Occasionally we need a reminder like this: based on a thorough literature review, Paul Ramsden, a noted researcher on teaching and learning, along with several co-authors offered this description of good teachers.

I am becoming more and more a believer in the power of stories.  I think they help in marketing and for teaching marketing.  If you are interested in learning more about stories, you might read Daniel Pink’s book “A Whole New Mind:  Why Right Brainers Will Rule the Future” (this morning I listened to the “Story” chapter on my way in to work) or the Heath brothers “Made to Stick.“  I know we all use stories (extended examples) to supplement our teaching, but what I am reading has me thinking about how I can develop better stories.

For several reasons, this resource is even more valuable in a blog:

• It makes the newsletter interactive – we hope you will offer comments on our posts.
• We post almost every day – making everything that much more current.
• The blog format makes it easy to find J.I.T. (just in time) examples for your classes.  For example, say are you teaching pricing this week – click on “Price” in categories to the right and you will have a listing of only those blog posts that have something to do with price.

So, please take a look around.  We are kicking this off with more than 80 posts already up.  Let us know what you think?  Do you have ideas about how we might make this resource even more valuable?  Click on the headline above and add your comments (or read those of others).

“Examples are instructional workhorses: they carry a great deal of the burden of teaching and learning. They help us dig into ideas and plow the land of the abstract. They help us transport information and ideas from one person to another and from one context to another. One way to improve teaching and learning is to improve the examples we use so that they more effectively communicate difficult concepts.” (Deyck, 1994, p. 40)