Discover the inspiring journey of Robert Hunt, a seasoned professor at the University of Mississippi, as we spotlight educators who are truly impacting their students’ lives at Hawkes Learning. Join us for an insightful interview where Robert reflects on his teaching experiences, navigates through challenges, and unveils the transformative role of technology in reshaping the modern classroom.
*Interview responses have been lightly edited for content and clarity.
How long have you been teaching, and how long have you been teaching with Hawkes?
I started teaching as a grad student in the fall of 2002, and did that for a year. I was an adjunct professor in 2003, then full-time in 2004, and I’ve been here at Ole Miss ever since. I’m from Louisiana originally, but I came here and I really liked the lifestyle. Luckily, three positions became open after my adjunct year, and I managed to get one.
As far as Hawkes goes, we were just using Statistics way back then. That was when you had the physical codes on the computer and it was offline! Eventually, we migrated to Hawkes with other classes, so I’ve probably been using it for 18 years.
What is your favorite thing about the University of Mississippi?
It’s a big school, but it still feels small. We have a smaller campus compared to some of the other southeastern universities, but here it’s compact. Even though you’ve got so many students, you’re close to everything. I don’t have to jump on a bus if I want to go to the physics building. It’s an easy walk. We’re always getting ranked as one of the most beautiful campuses in the country and there are tons of programs for young kids growing up. It’s been a great place for me! I’ll always be here.
Do you have a secret to teaching? Or a most valuable lesson that you’ve learned in your teaching career?
What I’ve learned is that different classes and different courses require different teaching styles. For example, when I’m teaching quantitative reasoning or even linear programming, I’m more hands-on. We do stuff in groups, and I walk around the room talking with people; I’m not just lecturing the whole time. Then, if I’m in a Business Calculus class, I find lecturing works well for that. So, it depends on what you’re teaching and the kind of students you have.
What other structures and classroom setups have you tried? What have you found does work well and didn’t work out? You did touch on that already, but is there anything else you’d like to share?
I’ve had traditional lectures and it’s okay, but most of my classes are what I’d call a hybrid. Normally, the classes meet for 150 minutes a week, but our classes meet for 100 minutes a week and then have another 50-minute component for homework and quizzes. We used to make them come to the lab but we don’t have enough space anymore, so we let them work from home on this section, so, it’s like a hybrid structure, and we get everything we need covered. And the students like it so – works for me!
What would you say is the biggest challenge that students are facing today?
Well, during COVID when the high schools were online, I don’t think a lot of them were taught very well. Of course, it was hard then, right? But now, we’re having a lot that come in, and they can’t factor. They can’t deal with fractions. There’s always been a little problem with that in the past, but since COVID, it’s a bigger problem! Hopefully, in a year or two, things will be a little bit back to normal, but that’s the biggest thing right now.
What would you say is the biggest challenge that teachers are facing today?
With inflation and everything – the tuition going up and the price of books going up – we seem to have more students who are having a hard time buying the materials for the course. Obviously, if they can’t buy the materials for the course that affects the teacher, too. We want to help them. At the same time, I can’t buy materials for everybody who can’t afford it. Hawkes is cheaper than basically every other company. Really, the only way we could make it cheaper is to do freeware or something and those are usually not very good.
How do you engage and motivate underperforming students?
Constant communication – every week. Also, one thing that’s different about my classes versus most is that we do flex mastery in Hawkes. However, I require 100% mastery so I don’t allow strikes. With 100% mastery, it forces them to look at all the questions and at least get it right once. I think that’s part of the reason our test grades are so good.
I also use Hawkes’ Reporting tools when reviewing my sections. I really rely on the WebTest Summary Report and the Search by Criteria Report. I appreciate how I can choose certain parameters to quickly search through my sections in the Search by Criteria Report. I can look at assignment groups or specific assignments and see who’s completing it, who’s not, who’s logging in, and who’s not. I also use the certification status report. I check on that a good bit to see who’s doing the work.
Can you tell me about a favorite breakthrough moment that you’ve experienced with a student?
10 years ago there was a student in my class who was not a math person, and he would tell you that. This was in my Quantitative Reasoning course which gives students basic overviews of different things in math that could help with everyday life. I saw him in the Walmart parking lot 3 or 4 years ago. He just thanked me so much for that class, because it was practical. I’m not saying we don’t need Algebra and Calculus, but for a lot of people, they just need the practical side of math – something that they will use.
You know, the K-12 teachers always complain about students saying, how am I going to use this in real life? When a student comes back and says, “This really helped,” it feels good!
