Not everything I read in the pedagogical literature is wonderful. A lot of it is just kind ho-hum; a bit really raises the hair on the back of my neck.

“I’d like to share a really low-point in my teaching.” Wow! Most faculty don’t admit teaching errors in public venues, but this faculty member was participating in a lunchtime discussion with about 12 of her colleagues. She’s a biologist and the course was microbiology for nurses. The low point involved a comment made by a student with whom she had developed a relationship. Clearly a student wouldn’t make an admission like this if she (it was a she in this case) wasn’t comfortable with the faculty member. It was the end of the course and the student was doing well, and she pretty much had her A nailed down. Despite that, she said to her teacher, “I really don’t understand why they make us take a stupid microbiology course.”

I’m busy doing reading for the October issue of The Teaching Professor newsletter, sitting lakeside at our summer place in upstate New York. I got three mosquito bites while reading an article by Jerry Farber on presence. Yes, I was so enamored with the article I never felt the bites! I’ll summarize in the newsletter what he means by presence and how it so very often escapes teachers. But here’s another insight—one I felt like underlining twice!

I had an interesting accident of technology yesterday. I was trying to read the most recent issue of Innovative Higher Education. I entered the year correctly but then listed the volume number as 1 when that was the issue I wanted. I didn’t note the error and began reviewing the table of contents as it downloaded. An article on independent studies. Great, I thought. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen an article on that topic. I downloaded the pdf and the article did not disappoint me.

I’ve been thinking a bit about deep and surface learning. The terms, primarily associated with the work of Ference Marton completed in the 80s, are now commonplace and mostly understood . . . or are they?

“College teaching is the strangest of jobs. At the end of a class session, we may not know how it went, or we may think we know exactly how it went. Yet there remains the possibility to wildly misdiagnose the brainwave and heartbeat of that day’s class.” (p. 96)

Here’s an exciting announcement: McGraw-Hill and The Teaching Professor (Magna Publications) have joined forces to create an award that recognizes exemplary scholarly work on teaching and learning. The first award with its stipend of $1,000 will be given at the 2009 Teaching Professor Conference, June 5-7 in Washington, D.C.

I am lucky to have my mentor (who still mentors me, despite our shared retirement status) reading this blog. His name is Gene Melander, and he addresses higher education with keen insights and heartfelt passion. Here’s what he wrote in response to the July 2 blog on critical thinking.

While wandering through a new book sent for review I found this great way of characterizing how people (the specific reference is students) respond to ideas expressed in seminar discussions.