In teaching-intensive environments, instructors may subconsciously be short-circuiting the learning process by doing too much for students—too much of the thinking, too much of the mental processing, too much of the work, and taking on too much of the responsibility for student success. What defines overteaching? What factors contribute to overteaching? Are you prone to overteaching? Where do you draw the line? Dr. Bob Noyd will share his thoughts on the topic of overteaching at a series of interactive workshops on March 23. Come and spend the day in the Spindletop Room high atop the Gray Library. This is definitely worth rescheduling a class or bringing a substitute in for the day. Richard J. Light in his book Making the Most of College: Students Speak Their Minds offers the following insight on faculty who make a difference. "When asked to rate courses they take, students often give the most rigorous and demanding classes their highest ratings. The faculty members who had an especially big impact are those who helped students make connections between serious curriculum, on the one hand, and the students' personal lives, values, and experiences, on the other. Students praise certain faculty members who build such connections into their teaching." CTLE owns a copy of this book and would be happy to lend it to you. Andrea Leskes and Barbara D. Wright in their book The Art and Science of Assessing General Education Outcomes: A Practical Guide suggest that a campus-wide embrace of assessment can promote better understanding of the purposes of general education and remedy its neglect on the part of students and faculty alike. They note the following, "The best evidence of learning is direct evidence: student work and performances that can be examined to determine what students know and can do." They recommend the use of authentic tasks that mimic the situations or problem solving that students might experience in real-world settings.