In the what must be known (WMBK) method, we first ask: What is (are) the topic's most essential general principle(s) or goals? Place the answer in a goal box. We then ask: What topic(s) must be known such that students could achieve the goal? Place these subgoal boxes below the goal box and show an arrow leading from each subgoal box to the goal box. Continue to ask WMBK questions until you interface with material previously covered. You would then present the lecture by starting at the bottom of the diagram and work up towards the goal box.
The A-T-A method begins with a faculty member presenting an (A)pplication (problem or mini-case) to the class. The students attempt to analyze and solve the case or problem without the benefit of the upcoming chapter's theory or ideas. Applications motivate sensing students to learn the material. Applications answer the question that sensing students often ask, "why am I learning this material?" After the class has struggled with the problem (and sometimes emerged victoriously), the teacher presents the chapter's (T)heory or ideas, and then applies it to the original application. Afterwards the teacher presents additional (A)pplications and has the students apply the theory.
An opening application problem or mini-case should (1) be familiar to students, (2) engage their curiosity, (3) be almost solvable from previous text material or student experiences, and (4) be baffling, or counter-intuitive, if possible. A familiar problem assures sensing students that their experiences have prepared them to address the problem. The third attribute minimizes students' frustrations. The application should be "just beyond a student's reach". However, previously learned material or experiences should help students make a reasonable solution attempt. An application that is too significant a leap will cause frustration, and the feeling that the teacher is playing games with the students.
David Ausubel's advance organizer is a brief lecture or demonstration during the introduction of the lecture that provides a mental scaffolding to anchor the new material. The advance organizer provides a set of highly general concepts that subsume the material about to be learned. An advance organizer taps into students' existing knowledge structures. It helps cross-list new information with already existing information and thus aids learning and knowledge retrieval. It makes the unfamiliar more familiar; it makes the abstract more concrete.
Note how the following advance organizer taps into existing knowledge that the students should have already acquired.
Subject:------- Gandhi's march to the sea
Organizer:---- King's march on Washington mini-lecture
Audience:---- African-American high-school students
Goal:-----------Connects Indian history to an existing civil rights knowledge base.
The advance organizer is not an overview. An overview would have introduced the students to the lecture's key ideas: Gandhi, salt monopoly, British policy, boiling sea water, etc..
The advance organizer provides a familiar setting to anchor new, and potentially strange, material. The organizer works because at a very general level, the marches of King and Gandhi dealt with charismatic leaders in a struggle against oppressive forces. For an African-American audience, the MLK organizer transformed an abstract lecture into a familiar and more concrete setting.
Faculty can develop advance organizers by answering the following questions:
Teaching Intuitive Students
Intuitive students prefer either the traditional Theory-Application-Theory approach or the A-T-A approach using discovery learning. We illustrate the A-T-A approach using discovery learning in teaching the central limit theorem in a basic statistics course. The teacher selects 50 numbers from a random numbers table, and develops a frequency histogram. The data are not bell-shaped. The teacher then selects 30 samples of size eight numbers (replacing each number after it is drawn) from the 50 numbers, computes the 30 means, and develops a frequency histogram for the means. The histogram is now roughly bell-shaped. The teacher concludes the demonstration by asking why is the histogram of means nearly bell-shaped. Using the discovery method, students hopefully will discover the reasons underlying the central limit theorem.
The discovery method, or the why method, will appeal to intuitive students and will teach sensing students how to uncover general principles. In using this method, sensing and intuitive students should be combined in learning groups. The intuitive student can help the sensing student to discover the theory; the sensing student can help identify and marshal the facts of the exercise.
Intuitive students must have the big picture, or an integrating framework, to understand a subject. The big picture shows how the subject matter is interrelated. Intuitive students can develop reasonably correct concept maps or compare and contrast tables. Fortunately, sensing students can be taught to do the same.
Thinking (T) versus Feeling (F)
Some of us choose to decide things impersonally on analysis, logic, and principle. Some of us make decisions by focusing on human values. Thinking students value fairness. What could be fairer than focusing on the situation's logic, and placing great weight on objective criteria in making a decision. Mr. Spock, science officer of the starship Enterprise, had an extreme preference for thinking.
Feeling students value harmony. They focus on human values and needs as they make decisions or arrive at judgments. They tend to be good at persuasion and facilitating differences among group members. Dr. McCoy, Spock's colleague aboard the Enterprise, demonstrated a preference for feeling.
Unlike the two previous sets of preferences, CAPT reports that on this dimension, the proportion of males and females differ. About 64% of all males have a preference for thinking, while only about 34% of all females have a preference for thinking.
Our own data base indicates that over 70% of male and female under-graduate business students are thinking students. It is not surprising that the majority of business majors are thinking students. Business is, after all, the domain of logic and analysis.
