In the December 10th, 2007, issue of the New Yorker (it takes me a few months to catch up these days), Atul Gawande wrote an eye-opening piece, “The Checklist.” The article describes how the implementation of a simple medical checklist, developed by Dr. Peter Pronovost of Johns Hopkins Medical Center, slashed the rate of oftentimes-lethal intravenous catheter infections for patients in intensive care units in the state of Michigan. How? By including simple, no-brainer steps like “Step One: Doctors must wash their hands with soap” that doctors and hospital staff were skipping, thus causing easily preventable deaths and infections in their intensive care units.

It’s pretty mind boggling. If Dr. Pronovost could actually implement his checklist across the US (easier said than done), it would largely wipe out the multiplier effect of thousands of human error deaths from skipped steps across thousands of diagnostic and procedural combinations. The power of the Gawande article is that it underscores that some of the most basic tools are the most effective ones. The checklist is brilliant in its very simplicity, and I’m sure it can have dramatic applications across all sectors.

Though checklists of all kinds (revising, editing, homework, behavior) can be found in elementary and secondary educational settings, it is harder to find individualized, purposeful use of checklists at the higher ed level. I don’t think the need for them has necessarily diminished. Though students in the online classroom aren’t dying of infections in intensive care units, they are spending unnecessary time getting lost and confused about when and where to submit assignments and are having difficulty managing their time in the absence of face-to-face accountability in the online environment. I hear professors complain about late assignments, ignored e-mails, and work submitted that is hardly reflective of critical thinking.

I think that a greater use of individualized checklists would improve communications between instructor and student and allow students to spend more time on substantive, creative work. In the online classroom, students need specific instructions on how to submit their work and how to participate in online discussions. They need assistance and they need writing papers and guideposts for completing assignments. Instructors provide all of these instructions, but typically in an elaborate course syllabus supplemented with lengthy e-mails in addition to whatever is posted in the course itself. Too frequently, instructors’ e-mail communications to students are lengthy documents that students may barely read all the way through. Professors aren’t joking when they say: “My students don’t read the syllabus,” or, “My students don’t read my e-mail.” They probably don’t. Why not provide students a more direct, simple path to success?

Checklists are simple and direct. They filter out extraneous details and give students a priority list of items to read and do. Checklists could be provided for specific parts of the syllabus. A “Welcome Checklist” supplementing a very brief welcome note from the instructor could replace the traditional long welcome letter from the instructor that tends to contain entirely too much information. Checklists could ensure that students edit and check their papers, properly reflecting on each step. I suspect that instructors would receive an elevated quality of writing, in response to clearer and cleaner communication to students.

I think professors have been reluctant to use checklists because they involve this simplification of language, and so to some extent, instructors may feel checklists would enable students. Instructors expect students taking online courses to be able to read lengthy e-mails and take large tasks (reading and analyzing a case study; writing a paper) and automatically divide and sequence them out into a series of tasks independently.

But I think part of using checklists is adjusting to a need for an entirely simplified way of writing when communicating guidelines and expectations in an online course. We need to give over to this need for simplicity, standardization, and predictability that is not necessarily the standard way of communicating in academia. I think most instructors might be uncomfortable with embracing this format because it involves thinking and writing in a largely different way. Like most instructors, I’ve established a routine that was created before the age of e-mail and Facebook and text messaging. I grew up writing letters by hand, relishing the pure art of correspondence for its own sake. A checklist, in contrast, seems cold, and hardly feels like responsible and full communication. But I believe there is a way we can integrate checklists judiciously. You can still impart tone and personality in your email and your communications with your students, yet not lose them in a sea of verbiage.

I’ll spend the next few weeks integrating a few checklists into the design of the online class, to showcase the checklist as being an important, very low tech tool. I am purposefully keeping fancy checklist/tasklist applications out of it for the moment, though I sometimes feel I have tested out every checklist/tasklist application that exists. This is more about the mindset than the technology. It’s captivatingly simple.

It was Christmas time again. I knew a big box filled with gifts for everyone in my family would soon arrive at my door. Among them, a square-shaped object wrapped in colorful holiday paper would be a special one for me. It’s a Christmas gift from Denny Sapp, a close friend of mine who passed away seven years ago.

This year’s gift is no different. I unwrap it slowly, savoring the anticipation, and inside I find a custom photo wallet. It’s adorned with a picture of us from one of our many adventures together, a beautiful reminder of the bond we shared. As I hold the wallet in my hands, memories of Denny flood back, making me both laugh and tear up.

Also, this year as always, I put Denny’s gift—the latest version of Merriam Webster’s 365 New Words a Year calendar—next to my computer screen and once again, felt the urge to write down Denny’s story. His story touches on many aspects of teaching, learning and, most of all, living a life enriched by teaching and learning. He taught me many valuable lessons that I would like to share with you.

