The Buck Institute for Education's definition of project-based learning-"a systematic teaching method that engages students in learning knowledge and skills acquired through an extended inquiry process structured around complex, authentic questions and carefully designed projects and tasks"-shares many of the same tenets as online learning. However, little has been written about the links between the two or about how to incorporate PBL into an online course.

If we had been asked if we were prepared to teach online before teaching our first online courses, the answer would have been a naïve "Yes." We had attended several training sessions and thought that we were ready! In retrospect, after teaching more than 30 sections of online courses over the past five years, we agree that the answer should have been a definite "Maybe!"

Students' perceptions of what an online course will be like are often quite different from how it really is. That is why Jim McKeown, assistant professor of computer science at Dakota State University, makes it a point to clearly articulate what he expects in his online courses. He also makes it a point to build in administrative elements that keep students on track because first-time online learners often mistakenly believe that online learning is easier, takes less time, and is self-paced.

Creating a Web-based course from a current, successful on-ground course is difficult and, at best, can be considered a translation process. In the past, instructors have created Web-based courses by taking those courses that were being taught on-ground and posting the information online, then calling these courses "Web-based." Imitating a sound, successful on-ground course will not necessarily bring about the same success for students in a Web-based learning environment. Simply converting lectures and other course materials from on-ground courses to Web-based platforms may not be as effective as hoped. (American Federations of Teachers, 2000, p. 8).

Online courses offer several advantages over face-to-face courses when it comes to teaching critical thinking (analysis, evaluation, and deduction), according to according to Linda Armstrong, science professor at Sullivan County Community College in New York. The challenge is to engage students by addressing various learning styles and to find ways to build in critical thinking throughout the course.

I am committed to the liberal arts ideal that education should familiarize students with the intellectual, spiritual, artistic, and scientific traditions that women and men have turned to in order to better understand their lives and their world.

As part of a special section in a recent issue of Teaching Psychology, Bill McKeachie, author of the best-known book on college teaching, the venerable Teaching Tips, first published in 1950 and now in its 11^th edition, looks back to ascertain what's changed and what has stayed the same. This retrospective appears in a section that celebrates a 100-year-old book on teaching psychology written by William James, Talks to Teachers and to Students.

Start with a list of 12 familiar ways to learn course content: reading texts or other printed material; writing term papers, participating in group activities in class, doing major team projects, doing cases, taking multiple choice exams, giving presentations to the class, learning about different theories, doing practical exercises, solving problems, doing library research, or exercising a lot of creativity. Now hypothesize as to which learning style prefers which of these approaches to learning.

Research on learning styles now spans four decades. The amount of work ebbs and flows with more flowing recently. Interestingly, work on learning styles continues to occur across a wide spectrum of disciplines, including many quite removed from psychology, the disciplinary home of many of the central concepts and theories that ground notions of learning style.