Want to be evaluated as an excellent teacher by your students? Research by Thomas Sherman and colleagues reveals there are five characteristics that are regularly and consistently attributed to college instructors selected as excellent: enthusiasm, clarity, preparation/organization, stimulating, and love of knowledge. They also report that in addition to these five characteristics, experience appears to be an important component of excellence. But what do you do the first time around? Being honest with your students is always a good policy. Realizing that you are in a learning environment and relaxing also helps. You will not have all of the answers all of the time. Letting your students know that you will find the answer and then making sure to follow up and come to the next class (preferably) with the answer is crucial. In addition, it is always good to ask the other students to participate by providing the answer. An active engagement would include having the students provide at least part of the answer themselves. Are you using your Inbox as a to do list? I heard that loud yes so let me offer you some help. Taskforce is a browser plug-in that interacts with your Google Mail or Google Apps account to help you get those pending items out of your inbox and onto a to-do list where they belong. Taskforce is still in beta, and thus you may run into some surprises as you use it.