How to get students to stop bombarding your inbox
Struggling with low student engagement, but a full inbox of repetitive questions from the same students?
I got a strategy to handle it. I call it the simplified student communication hard fix. (Yeah, a terrible name, please feel free to suggest a better one!)
Does any of these scenarios ring a bell? Then the strategy might of interest to you.
Students shy away from the fancy discussions forums you made for the course but bombard you with emails the days, hours, and minutes before (and soon after) any big deadline.
As an educator, you want to help your students. Of course, that’s probably (or should be) your nature when working in education. When you get an email, you feel an urge to answer it. Thus, active students are more likely to succeed.
But if you answer, you will end up getting more emails than you can manage. And if you don’t answer your students will get a worse offering and you might get a bad reputation. So what to do?
It’s a challenge. Luckily, there are simple strategies available to address the challenge. One of my favorite ones is the one I call the simplified student communication hard fix. It has three steps
- Set clear expectations
- Start with a 1-week communication anarchy
- Stick to your plan
Step 1: Set clear expectations
Goal step 1: All students know when, where, and how you will respond
The first step is about making sure everyone understand how communication will work in your class. Setting clear expectations is key to not piss off students later on. If the rules are clear from the get-go, it’s harder to complain down the road.
a) Define your rules
When, where, and how can students expect an answer from you?
Make the rules easy to understand. Here’s one example of guidelines you can share with your students:
- I have set aside time to answer all your questions in detail every Monday from 10 to 11. Feel free to ask at any time, but do not expect an immedate answer.
- Please post questions in the shared course community when possible.
- All non-sensitive answers will be posted in the shared course community. Sensitive information will be sent directly to the individual student
Simple as that. It’s just a way to make clear that you will answer everything, but make it clear when it will happen.
b) Coordinate with other lecturers
Are there other educators involved in your course? Make sure they are onboard with your communication plan. If you are not aligned, your strategy will fail. You must stick to the same rules.
As an example, if one of the lecturers in the course answer emails every day, students are trained to continue sending direct emails, not share info, and not help others. No one will ask in the shared course community.
c) Inform students in all channels
Got the plan ready?
Good, now inform your students in all channels available. This should happen in week 1. Put your communication rules on your intro slides, inform in the lectures, post in the LMS, learning environment chat room or whichever channel available. Make sure all students are onboard.
And remember, the reason you do this is to be able to give them better help. Focus on the positive. This will help you give your students help of a higher quality
Step 2: Start wtih a 1-week communication anarchy
Goal step 2: Students feel safe and like getting your help
The next step might sound strange. Immediately after having the students commit to your rules, I want you to break them. For one week, I would like you to start with a 1-week communication anarchy. In this week, you should do everything you possibly can to help your students. They can ask you anything at any time and use direct chat as much as they would like.
Some guidelines to you in this phase:
- Commit to answer everything the student asks. No matter if you feel the question is stupid. Your job is to make the students share how over-the-top helpful you are. You need viral growth of your offered services, otherwise, they won’t care.
- Do not worry if they ask in direct messages. Most will do anyways.
- Keep the communication anarchy for limited time. One week is enough.
By doing this, there are some things I would like you to achieve.
a) Students feel safe
The main reason students are not engaged, is that they are afraid of looking stupid. They don’t want to ask in front of others. In the anarchy phase, they can build their confidence in private chats. But only for one week.
b) Students feel they “owe you one”
Needed for step 3. You need some first followers to create the sharing culture among students you are looking for.
c) Students are motivated to start asking early.
A bonus. And probably the biggest challenge in this strategy. Students procrastinate. By having a time-cap on the anarchy-period, you try to motivate them to ask now. It’s a small push for them to figure out how they can benefit from your help. If they don’t do it now, they might miss the chance.
These three things will be needed to establish a new communication strategy in the next phase.
Step 3. Stick to your plan
Goal step 3: New communication culture created
Feeling tired after the first week of anarchy? I feel for you. It’s hard work. But its worth it.
In step three, you start executing your initial communication plan. To make it work, the keys are:
a) Stick to the plan!!
The students will continue sending you direct message after the anarchy period. They will try all the trick in the book to get you to answer. Just. Don’t. Do. It. Stick to the rules you shared with the students.
If you start just answering one, you can be sure that student will spread the word and you end up with a bunch of “..but you answered NN! That’s not fair!”.
You are not a terrible person if don’t answer right away. You made a deal with your students, remember? It’s like raising a kid or being a mafia boss; if you threaten with a consequence, you must be ready to follow-through. The students will be fine. They will even get a better offering by sticking to the plan.
b) Exceed expectations when you answer
Since you are offline most of the week, you must make up for it when are online by giving brilliant answer. You have to, right? Make an extra effort to give real value to the students.
Think of the communication as a whole, not only isolate it into solving one student’s challenge then and there. To reduce the number of repetitive questions, you need to share your answers in the shared environment. This will both save you time and give the feeling you treat all students equal — all students see all answers.
c) Motivate students to help each other outside your dedicated slots
This is the holiest of the holy grails — make students help each other. If you don’t have someone to help you, it’s on you to kickstart the student collaboration.
Now is the time to get a favor back from the students you helped in week 1. Sync up with them and tell them you need their help to start answering other students in between your office hours.
Trouble getting the student collaboration going? No need to feel bad. Most struggle. Its very complex and a hard thing to do.
And that’s the basics of the simplified student communication hard fix :)
Set clear expectations, give the students a 1-week anarchy period to get going on their terms, then stick to the rules from week 2, and overachieve in your dedicated time slots.
Sounds easy? It’s not. But it might very well be worth a try. Looking forward to hearing your experiences!
What’s your strategy to cope with these challenges?
