In an online learning environment, it’s easy for students to feel isolated or unsure of themselves, particularly if they’re adult students who’ve been away from school for a long time.

I got my book finished last week ... packed up and mailed off. Letting go of something you’ve worked on that hard for so long is difficult, at least it is for me. But I wanted to share two experiences relevant to the finishing up and sending off.

“If the shift from the instructional to the learning paradigm is to have a lasting impact on education, it must influence not only how people think about teaching but also how teaching is evaluated. Evaluation is one of the primary means by which an institution conveys what is valuable and important to its members. If institutions fail to emphasize student learning in their evaluation practices, they will find it very difficult to promote a focus on student learning. Evaluation practices must be aligned with and support the learning paradigm.” (p. 345)

I’m teaching a young woman to knit socks. She’s a beginning knitter, and socks aren’t the easiest place to start when you’re still a bit tentative about the basic knit and purl stitches. But she “really, really” wants to do socks and so that’s what we’re doing.

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?

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.

In a study exploring what motivates students to provide faculty feedback about teaching and learning, results indicated students find it “desirable” when faculty share the results of the anonymous feedback they have provided the instructor. The study’s author identifies five reasons why it’s beneficial to share feedback results with students.

Last week I heard an interesting interview with Winifred Gallagher, author of a new book, Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life. She’s a science writer and the book looks at recent brain research on attention and focus. She was so articulate, knowledgeable and able to explicate complicated research. I’ve put her book near the top of my “must read” list.