The majority of university faculty have a preference for thinking. CAPT reported that almost 54% of 2,282 faculty are thinking. Seventy percent of business faculty have a preference for thinking. Thus, on the thinking versus feeling preference, business faculty and students are similar.
Teaching Thinking Students
Thinking students like clear course and topic objectives. Clear course or topic objectives avoid vague words or expressions such as "students will appreciate or be exposed to." Rather, objectives are precise and action-oriented. By precise we mean that teachers can write objectives at three meta-levels of learning: rote, meaningful and integrated, and critical thinking. By action oriented we mean that the verbs describe what students must do, not what faculty will do. The Bloom et al. taxonomy provides guidelines for writing clear and meaningful objectives.
Teaching Feeling Students
Feeling students like working in groups, especially harmonious groups. They enjoy the small group exercises such as TAPPS and the Nominal Group Method. To promote harmonious groups, we sometimes provide students with the following guidelines on how to facilitate small group meetings inside or outside of class
Judging (J) versus Perceptive (P)
Some of us like to postpone action and seek more data. Others like to make quick decisions. Judging people are decisive, planful and selfregimented. They focus on completing the task, only want to know the essentials, and take action quickly (perhaps too quickly). They plan their work and work their plan. Deadlines are sacred. Their motto is: just do it!
Perceptive people are curious, adaptable, and spontaneous. They start many tasks, want to know everything about each task, and often find it difficult to complete a task. Deadlines are meant to be stretched. Their motto is: on the other hand ... .
The majority of undergraduate students are judging students. Based on data from the Center for Applied Psychological Type (CAPT) between 46% and 60% of over 16,000 freshmen at three state universities were judging students. Interestingly, almost 64% of Rhodes Scholars were perceptive students. Our own data base indicates that over 70% of undergraduate business students are judging students.
The majority of university faculty also have a preference for judging. CAPT reported that almost 65% of 2,282 faculty prefer judging. We obtained the same percentage from our business faculty data base.
Teaching Judging Students
We have found that the following hints on note taking and test taking help judging students learn more effectively.
Speedwriting
Most students can learn speedwriting in several minutes. Just omit all (or most) vowels. Or develop your own shorthand method. For example, mst stdnts cn lrn spdwrtng in svrl mnts. Jst omt ll or mst vwls.
Split Page
Draw a line down center of a notebook page. On the left-hand side, record the lecture (use speedwriting or your own shorthand notation). After class, write a commentary on the right-hand side. Include restating ideas in your own words, finding sources of confusion, identifying key points, looking for links to earlier learned material, and asking what does this mean to me (the student).
Color Coding
Use different colors to record ideas presented in class and found in the text or readings. For example, use blue to code major ideas and green to code links to previously learned material.
AOR Model
In answering an essay question, first Analyze the question and jot down key ideas, Organize the ideas into a logical sequence, and only then write the essay (Respond).
Reverse Question
To review an essay question, first read your answer. Then construct a essay question based on your answer. Now compare your question to the teacher's question. If different, revise your answer. This strategy ensures that students answer the teacher's question.
Treating Objective Questions as Essay Question
Read the question's stem (the portion that contains the question) and write a brief answer. Then compare your answer to the four or five choices, and select the answer most similar to your mini-essay.
Your universities' learning resource center is an especially good source for additional hints on note and test taking. Include several hints in each course syllabus. Spend a few minutes explaining these hints in the first class period. Occasionally remind the students of the hints (especially before the first exam).
Judging students often reach too-quick closure when analyzing cases. Thus we recommend a second-look meeting. After completing the case, the group reviews their analysis. A student plays a "gentle" Devil's Advocate (DA) and challenges the group's conclusions. The DA should be prepared to recommend an alternative solution. This will force the group to consider the pros and cons of both approaches. The DA can also ask team members to state assumptions about stakeholders (those who are affected by or will affect the case solution) which must be true for the group's solution to be effective. The DA can then challenge the group to provide evidence that the assumptions are true. Guidelines for a second-look meeting should be included in the case preparation hints provided to students.
Teaching Perceptive Students
Perceptive students often postpone doing an assignment until the very last minute. They are not lazy. Quite to the contrary, they seek information to the very last minute (and sometimes beyond). We recommend decomposing a complex project or paper into a series of sub-assignments and providing deadlines for each sub-assignment. The deadlines may keep the perceptive students on target.
Decomposing a major project into sub-assignments provides the opportunity for continuous feedback to the student. Have students hand-in an audio tape with their sub-assignments. The teacher can then provide detailed audio (we speak faster than we can write) comments on content and grammar. When we have used the audio feedback approach, final papers are clear and readable, and thus less aggravation to read. Moreover, without the teacher's interim feedback, students lose an opportunity to improve their writing skills during the semester.
Tools 
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