As college teachers, most of us know that the profession is changing, but we aren’t always as up on the details as we should be. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, between 2001 and 2003 only 54 percent of the faculty hired were appointed to full-time positions, and 35 percent of all full-time appointees were not in tenured or tenure-track positions.

Recently, I encountered a snag in my teaching. Unlike past difficulties connected to particular classroom challenges, this one was more pervasive. For several months I contemplated the cause of this “bigger” dilemma. Upon reflection it became evident that my off-balance feeling was linked to the pietas of teaching.

I’m trying out content from my new book at some of the workshops I’m doing this month. The discussion we had about teaching style and teaching personae at Georgia State College and University got me thinking more about the topic. I’m convinced useful distinctions can be made between the two.

Last week, while teaching Dante’s Inferno, I moderated a lively two-day class discussion about medieval and modern values and religion. How did Dante define virtue? How do we define it? For Dante, why was lust not as terrible a sin as theft of property? Why did his age consider gluttony a moral failing rather than a self-destructive behavior that one can take to Jenny Craig?

Online instruction invariably requires more time for logistics than does face-to-face instruction due to interaction needs, extraneous cognitive load (mental effort needed to attend to non-content-related course elements), and poor self regulation by students.

Many of our students don’t read well. They read slowly, struggle with the vocabulary and retain little. They need stronger reading skills—to succeed in college and in life. We need to encourage them to read deeply, to read for understanding and retention, but how do we do that? Roberts and Roberts suggest six ways to entice students to read at deeper levels.

Academic advisers, be they professionals who do advising full-time or faculty, can do much to enhance a student’s experience in college. But students never benefit unless they seek out advisers. In surveys, students acknowledge the importance of receiving advice, but many do not receive it—34 percent in one survey reported that never during their academic careers had they met with an adviser. As seniors, only 19 percent reported that they had met three or more times with an adviser.

Troll through university websites and you’re likely to see mission statements with such lofty phrases as “instill a passion for lifelong learning” or “a commitment to student-centered education.” But what do these things really mean and, more importantly, how do you know you’re doing them?

I had an email last week asking if I’d recommend sharing “really bad” rating results with students. The note came in response to last week’s blog post, which identified several benefits gained from sharing and discussing rating feedback with students.