Catching up

As I was writing a comment to Dana on her recent post, it reminded me that I have been pretty quiet over the past month or so. I'll try to fix that! I've read with interest the various emails that have gone around (some with more jealousy than others, Arshad!), and I'm pleased to see that we have a few different things going on. I see myself participating more along the lines of "stories" and/or "virtual mentorship," but I'm awfully pleased that some of you are looking into reviving the work on evaluation. All of these are no doubt needed, and I guess we won't know what will produce fruit until we dig into them further. At any rate, I wanted all of you to know that I'm still here and enjoying the end of the semester.

Don't you love marking? :-)

Books about teaching?

Do any of you know of good books about teaching we might add to the list on this blog (I'm almost afraid of the length of the list John Thompson might provide)! We have a couple of items in the sidebar, and they are linked to their Amazon.com descriptions. I'll be happy to look up and add anything you might want to send. You can just post your ideas to the blog, or you can send them to me in an email.

Bartlett on Sun Day

As I tuned in to CBC News Sun Day today for a report on class sizes and student experiences in universities, there was the smiling, articulate face of Ken Bartlett looking back at me. If the program hasn't yet played in your time zone, pick it up. Ken was as clear, intelligent and spot-on as we've come to expect after spending three days with him at Montebello. I couldn't find the report on the CBC website, but I suspect it will show up in the near future.

Nice job, Ken!

A big improvement

Now that's more like it! Arshad sent this photo a few minutes ago, and I think it is a much better view of our little group in Montebello. Of course, it would be even better if Arshad and Ron were in the photo too, but at least it does a much better job of capturing the feeling of the group.

A brief introduction

For anyone casually dropping by, this will be a blog devoted to thoughts about teaching in higher education. It was created by the 2005 cohort of 3M Teaching Fellows at our recent retreat at Montebello, Quebec. We don't really know what kinds of things may show up in this blog, but I'm willing to bet it will be an interesting, often exciting place for ideas, issues and stories about higher education. You'll also find an evergreen and growing list of resources on teaching here. The first contributors will be members of the 2005 recipients of the 3M Fellowship, but we invite other Fellows to join the discussion, and we invite anyone interested in teaching in higher education to comment on the posts you find here.