At the end of English composition, I ask students how what they’ve just learned in my class might be useful in their other classes. They’re often bemused and surprised to learn that professors in other courses care about their writing. To encourage them to take responsibility for succeeding in their future writing assignments, I hand out a list of 20 questions that they might ask to better understand “what the professor wants,” and thus continue to apply what we’ve been practicing.

Interested in a good example of how teaching, student scholarship, and service can be integrated into a single activity? Cecilia Shore [reference below] suggests that mentorship of undergraduates doing scholarship (be it research in labs or bibliographic searches) may just be that example.

As a former editor in the business profession and now educator, I see connections between business and classroom best practices, especially when it comes to using academic learning agreements to promote student engagement and leadership. Such learning agreements can increase student accountability in the classroom and lay the foundation for a successful college experience by helping them understand the importance of adhering to their own best practices and goals.

I’m not sure how to say this without appearing either arrogant or ignorant, but I have discovered that there is a difference between being a police officer and being a professor. I have recognized the difference for some time now, but it has taken me the better part of my 40 years as a college professor to feel fairly comfortable in my new skin.

My friend Karen is here for the week—good friends are such a gift. When she came last year I taught her how to knit. My goodness, talk about a duck taking to water. With almost no instruction, she had it and was off. In one year she’s learned techniques it took me years, dare I say decades, to figure out. She’s as good a knitter as I am and already knows way more about yarns that I do. Brand names and fiber content roll off her tongue, and we talk about matching yarns and patterns. At the moment, we’re both into shawls, which I learned are held together with shawl picks or pins. And I thought you just kept your arms shut. When I exclaim in wonder at how much she knows and everything she can do, like any respectful student she defers, “I can’t be better than you. I’ve only been knitting for a year!”

During my drive down to Pennsylvania this week, I was listening to an interview with a sculptor. The interviewer asked if he was still teaching. “No, I’m not. Teaching sculpture is easier than doing it. I need to devote my efforts to doing it.” His comment reminded me of that old adage. “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.” Since the interview I’ve been wondering (yet again) if teaching really is easier than doing—teaching writing is easier than writing, teaching problem solving is easier than solving problems, teaching physical therapy is easier than being a physical therapist.

We’ve visited this topic before: the quality of feedback students provide on those end-of-course ratings. Many students fail to take the evaluation process seriously because, unless they plan on taking another course with that professor, the feedback will provide little benefit to them even if, by chance, the professor decides to act on it.

Here’s something I was surprised to find. A group of researchers in the UK decided to show students how to use written feedback on papers to improve their writing. They collected feedback given students on eight previous writing assignments and had writing tutors review and analyze the comments. Then they looked at the writing assignment students were to complete next, paying special attention to the stated criteria for grading, and developed a specific set of recommendations for each individual student.

I enjoyed as an especially well-written commentary by Miriam Marty Clark in the current issue of Pedagogy. She confesses to a “growing skepticism” she has come to feel about critical thinking “and the place it holds in discussions of university education.” (p. 326)