Initiating Student-Teacher Contact Via Personalized Responses to One-Minute Papers

Abstract

Teachers have used many different techniques in efforts to augment engagement given the strong engagement-learning link. Teacher-student contact is one of the most effective tools for fostering engagement; however, some teachers find it hard to initiate contact in a way that seems natural. I present one method of initiating student-teacher contact: replying individually by e-mail to students' concerns raised in one-minute papers. I argue that, although this technique may require a greater time-commitment, the effort is worthwhile; it allows teachers to gauge and address students' misunderstandings effectively, and, at the same time, it can help teachers to establish contact with students in large classes or with quieter students and even help uncertain teachers to establish contact in a natural way.

Keywords:

• one-minute paper
• student-teacher contact
• technology
• student learning
• teaching techniques