a typical reading quiz, the questions may be more open-ended and thought-provoking. This leads to another significant difference. Most faculty members make the pre-class assignment due at least 1 hour before class. This allows the faculty member to review the students' answers before class. In most cases, faculty members use this review to make adjustments to the planned classroom activities. If the faculty member feels that the students have mastered a topic, she may reduce or eliminate discussion of that topic during class. Similarly, if the pre-class assignment shows that students have particular difficulties, those difficulties may be addressed more thoroughly in class. These "just-in-time" adjustments lend their name to the technique, just as Just-in-Time business strategies rely on continuous adjustments to parts supplies and product inventory. Faculty using just-in-time teaching often use quotes from students' responses to the pre-class assignments as "talking points" during the class period. This emphasis on student work as the starting point or as a touchstone during class helps to make the class more student-centered, and promotes interactive learning. To maximize the potential for this use, the questions posed in pre-class assignments should be open-ended and may be somewhat ambiguous. Taking the full set of methods described above into account, the cycle for a single classroom meeting is as follows. Students complete reading or other preparatory work Students complete pre-class assignment Faculty member reviews pre-class assignments, and considers changes to classroom emphasis. Faculty member selects quotes from pre-class assignments to refer to during class. During class, faculty member uses quotes from student work to lead discussion of the material. During class, students engage in discussion of the material with the faculty member and with one another. Faculty member creates or adjusts next pre-class assignment to best meet students' needs in light of progress made during class. Theoretical basis Just-in-time teaching had its origins in the classrooms where faculty were looking for more effective ways to engage a particular audience – non-traditional students. Eventually it found its way into virtually all higher education environments. Initially the pedagogy evolved mostly by trial and error, although, from the start, many JiTT practitioners were paying attention to the education research literature. Over the years JiTT attention shifted to the broader questions of which aspects of the technique worked well, which not so well, and why. In order to answer those questions it is necessary to examine the knowledge about