email

Research shows that connecting with students before the first class improves retention (Lorenzetti 2008). Here, email groups are created for every class automatically before the first meeting making it easy. Why not email a greeting and attach the syllabus before you physically meet? Details on how at the end of this post.

Of course, email has changed the teacher/student dynamic. See the following.

• Does email curb productivity? (NPR text and audio)
• UNC Chapel Hill investigated Email in Academia re: expectations, use and instructional impact in Educause. Faculty and students have different expectations (BTW: a blog might bridge the gap). Another study compares synchronous and asynchrous communication .
  
• A service to send self destructing private notes through email .

On a lighter note - but still relevant and revealing (from the Chronicle of Higher Ed.).

• Professors list "favorite" emails from students part1, part 2
  
• 3 of the funniest email from students and what they say about technology

Regarding expectations - email is often said to be as private as sending a postcard through the mail (e.g. employers have a legal right to read mail sent through a company server or from a company computer). This may complicate discussions regarding FERPA and sending grades through email.

How to:
And if you haven't used the pre-established class groups set up via Groupwise, go to the address book, make sure your are in the Novell groupwise address book - (See yellow arrow - note: not the frequent contacts where it might try and take you first) and at the top the classes start in alphabetical order by 4 letter abbreviation ( e.g. if you teach an English class and the class number were 00990**** - - you'd scroll to where we put the green arrow - ENGL00990*** and click).

Using this option maintains student privacy. Everyone gets the same message - but they don't see individual email addresses. Mail is sent to their KCKCC email account - Remind them to check that.

Lorenzetti, J.P. (2008) 14 ways faculty can improve online student retention. Recruitment & Retention 22 (12)