How Much Time to Spend Discussing Current Events in Articles

People frequently ask me how much time I devote to WSJ articles in my classes. Others ask how I can find any extra time to add a WSJ component. Here is what I do. Hopefully this will inspire you to find some time too.

Our undergraduate classes meet twice a week for one hour and 15 minutes each. I have about 30-45 students in those classes. My graduate classes usually meet once a week for almost three hours and those classes tend to be somewhat smaller than the undergraduate classes. As I discussed in a previous posting, I begin each class with discussions on WSJ articles. How much time to allocate to the discussions? How many articles are covered each session? It depends. You just have to see how it is progressing and make a judgment call. Generally, I allow for about eight to 15 minutes in the undergraduate classes. Sometimes we cover two or three articles briefly, especially if students bring up other articles related to the one being presented. Other times we might cover only one article in depth. Much of it depends on what happens to be in the paper the last few days, and also whether I have a lot of course material to cover that particular day.

At the graduate level, I use the Journal as a daily case book, so we usually spend much more time discussing current events as they relate to the course material. Obviously graduate students are expected to be able to understand most of the assigned reading materials. Generally, class is for discussion and analysis of the current course topic, more than coverage of the reading. In my business law and ethics course, we spend up to 30-45 minute discussing the legal and ethical aspects of the stories in the articles. If the articles that particular week are on point and the discussion sufficiently compelling, we might spend half the class on the discussion. Again, it is a judgment call. Take every day as it develops.

As a another example, when I teach an MBA elective entitled "Fraud Issues In Business" we spend about half the class analyzing the fraud schemes from the week (How was the scheme perpetrated? How could it been prevented? How could it have been detected earlier? What were the internal control breaches? etc.) With the events of recent years, the Journal offers plenty white collar crime stories to qualify it as a daily fraud casebook (unfortunately).

You might be wondering how I can make this kind of time for this exercise. Before I started using the Journal, I wondered that same thing! Before I incorporated the Journal in my classes, it seemed I needed every minute to cover course material. But using the Journal in this fashion has actually made me a better teacher and my classroom environment is greatly improved. The students are more accustomed to being interactive. They participate and prepare more; I lecture less!

So adapt my ideas into your personal style and philosophy to make using the Journal work for you and your students. Make it your own!