Communicating Effectively With Your Professors
Author: Aaron Diener
Establishing a strong connection with your professor is of the utmost importance. Doing so will allow you to ask your professors questions and bring your concerns to your professors attention. The main reasons that students may need help from their professors are concerns about grading, personal instruction or clarification of instructions for upcoming assignments, and general questions about the course. It is important to know which methods of communication to use for each particular situation. These methods of communication include email, online discussion boards, and personal conferences.
While it is important to know which methods of communication are used in an educational environment, it is also important to know when it is most efficient to use each mode of communication. Email, being the most commonly used, is a reliable means of communication that allows both professors and students to have an easily accessible and retrieval conversation, and is most effectively used for contacting a professor about assignments that are not near their deadlines, due to the fact that it may take up to three days for a response. Online discussion boards are found on websites, such as FSU’s Blackboard, and are most effectively used in order to ask a question that may pertain to the class as a whole. Personal conferences, being the most effective for conveying emotion, and providing an instant response, is most efficiently used for concerns about grading and personal assistance on assignments and projects. All of these methods of communication, are useful for all questions and concerns, however can be used the most effectively when used in the right situation.
