Tama’s eLearning Blog

The NYTimes has an article about use and over-use of email by students with academics:

One student skipped class and then sent the professor an e-mail message asking for copies of her teaching notes. Another did not like her grade, and wrote a petulant message to the professor. Another explained that she was late for a Monday class because she was recovering from drinking too much at a wild weekend party.

Jennifer Schultens, an associate professor of mathematics at the University of California, Davis, received this e-mail message last September from a student in her calculus course: “Should I buy a binder or a subject notebook? Since I’m a freshman, I’m not sure how to shop for school supplies. Would you let me know your recommendations? Thank you!”

At colleges and universities nationwide, e-mail has made professors much more approachable. But many say it has made them too accessible, erasing boundaries that traditionally kept students at a healthy distance.

Jill furthers the argument that many students are using email to treat academics as a resource entirely at their disposal:

It’s great that students can so easily email their lecturers, isn’t it? Except when, completely hypothetically of course, you have 70 students in a class, 20 of whom don’t feel the need to turn up to lectures (most lectures aren’t mandatory in Norway, it’s a remnant of the old ideal of the independent student who should have the right to learn as she pleases) yet they all email you questions – you know, the “I won’t be able to attend any of the tutorials. What’s the assignment? Can you give me feedback?” kind of questions. And the frantic “Did you get my email?” the next day if you haven’t answered.

Siva Vaidhyanathan disagrees somewhat:

get the same types of e-mails discussed in the story. I get them all the time. But I don’t whine about them. First, I consider it my job to explain “on the record” about issues in the course. If I get suspicious that a text reply might be taken out of context, I request that the student come by my office hours. I feel free to ignore the silly or rude requests. That usually gets them to question what they did wrong.

In addition, I consider all my conversations in all media now exisiting or yet to be discovered to be potential teaching moments. If students are rude with me and I can explain to them why they should avoid being rude to authority figures, they are less likely to make that mistake with their first boss.

I wish the Times had talked to a prof who thinks e-mail contact with students is exasperating but beneficial.

Personally, I find email is a great tool for interacting with students and I do welcome the flexibility it provides. Thankfully, the only times I’ve ever really been near-overwhelmed have been self-inflicted (getting 78 students to blog for a course and the CCing every post to yourself certainly fills an inbox quickly!), but like any teaching and learning interaction, guidelines for use are important, especially for the larger undergraduate classes. While I do often reply to emails in out-of-office times (and think this is a benefit), I do think it has to be managed in a way that fits around other things in your life and it might be that email has the same reply-window as office hours (ie, I’ll be in my office 2-4pm Thursday, and will probably reply to most emails at that time or some such thing).