pieces without squares, lines, anything goes, and I like it because it is not disciplined. She is making me think.
Q: Something wrong with that?
M: two top things on my list to learn: Spanish and crazy quilt. Spanish you need to speak to someone with the accent. It’s hard to do with just the tapes and books.
Q: You have tried Spanish tapes and books.
M: Yes I can read very little Spanish. It’s kind of on the back burner right now.
Q: What was your elementary and high school like for learning? What was useful to you?
M: I didn’t have archery. To think the kids were taking archery. In high school kids were taking archery. I had two years of high school and two years of business school. I used to think when making the babies formula that ratio was the only useful thing in math that did me any good. Business school was useful. I struggled with geometry in high school. I liked English, I guess we had literature. I dislike Shakespeare and did not get into it. I had Latin. It helps as far as language goes but like finding a base root of a word. No gym because of my knees. Business school I had typing shorthand, English, grammar and bookkeeping. I liked grammar and we had religion. Business school was useful. I never had a course in Psychology I think I would have liked a course in psychology.
Q: They say that knowledge becomes wisdom with life experiences. Is that true for you?
M: I have wisdom but I don’t think I got it from learning. To me wisdom is a gift. I think basically my wisdom comes from the Bible. Depends on how you define it. There are a lot of ways, knowing right from wrong, morality, is it a good morality? Knowing consequences, knowing the wisdom between taking a right and wrong action. They need someone with wisdom to clean up that oil spill. It’s knowing what God’s will, God’s law says about things. Wisdom?
Q: Is wisdom like operating on auto pilot? Is it a knowing?
M: It comes from within the combination of your spirit your mind your emotions what you have learned of the situation, I don’t have to sit down and draw up wisdom it kind of built in. That’s not quite good grammar.
Q: Do you wish there were more adult education?
M: I went down to the adult learning center -they only teach computer. I do not wish to learn computer.
Q: What do wish you could learn? Formal or informal?
M: I thought about an ad in the paper for a Spanish speaking women who could teach me Spanish and I could teach her English.
Q: Any opinions?
M: Learning keeps you alert and keeps you connected it keeps your wheels going. I pity the person who says they have nothing to learn.

Is on-line learning a new model of learning?

I read an article about Open Education Resources in the April 6 , 2010 e-version of the New York Times titled "An Open Mind" by Katie Hafner. (published in print April 18, 2010). On-line learning is of great interest and fast becoming a new means of disseminating knowledge. Using the Internet to take courses offered by prestigious universities is gaining popularity. Dr. Diamond has had 1.5 million views on a YouTube of her "Integrative Biology 131 (since 2005). From what Yale and MIT have collected the viewers are primarily independent learners, followed by students of the institution, and a less than 10% other educators makes up the balance. While the courses are free, there is no contract with the educational institution, no evaluation, to certification or acknowledgement that you have learned anything from taking a course. All you have is what you carry around upstairs in your head. Is this still a value to the learner? Does it have less value than in person lectures and classes? Is the interaction in the classroom with others very important or less important to the on-line learner? Are you missing out on learning modalities when you can't smell a science experiment? Are you shorting your audio learning when you cant ask a question or repeat a concept out loud? Can on-line classes have different teaching perspectives? Does the professor have a clear philosophy about teaching and does it work in on-line learning environment?

Ok my Saturday class was cancelled and it was raining so I watched all six, yes that was six , different lectures posted by the New York Times in it's Multimedia interactive link to the article. Six and one half hours all total.

1. Anatomy/ UC Berkeley by Dr. Marian C Diamond
2. Linear Algebra/MIT by Gilbert Strang
3. Finance/Yale by Robert Shiller
4. Genetics/UCLA by Robert B Goldberg
5. Physics/UC Berkeley by Richard Mueller
6. Psychology/Yale by Paul Bloom

Much to my surprise the philosophy of the professor was often made very clear to the learner.

Dr Diamond points out that she believed her students had to use their kinestic sense to learn. She felt her subject was learned better by kinestic involvement than by just reading some papers. She was big on writing things on the blackboard as anatomy is just a terms class. She clearly states her feelings about the learning value as something you will have with you for your lifetime. At the beginning of the class (of 762) she questioned her audience about what they knew, where their base of knowledge stood. She then wowed the class by pulling a brain out of a hatbox and holding it in her hand. This physical demonstration made the words about the little 3 pound grey matter being able to conceive the universe and (pauses) and be mad, sad and glad the next minute. Then in a defiant but quiet means she asked each class mate to introduce themselves to the next person for 2 minutes. I introduced myself to my cat, who wasn't interested. Clearly there are some minuses in the on-line learning modality. Professor Diamond used drawing, chalkboard, questions of the class via yes/no raise your hand style, and in the end used pictures to bring in real world visuals of the terms she had just taught. I can say I learned something about anatomy and the structural plane reference terms. But I learned more about the way to manage a class, use pauses in presentation, and the importance of assessing the learner.

