How to Communicate Effectively to Your Students
Lessons for teachers from marketing and management
One phone call changed how I communicate with my students.
I sat at work struggling to recall how to change the voicemail message on my desk phone.
Eventually, I called the IT helpdesk. They had always resolved my computer issues quickly in the past by accessing my computer remotely or providing clear directions. And their solution this time? They let me know they would email through a PDF of the telephone manual.
A PDF?
I was more than a little confronted. This didn’t seem like help. Surely, they had received this question before? Why hadn’t they read the manual themselves while I waited for them to let me know the answer?
I opened my inbox to find the PDF, but first, I read a polite email from one of my students containing a familiar type of question:
“When is the assignment due?
Now, usually, I would reply “Hi [student], Thank you for your email. You can find out when your next assignment is due, and all further assignments, by reading page X of the course notes or those from the first lecture.”
But, suddenly, this seemed antiquated. I realised this must frustrate my students…
