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Editor's Note
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Diane Gillespie doesn't especially see the cases she and her colleagues create as being about teaching, but I do. They're created out of student experiences and aimed at helping students come to grips with their identities on campus (with all the peculiar challenges of color and class and gender). When I read them, I see teaching and learning situations, contexts faculty have a role in shaping. In "Misunderstood," a faculty member comes face to face with a student's real and troubled life, and with the connections the student is making to class material in sorting out his problems. It's a "teachable moment" demanding skills well beyond those needed to give a good lecture or run a lively discussion. That's the way with stories: they often teach more than we intend and have a pesky and wonderful way of slipping beyond our control. In their rich and varied responses, Ed Neal and Elizabeth Asner show how much we can learn about our teaching by looking quietly at a student's story. Tom Angelo gives a cogent and optimistic overview of the lay of the land in higher education as we move to the end of the century. Despite great challenges, Angelo sees the tools of transformation already remaking a new and better day for teaching and learning. As he sees it, we're building "learning communities," places we've wanted to be for a long, long time. Finally, though it's the middle of the school year, a new semester will be starting soon, and Chuck Bonwell offers a synoptic review of how the best research says we should begin those classes. A full bibliography to Bonwell's article is posted on the Forum's web site ( http://www.ntlf.com/html/ti/toc.htm ). References for Tom Angelo's article are also posted there, and if you're interested in specific "levers," you'll want to log on and download them. I hope you'll also start a thread or join an ongoing chat in the web site's discussion forum. It's there for you—to interact with material you find in the Forum or to bring up new questions for discussion. — James Rhem |
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