great concept

from what the best college teachers do by ken bain

The most effect teachers help students keep the larder questions of the course at the forefront. Donald Saari, a mathemetician from the University of California, invokes the principle of what he calls "WGAD" - "Who gives a damn?" At the beginning of his courses, he tells students that they are free to ask him this question on any day during the course, at any moment in the ckass, He will stop and explain to his students why the materials under at the moment - however abtruse and minuscule a piece of the big picture it may be - is important, and how it relates to the larger questions and issues of the course.

i may have to try this...