I know that you’ve been teaching with Hawkes for a long time, and you’ve seen Hawkes evolve throughout the years. Can you tell me how your outlook toward technology in the classroom has evolved over time?
I used to be against technology in the classroom. However, if you think about 15 years ago, there really wasn’t internet like we use it today! I’ve learned how technology can be useful to bring people together. For example, I can have my students use Hawkes or Desmos to graph certain things to visualize what we are learning versus me trying to draw a rough sketch on the board. There’s more interaction and movement. I used to have a hard time when we would do the limit definition of derivatives, trying to demonstrate the overall concept. Now they have these apps where you can show moving those points together and how the tangent line changes. So teaching is a lot more visual now; I’m all for using technology in a classroom.
I Zoom every class, and I didn’t do that until COVID, but I liked it. So, even though I’m teaching in person, I’m still using Zoom. I can walk around the classroom now with a little tablet in my hand, and I can talk to students while showing them my tablet. I think technology’s done a lot more good than it’s done harm for teaching and for education.
It’s also more helpful with the data review piece. As you can imagine, we were strictly relying on Excel spreadsheets before. Now, we have all these other tools we did not formerly have. We used to have to report to the Accreditation board – that used to all be on scantron machines! It’s a lot easier to go on Hawkes and pull up the item analysis right there.
What led you to Hawkes and what keeps you back?
Carolyn Warren was the first one to use Hawkes at Ole Miss. She wrote a Statistics book with Hawkes, and it just grew. We’re a Hawkes school, probably more than a lot of schools.
When we were reviewing for the course, it was between Hawkes, Pearson, and another company for the Stats classes. We found that students who used Hawkes got much better on the final exam than all the other ones, so we kept using it, and then we started using Algebra and Business Calculus titles.
Hawkes’ Customer Support is so far ahead of all these other education companies. It’s not even up for discussion. To me, it’s the support more than more than anything. That’s why I’m going to use Hawkes if it’s my choice.
I’ve used a lot of Pearson in the past, too, and I’m not going to disparage them, but I like the setup of Hawkes. If I need something, or if I need your team to create a feature for me, I can ask you! Hawkes will actually think about it, and you do create a lot of them! Even if you don’t do it, at least you consider my suggestions. Nobody else is going to put the time into creating instructor-requested features.
Do you have anything else to share about how the Hawkes mastery approach has really made a difference in your courses, and any other areas in the platform that have really helped your students the most?
With Hawkes’ mastery, there is an expectation to master a certain percentage of the homework. With other companies, the students are graded with a raw score and they aren’t challenged to attempt the tougher questions of the lesson. With mastery-based learning, the students are forced to be exposed to all the question types in the lesson. My grades are great, so it seems that with this approach, there come higher expectations and more accountability. Students share in their evaluations that going through Hawkes’ Practice mode with step-by-step guidance really helps them.
What are some of your interests outside of campus and in teaching?
I’m married and have two kids, ages 10 and 12. I really value my family time! I enjoy sports, and I go to all the football games, plus a lot of baseball games. I go to as many basketball games as I can here on campus, too. My family and I really like traveling. We just went to Virginia and North Carolina over the summer. We took the kids to Williamsburg so they could explore some history. I love music and am big into classic rock but I like other genres, like the blues and old country, too.
If you had a colleague, either at Ole Miss or at another school, who is considering using Hawkes in their courses, what advice would you share with them?
I would sit them down and log in, and I show them everything. My old officemate at the University of Montevallo in Alabama has been using Hawkes now for about 4 or 5 years. He had a choice between Hawkes and Pearson and at his university. I told him, “Hawkes is going to have everything correct. It’s going to recognize student’s answers during the online answer entry process. Their tech support is great. It’s going be easy for the students to follow along.” Then I logged in, and I showed him the instructor side and the student side.
If someone is considering Hawkes, I’ll sit down and show it to them!
What would you like your students to take from their learning experience with you?
Even if what we’re doing in class is something that you’re not going to be doing every day forever, there is a place for it. It is useful. It is needed.
I tell my business students, “You might not ever take a derivative again, but you’re going to have to go talk to an analyst one day and you need to know what they’re talking about.” I always want them to realize that everything we do in math has a purpose, even if they don’t necessarily see that purpose yet. There’s a reason we’re giving it to you.
We would like to thank Robert Hunt for sharing insights and experiences with Hawkes Learning. If you’re interested in sharing your own experiences with Hawkes Learning or if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We’d love to hear from you!