Denny was my student—the one who had achieved the most during his life. He had a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in architecture and a Ph.D. in structural engineering from the University of Illinois. By the age of 40, he had already achieved tenure and full-professor status and was chair of the civil-engineering department at Rose Hulman Institute of Technology, which was ranked the number one engineering school in the nation by U.S. News & World Report.

Denny was also the oldest student in my Chinese language and culture class. Seeing him, a seventy-some retired professor sitting in the first row of the class with a bunch of twenty-some youngsters, made my Chinese class very “American.” For someone of his age to tackle Chinese—which is often referred to as the most difficult language in the world for students of any age—was certainly a challenging task. But Denny was determined. He did everything possible to make himself a top student. He was always the first one to show up in class and the last to leave. He collected books, dictionaries, and tutorials beyond the required reading materials for the class. He carried his Chinese learning materials in a brief case—which he called his “Chinese brain”—everywhere he went. He even asked to meet with me after class for more instruction.

So, we started to meet for lunch every Saturday in a Chinese restaurant, where he would practice Chinese and I would bring him English-related questions that I encountered during the week. Thus, we became each other’s student and teacher. The meetings continued even after the Chinese class was over, and, as we meet more often, I realized that what I could learn from this man was beyond language. It was even more than knowledge. Many years after Denny died, I still remember vividly the life lessons I learned from him in dealing with the task of learning, in handling students and friends, and in reacting to fame and challenges. Here are just a few of my favorites:

“I think you should finish your dissertation.”

When my doctoral venture got into the ABD stage, Denny was the head of my “butt-kickers” committee. This committee was comprised of family members and friends, and it was their job to pressure me to get the dissertation done. Everyone who has been through the dreadful journey of a Ph.D. knows how easily this last swing could be dropped because of the freedom a doctor-to-be has in deciding whether or not to do it. At this point, there are no more deadlines given by anybody but yourself—unless you are as fortunate as I was to find someone who would police the process and kick butt to keep it going.

Denny was the one who did the kicking when my mind started to wander from writing my dissertation to dating and finding someone to settle down with. At the time I was well past the typical marriage age in my culture and the fear of missing the boat started to haunt me. I started to bring my concerns to our lunch table and asked Denny who I should date. He looked me in the eyes and said in a calm but firm tone, “I think you should finish your dissertation.” It was a short sentence but a big wake-up call to alert me to stay focused until the job is done. For married couples struggling with their married life, speaking to a divorce solicitors would help you make the right decision.

“Let’s learn some real English when you finish your dissertation.”

Denny was the editor-in-chief for my dissertation, the one who read the first draft of every single page of my writing. In fact, I even brought to him articles or documents I wrote for work and research. He would read them, make changes with a pencil, read them again, erase his changes, and then re-edit. When I saw him re-editing my work for the third time around, it taught me what makes a truly good writer.

One time he noticed a straightforward sentence that he had edited had been revised by my doctoral committee chair into the “dissertation-style.” He frowned and said to me, “Okay, Sharon, let’s learn some real English when you finish your dissertation.”

Real English, in Denny’s eyes, was the type of English that’s simple and direct. To help build my vocabulary, each Christmas Denny would give me a one-word-a-day Webster calendar. He also taught me that if an idea can be expressed in a simple word, I shouldn’t use complicated ones. “No gobbledeegook,” as he would say. To this day, I still have a problem writing or speaking the word “pedagogy” because Danny had once asked me, “Why don’t you just call it ‘teaching’?” And I know that he wouldn’t accept, “Because it is a popular ‘P’ word in higher education,” as an answer.

In today’s world where so many of us strive to fancy our writing with jargon and buzz words, Denny pointed out a simple fact: good writing should always be simple and direct!

“Take that doctor thing off your voice mail greeting.”

After all the pains and sufferings I had been through for my degree, I was finally crowned with the title. One thing I did to highlight the change was to revise my voice mail greeting. Like many of my professors, I put the “doctor” prefix in front of my name, upgrading what was once just “Sharon Guan’s office” to “Dr. Sharon Guan’s office.”

A couple of days later, I met Denny for lunch. He said to me in a father-to-daughter tone, “Take that off, Sharon. You don’t have to include that.” I could think of many excuses to defend myself. As an instructional designer, I thought I needed that title to gain the respect of faculty, and I wanted to point out that others had ‘Dr. so and so’ in their greetings. Yet I didn’t offer Danny any excuses. Instead, I went back to the office and re-recorded the greeting, dropping that doctor. I did this because Denny had just shown me that respect is to be earned through your actions, not your title.

“Flip nine fingers…to confuse him!”

