This essay represents a lecture I gave when I won the Ohio State University Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching, the highest teaching award OSU gives. The lecture was intended to promote the role of teaching introductory, large enrollment classes at a big university, an assignment most professors eschew. By contrast, I found the responsibility rewarding.
The award was made in 1998, the lecture was published in 2004, pages 21-28, in: Talking About Teaching, published by the Ohio State University Academy of Teaching. The essay has been reprinted elsewhere and was used at UCLA in their teaching mentorship program.
