College teaching; Just in time teaching

This article in the Spring 2009 issue of College Teaching suggests that teachers communicate with students before class with two questions about the reading for the class; "What was the most difficult part of the reading?" and "What was the most interesting part of the reading?" or "What was the most relevant to you in the cless reading?". When students respond with specifics the instructor can address the students questions more effectively during the class. Students can write to a class blog or a site on blackboard before class to let the instructor know what problems they had with the material for class. Instructors are then able to effectively address students questions during the class encouraging a deeper understanding of the material before leaving one topic and moving to another.
This methodology was executed for a physics class and it was found that the grades improved overall when students used the class bolg to respond to questions on the class material.