This past year, Baylor University created a program to reward some of its best teachers and challenge them to do something truly daring: teach their students how to think--not just how to think "about" course material, but rather how to think "through" the material. The idea is to help students learn how teachers, as…

Online enrollments have grown much faster than overall higher-education enrollments over the past few years, according to a 2008 report, "Staying the Course: Online Education in the United States," published by the Sloan-C, a consortium that promotes online education. During the period 2002-7, enrollment in online courses grew 19.7 percent,…

This article describes the successful "reverse brain drain" scheme offered by the Chinese government for their scholars who study abroad. The program is a significant about-face from early Chinese policy on overseas study. Government programs and individual academic departments now offer competitive benefits and salaries to candidates…

Researchers are taking a broader view of teacher education and are emphasizing teaching practices, classroom life, and teachers' knowledge. A meeting was held to enable authors of chapters in a new book, "Handbook of Research on Teacher Education," to discuss their ideas with other educators. (MLW)

Educators in the field of English are concerned about teaching a student population that increasingly expects to be entertained and cannot tolerate boredom. Concerns include reliance on print-oriented teaching methods, changed language needs, research and teaching innovations, and needed changes in the educational structure and resources to meet…

Good research and good teaching are not mutually exclusive, professors and deans demonstrated at the meeting of the Association of American Colleges. The traditional "teacher-scholar model" is seen as intimidating, since most faculty members aren't publishing enough. The model should include scholarship that doesn't end up in print. (MLW)

As a chemistry professor at a liberal-arts college, the author believes it is his job to find the youthful awe in his students and draw it out so that they will be intrigued once again by science and nature, so that they want to learn about equilibria, pH, and redox reactions. He has to go fishing inside their brains, to find, hook, and reel in…

"Chronicle of Higher Education" presents an abundant source of news and information for college and university faculty members and administrators. This July 9, 2004 issue of "Chronicle of Higher Education" includes the following articles: (1) "Learning Communities Can Be Cohesive-And Divisive" (Jaffee, David); (2)…