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Communicating with Students

One of the most important tasks for a teacher is effective communication with students, namely communication that is instructive, helpful, and timely. Much of this communication will take place in class, but contacts and conversations outside of class, between class meetings, can be critical for helping students engage with courses, and for helping teachers understand students’ problems, concerns and interests.

Technology can help.

individually…
Office hours: This time offers you and your students a chance to communicate one-on-one outside the formality of the classroom. Office hours can allow students to follow up on specific problems, questions or interests, and can give teachers a chance to learn more about individual student challenges and ideas. The internet offers you the option of adding virtual office hours, using various types of communications software, to offer students an additional means of connecting outside the classroom. Using email, instant messaging, or on-line Chat, you can communicate with students from your office or home.

Advising: These same communication technologies can also be used to support purposeful communication with individual students regarding such issues as progress in the course, questions about curricular options, or personal academic problems that might otherwise require an appointment time in your office or an after-class meeting.

Accommodating students with different communication needs:
Some students have diagnosed disabilities that may make it difficult for them to get access to the learning materials you provide in the classroom or on the internet. For example, visually impaired students may need alternatives to graphs and images in order to understand concepts you present, or they may require screen reader software to access web-based texts. Students with learning disabilities may face challenges in processing the information presented on multimedia web sites. Services and tools are available for helping teachers to use both technological and non-technological strategies to accommodate these students’ needs and to plan for developing broadly accessible learning materials.

collectively…
Making announcements: As a teacher, you frequently need to communicate with your students about administrative or extracurricular matters associated with your course. You might need to alert students to the availability of a particular resource, remind students of due dates, inform students of changes in office hours, or encourage students to attend a campus event related to the course. You might need to inform them about changes in schedule, special assignments, or syllabus modifications.

Using tools like list servs, discussion forums, bulletin boards, and Chat rooms, teachers can quickly get information to students. Some of these tools also support real time conversation between students and teacher or among students. These tools can be incorporated into web sites or used independently, and are often components of course management systems like Blackboard.

students communicating with students…
You can also encourage and guide on-line class discussions and interactions using group communication technologies. Careful planning is required to get students to actively and meaningfully participate in on-line discussions. You’ll need to attend to the dynamics of such group conversations, but they can be a means of encouraging students to relate to each other as learning resources and to actively engage with and apply course ideas and principles.

Glossary of Related Terms.

Blackboard
Bobby
Bulletin board
Chat/Instant Messaging
Course management software
Discussion Forums
Electronic class rolls
File transfer and upload
JAWS
List Servs
My.unc.edu
Screen reader
Security
Video conferencing
Web sites

next section: Developing Assignments

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