Saturday morning, I received an email from a student who is struggling in my course and had some questions. I immediately replied to her. Her subsequent response indicated her appreciation for my quick and attentive message.
Incidents like this one have become somewhat normal for me on weekends and evenings during the school year. I encourage students to email me with questions or ideas and this has benefitted my teaching greatly. I wonder how my educational experience would have been different, if email had been such and easily accessible means of communication with my teachers. Would I have had more effective learning experiences? Possibly, but I'm not 100% positive that I would have. There is something I believe I gained through direct interaction with my teachers.
At the heart of the matter are communication and accessibility of teachers to students. Yes, a student informing a teacher about his or her difficulties is beneficial. Yes, having a teacher be available to a student is helpful. However, I wonder about the value of approaching a teacher face-to-face to have an actual conversation. I feel this has value, especially in high school, where students are often trying to understand how to be more like adults. The student described in the incident above has only approached me one time this year for direct conversation about the course. She is quite shy and I have encouraged her to speak with before, during, or after class, in addition to email. The bottom line is that interpersonal skills are valuable in today's world and I think it is important to foster them, in addition to technological skills.
From an administration standpoint, I wonder about the effects of this type of accessibility. I have no idea about what portion of an administrator's emails are from teachers, students, fellow administrators, or community members. Many of the administrators in my district have PDA's and are constantly receiving messages. It seems to me that some sort of system or self-imposed policies would have to be practiced by a school principal in order to attend to the most important matters communicated electronically and to maintain some sort of ability to disconnect from work.
Staying connected is advantages in numerous ways, but there are definitely issues to consider regarding direct interactions and constant accessibility.
Constant accessibility is something that I struggle with as well. On one hand it would be great to hear from my students who are having problems via e-mail rather than waiting until homeroom the day the assignment is due. Unfortunately, at least half of my students do not have access to the internet outside of school and we have a strict policy that does not allow teachers and students to contact each other through e-mail or phone. I would love to have a webpage for my classroom, but I know that only some would be able to access the information.
ReplyDeleteI too find myself checking my email several times a day, trying to make sure that if a student has an emergency, I can respond to it right away. With some of our classes this semester being online, I wonder if we had "online office hours" how many students would take advantage of it. I know that the idea in its basic sense is very utopian, but I am definitely curious about it.
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