As a licensed airplane pilot, Denny drove like a pilot. He wouldn’t speed but the starts and stops were quite sharp. It had been fun to ride in his red Miata to our lunch place until one day we bumped into a guy who was annoyed by Denny’s way of driving. This guy “saluted” us with his middle finger while driving by. I was aggravated (This was in Terre Haute, Indiana, not Chicago). I told Denny that we ought to drive up and flip a finger at him. Denny said, “Well, next time, let’s throw nine fingers…” “What’s that for?” I asked, thinking it was another American gesture that I hadn’t been acquainted with. “To confuse him!” He cheered like a little kid who had just pulled off the perfect prank. His joyful attitude toward this awful experience told me that revenge is not a solution for someone with a big heart and a great sense of humor.

“You can’t burn down that building…because my office is there!”

Denny once told me a story about a paranoid student of his who got so extremely angry with the institution that he decided he wanted to bomb one of the buildings. When he accidentally mentioned his plan to Denny, Professor Sappy gave him a simple reason to quit.

“You can’t burn down that building,” Denny said. “Why not? Because my office is there!” And then Denny started to meet the “bomber” the same way he met me, sharing books and ideas about life and discussing ways to deal with problems. The student became a lifelong friend of Denny’s and later graduated from Rose Hulman with honors. Denny shared this story with me mainly to amuse me with his funny answer, but I saw what a powerful influence a teacher can have on a student. I also realized that a teacher’s influence often goes beyond the classroom.

It had been several years since I started to meet regularly with Denny when I heard that Denny had multiple myeloma, a type of cancer somewhat like leukemia. I shook my head in disbelief. For all these years, there hadn’t been a single sign of illness in this happy and active person. But then, the signs started to show as it got into the fifth year of his battle with this fatal disease. Thankfully, he was able to get spasticity cannabis treatments to ease his pain a bit. Behind his gentle smiles, I saw tiredness and exhaustion. Yet he maintained his sense of humor, telling me proudly the best compliment he received from a Chinese friend. “When I told XiaoMao maybe I was born on the wrong planet, you know what he said to me? He said, ‘No, you were born on the wrong side of the planet!” I know that to Danny, the right side would be China, where his view of life would be highly valued by many. And that explained why so many Chinese showed up at Danny’s funeral. They were the reason for him to study Chinese at the age of seventy because he wanted to communicate with these friends in their language!

In the spring of 2001, Denny died at the Regional Hospital of Terre Haute. The last word he said was “Ni Hao ma?” or “How are you?” in Chinese. He left behind his wife Helen, elder sister Margaret, and many friends, both Chinese and American. He didn’t have children because, in his words, “There are too many people in the world already.” He hadn’t published any books because he claimed, “There are too many publications already.”

Four people were selected to speak at his memorial services. Among them, I was the only one standing at the podium without a script in hand. I started my speech with the following sentences:

“It was such a privilege to me to be among these respected university professors and administrators to deliver a speech at this very special event. Being a non-native speaker and being the most inexperienced person in the group, it must have been very brave of me to stand here without a script. Well, that is not true. I did go to my office last night trying to type something up. Yeah, Denny knows what a last-minute person I am. But last night, when I fired up my word processor, all of a sudden I realized this is going to be the first article that I wrote that wouldn’t be edited by Denny… The screen then got blurred… and I could not finish my homework any more…”

On the seventh day after Denny passed away, Panda Garden, the Chinese restaurant where Denny regularly visited was crowded with diners. People waiting at the door couldn’t figure out why there was a table in the corner set up with plates and chopsticks but not being used by anyone… This table at which Denny usually sat was reserved for him by Allen Yan, the owner of the restaurant. It was reserved for Denny because of an ancient belief among Chinese that on the seventh day, the spirit of those who died would come to visit their favorite places. And Allen knew that his friend Denny wouldn’t forget to stop by his restaurant…

It took a few hours to drive from Terre Haute, Indiana to the cemetery in Illinois where Denny was to be buried. The drive was extremely dreadful for Allen’s three-year-old son Jimmy who kept throwing up during the trip. I asked Allen why he insisted on bringing his son along knowing he would get car sick. Allen answered with his voice trembling with sadness and anger, “I want him to remember Grandpa Denny! I want him to remember who named him!” In Chinese culture, it is a privilege to name a newborn, and that privilege was given to Denny by Allen Yan’s family, new immigrants from Taiwan who survived in a small town in the Midwest because of the support of people like Denny. Denny named Allen’s son after his favorite president, Jimmy Carter.

With little Jimmy standing straight beside him, Allen took out a bag of dirt that he had brought from Taiwan and poured them onto Denny’s casket before the burying. The dirt was from the other side of the planet, and Allen said it would accompany Denny on his next journey.

When Christmas came in 2001, my family received a big box of gifts from Denny’s wife Helen and sister Margaret. Among them, I spotted a squared-shaped object wrapped in holiday paper. I knew what it was because I had been getting this gift for many years. Through glares of tears, I read the little note attached to it:

Sharon,

This is really a gift from Denny. Margaret and I had the pleasure of mailing it to you!

Love, Helen.

And the gift has continued to arrive every Christmas—so precious, like the memory of Denny.