I'm cooking supper and Sophia — who is five — exclaims from the dining room, "Dad, look! I'm coloring between the lines!" It's been a long week, full of sundry annoyances and I answer, "Great, honey — that's what society rewards." We all have different styles of learning, and I don't think I ever colored within the lines in my life. I've had to learn to color within the lines, of course. I even have a grudging respect for the lines now, and for the people who draw well enough to lay them out for me. But mostly, when I've learned, it's been the hard way.

Bill McKeachie's review of what's really known about learning styles as they relate to teaching reinforces the point that no matter where one begins in learning, some lonesome valleys always lie ahead. If we're visual, we still need to learn to listen. If we're abstract thinkers, we still need to understand the concrete, and so on. Beyond sorting out what's really known about learning styles, McKeachie's article sets the stage for some future issues of The National Teaching and Learning Forum . In the United States, we talk a lot about "learning styles." In other parts of the English-speaking world, they speak more of research into "deep and surface approaches" to learning. We'll report on that research in our next issue.

This issue also looks forward to an upcoming issue in another way. Here, Horace Rockwood III begins a spirited discussion of the intellectual differences between Cooperative Learning and Collaborative Learning. In the next issue, he concludes by describing how he applies the strengths in these differences to his own teaching.

There's a significant political dimension to Rockwood's essay. Spirited intellectual activity often has its political side. That dimension shows up again in Jane Isenberg's report on the sixth annual convening of the International Federation for the Teaching of English held at New York University in July. It wasn't an ordinary conference. It ranged far and wide, but, as Isenberg reports, it got down to the cases faculty are likely to confront in their profession well into the next century.

It's been our habit in this publication to present a case study on teaching and two responses to it in every other edition. This time, instead, we present Mike Godfrey's reflections as a faculty member on participating in a case writing group for five months. Such groups have begun to appear on campuses all over the country. As Godfrey reports, his group started out stormily, but, in the end, it opened an important door to deeper experience of what it is to be a faculty member, and left Godfrey awed at the power of listening.

Everyone knows how computers are transforming everyone's work life. From time to time a program or service that may be of particular value to our readers — one that might get lost in the mass-market reviews — seems worth devoting space to here. This issue reports on two such items.Writing Coach, a computer program Paul Hagood wrote to help his students face the blank page, actually lives up to its name by putting friendly, supportive writing heuristics into common word processors.UnCover is an online database of some 17,000 journals that faculty can search for free to stay on top of the latest research in their fields.

Finally, The National Teaching and Learning Forum has its own home page on the World Wide Web. It's part of the Oryx Press site, and I urge you to pay a visit. The page contains some of the best articles from past issues, including Parker Palmer's "The Courage to Teach." Point your web browser to http://www.NTLF.com

— James Rhem