Normally, I've known "brainstorming" to mean a lot of people throwing out half-baked ideas because work obliged them to. A discussion that broke out like a summer squall recently on one of the listservs I read blunted my cynicism. This was a genuine storm full of passions and dark power, bits of information thrown down in lightning bolts of clear argument, brooding clouds of contending values and deep caring. Somewhere in the middle of it James Zull spoke up and said he wished there were more writing about this exciting material. I challenged him to do some. He met the challenge with his wonderful overview of the latest research on the brain, learning, and emotion.

Few phenomena further wither my cynicism more than faculty learning together, not in disciplinary enclaves and professional meetings, but in cross-disciplinary study groups devoted to improving their teaching and their campus as a learning environment. It doesn't get much publicity, but it is happening increasingly all over the country. With the help of Ellen and George Sims the Forum looks in on two such groups at Belmont University in Nashville.

Suppose you wanted to immerse yourself in the best, most wide-ranging understandings of effective teaching right now. How would you do it? Perhaps you'd attend a summer intensive on teaching for faculty. Perhaps you'd learn about the "Boot Camp" organized by Ed Nuhfer at University of Colorado. Despite its authoritarian name, the Boot Camp's authority rests on the quality of the research and information provided. No cookie cutter approach to good teaching predominates. There are no uniforms. No haircut is required. Here, too, faculty learn a lot simply from talking openly with each other about their teaching.

Peers can do amazing things for each other simply by sharing their observations of each other's teaching. Barbara Frase and Michael McAsey have seen good things come of peer visits time and again. Their article on the peer visit program at Bradley University suggests how these visits stimulate a valuable conversation on teaching.

Students aren't peers exactly, but their learning remains at the heart of why colleges exist. In this technological age, have students changed? In many ways, no. Like the rest of us, they're going to the Web for answers and information. Like us, they won't wait all day for a homepage to load. In this issue's TECHPED column, Tom Creed joins forces with Kathryn Plank to outline seven principles of good course Web design. A good course Web page, they argue, is one that is pedagogically sound as well as technically savvy.

Finally, Elouise Bell of Brigham Young University offers a forthright reminder that teachers don't just lead students over barriers and boundaries, they often have to push them. But the quality of Bell's pushing is not strained. Review the "pushing" questions she recommends and you see her idea of teaching sailing like high white clouds over Utah's mountain peaks. Not a brainstorm, but a balloon flight: "What else might you try?" she asks.

On the Forum's Web site, subscribers will find a rich cache of supplemental materials for three of the stories in this issue: The Virtual Companion supporting the Creed-Plank TECHPED pulls together the best resources for building an effective course Web site and contains dozens of links to still further resources. Frase and McAsey share a useful handout on starting peer visit conversations and a "final exam" on peer visiting. And finally, we've posted a Survey of Classroom Skills that Nuhfer's "Boot Camp" finds to be a useful pretest on one's teaching. As always, click on www.ntlf.com and learn more.