In the algebra class, the Dr. Strang used a solid demonstration that walked you thru the thinking process right along with the professor. I knew the professor had to have worked this linear equation 10,000 times already in his lifetime. But he made it seem like he was discovering the solutions along with you for the first time. He called upon the class to imagine and picture and look for the big picture in working with the matrix. This professor had an exacting cadence in his lecture that verbalized every step from hypothesis thru problem solving. He challenged the class in the final minutes of lecture to to think about concepts. I felt the professor clearly knew his audience in the class were abstract conceptual thinkers, with logical math and spatial learning styles.

The class in Financial Markets was of most interest to me. This lecturer probably received the most criticism in the NTY comments about his delivery style. Yes it was a chore to listen to but when you did the work you got rewarded with an excellent lecture on the "technology" of financial instruments. I never viewed finance as a technology that is developing and the inventors of financial instruments make thinks that blow up just like scientists made experiments that blew up. Only difference with financial markets is there is no laboratory to acquire the lessons from mistakes, it's all real time. His teaching perspective was clearly one of transmission of an expert and a master of the subject. He tempered his class with liberal learning philosophies of moral values in the uses of intellectual property that could make most students multi millionaires and philantrophic responsibilities to society.

In the Genetics class, Dr Goldberg was a Duracell bunny running all around the room. He would have gone up the wall if he could. Unfortunately the slides overhead had to be blurred due to copyright blah blah blah. The class was genetics for non science majors. The professor used a live demonstration of DNA. Students were able to touch it , smell it and mix up their own concoctions of "sperm" DNA. His approach was Liberal learning approach and he went over some of the topics of ethics, legalities, moralities and evolutionary quandaries that face the ever changing body of science. He used some questioning technique that picked on a student to define a scientific term when the class was not geared to science majors. I think that demonstrated that you really do have to assess the prior base of knowledge if you are going in the developmental perspective.

In the Physics class, Dr. Muller started the class with an attention grabbing video of a meteor in a commercial for a Toyota truck. Then he pointed out all the elements present as well as the mistakes made by film. The professor was all over the room demonstrating and experimenting with physics toys. In the end he taught kinetic energy, heat, temperature, element's and drew comparisons to everyday experiences. The class was taught with a progressive philosophy. He emphasised the learners experiences with kinetic energy, temperature and how we interpret temperature. Class was a cross between a transmission perspective and developmental perspective. He used reflective observation of everyday and ordinary events to illustrate the concepts and theories.

By now I am getting tired and the last class was an intro to Psychology that was only 29 minutes long. This class made it clear that it would be reading and writing learning style approach. The professor planned to use expert lecturers as guests to support his areas of expertise.

Is online learning a new model of learning? While I can say I learned something today from the content that was taught. It really was like listening to Mozart with only one ear plug. Something was missing.

On being a graduate student

For me becoming a graduate student is not a transition from undergrad work. It's a transition for LIFE! I am going from writing short notes to accountants that require very little skill or thought to trying to write pages of thoughts. Thank god for computers that can spell check if I push the right buttons. When I did my undergrad work, I attended at night between 6 and 9 pm three nights a week after working a full time job. University work was always easier for the night students. Primarily because we we in the work force and that was like an internship as they call it these days. Transitions are happening all over, in work, in economies, in applications of technology. I have always been comfortable making transitions, but I have to admit this one is a big one.

10,000 Hours to Mastery

10,000 hours refers to a study conducted by Anders Ericsson. Basically it takes 10,000 hours of practice or just deliberately doing something until you can consider the task mastered. If I look at some professions, the mastery of the job of accounting kicks in by year 5 and the accountant is usually promoted to manager. In the legal profession, some of my friends would mention that they had to make partner in 4 years or leave. It was an up or out policy. When I look at how many work hours it takes to get 10,000 hours, its about right. Lawyers work much more time than accountants and thereby master their craft earlier. The 10,000 hours rule applies to sports, music and art as well. The author Anders Ericsson in "Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance" proposes that there is no such thing as a child prodigy or an innately gifted person. If you really look into the background you will find that child started music or sports at an early age and practiced more often than his/her peers. To obtain a standing that is higher than your peers requires deliberate practice. To push the envelop in your practice and try doing something you cant do or cant do well is called deliberate practice. After all the author says" sitting in a cave does not make you a geologist".

In my experience with kids bicycle racing. We would put them on fixed gear bikes and make them practice sprints. No falling asleep on long boring rides. When the athlete practiced these wind sprints they invariably reached a new level and a new plateau of performance. Deliberate performance of something that they did not do well pushed them to be faster.

My daughter draws an awful lot. She draws on everything. If no paper is around she draws on her sneakers. She actually started a sneaker graffiti fad at Kenwood Academy. Now in a university studying studio arts, she finds herself stumbling in painting. This came unexpectedly to her. I starting thinking about how 10,000 hours applies to her gap in art skills. When I explained that her constant drawing put in more than 10,000 hours compared to 2,000 hours she had with painting, it became clear to her she needed to practice painting and catch up on hours. The talent was still up there in her brain.

In the "Outliers" Malcom Gladwell has more examples of how famous people really had 10,000 hours before becoming experts. The Beatles had 1,600 music sessions performed in small venues in London before hitting America. Bill Gates had unfettered access to computer lab in his youth. Mozart ( my fav) was not really a child prodigy, he began his music lessons from his father, a composer, at age 4.

There are plenty of examples in real life of 10,000 hours. What do you have 10,000 hour doing that has given you an expert level mastery? What will you put 10,000 hours of deliberate practice on for your future?

http://www.coachingmanagement.nl/The%20Making%20of%20an%20Expert.pdf

Freakin on 15 minutes

Ok what can I teach in just 15 minutes? What is 15 minutes? I can talk about something for hours. During my lunch networking appointments I have an elevator speech, but we still go on for a hour and never seem to cover enought stuff. Who am I targeting in the 15 minute lesson plan? Sure I can teach Risk Assessments standards to my collegues at work but they have a basis to build on and prior know hows. What will I teach? What do I really know?

So I started thinking about the 15 minutes and focused on just that. I took a kitchen timer and set it for 15 minutes. What can I do in 15 minutes? Move around during 15 minutes. Stay off the internet, that's a time soaker. See how much you can talk in 15 minutes about anything. I set the timer while making dinner and talked my way thru dinner prep.

I found a book on Amazon.com. From Telling to Teaching by Joye A. Norris, Ed.D. This booked helped fill in the Who What Where When and the just the How is up to me. I found it to be a quick read and an important lesson in setting up my 15 minute lesson plan. The book has a workshop approach to helping you design a seven step plan for your lesson.

15 minutes? I can't wait to have some fun with Apples and Oranges...

Education Experiences

What was a memorable teacher or learning experience? Who was positive and engaging?

I grew up in the Catholic education system that stressed rote learning. Teachers did not need to entertain or engage us. Rinse , repeat and spit out.

Then sometime in high school, I had a physics teacher by the name of Mr Jensen. Rumor was that Mr. Jensen did not need to teach. He had supposedly invented some audio stuff that had a patent that paid him millions. I never knew if that was true. I do know that he taught his class with a passion and perserverance that I had never encountered. I was going to stay awake in this class. The class was always interactive, constantly in motion. I still have memories of his lessons. He had lots of neat stuff to do demonstrations with. He was the first person to teach me the "with and without" method of finding an answer. It was a lesson in how to set up a theory and test it. I apply it in my work and in other problem solving tasks to this day.

Positive experiences plant a seed in my mind. How can I be a engaging teacher? How will that passion transform learning so that what I teach becomes a lifelong knowledge?

The inventory

My professional identity? Yikes, I can look to external factors that outline my professional identity. An educational institution, DePaul, awarded some degree of recognition that I know how to count. The state of Illinois issued a license that recognizes my professional identity and names it : Certified Public Accountant. A business card communicates my position and confirms the status of my achievement.
But if I hold up a mirror to look at my professional identity from the inside, I am a person with a life long love of accounting and business. I see a person who has struggled with the constant pressure of balancing integrity with making a buck. My integrity is all that is real to me. The rest of the paper work and titles are mere illusions. When I wake up at 3 or 4 in the morning it's usually that integrity thing rolling around in my gut wondering if I did the right thing today.
What do I have in my inventory of skills or knowledge that makes me think I can educate other adults? I have tons of technical know how, memorized procedures and knowledge of risk assessment tools. What I dont have is the ability to simplify the whole mess into simple communications.
But this I know: I own my education, my knowledge and this inventory. I can decide who to sell it to and who not. I never lose what I sell and after I sell it I can sell it all over again.
Now I wonder how can I teach what I know?