Universities across the country are giving students more reason to stay glued to their computers. Professors at state and Ivy League schools have started instituting office hours online, using AOL Instant Messenger, Skype, and video conferencing applications like Elluminate to make themselves more accessible to students outside of the classroom.
According to The National Survey of Student Engagement, the increased use of information technologies stimulates student interest and enhances student-teacher communication. With this fact in mind, David Malan of Harvard’s Computer Science department launched virtual office hours last Fall to supplement his traditional face-to-face office hours, the first program of its kind at the university. Students taking “Introduction to Computer Science” can interact with Malan’s teaching fellows through live, online help forums powered by the communications software Elluminate. Participants pose questions by typing them out or talking through their computer’s microphone. Elluminate is especially effective for digitally-oriented classes, as T.A.s can manipulate a student’s computer in order to explain an answer.
A dozen undergraduate teaching assistants for Cornell’s “Introduction to Web Design and Programming” class organized a similar program this year using AOL Instant Messenger. The T.A.s field students’ instant messages under a joint screen name, a process that they find faster and less plodding than email correspondences. “It’s certainly less personally intrusive than me getting their cell phone number and calling them back with an answer,” former professor of the class David Williamson told Wendy Wang of The Cornell Daily Sun in “Office Hours Get New Online Look.”
But now even phone conversations can be conducted on the Web. Accounting Lecturer Richard Lillie of California State University-San Bernardino chats with pupils through Skype, a free calling application that enables users to talk online through their computers, though students must have headsets, microphones, and webcams to use this program. “Even though we’re using technology, we can talk and work with each other as if we’re sitting in the same office,” Lillie told USA Today’s Angela Haupt in “Professors help students virtually.”
In fact, Hamilton students would find such technology helpful for minor questions that come up outside of the classroom, especially at night.
“I think [online office hours] would make a large difference in the amount of student-professor interaction, particularly for small things, such as tiny questions or misunderstandings,” Rouvan Mahmud ’11 said. “I would not right now leave the comfort of my dorm and walk in this cold just to ask a tiny question.”
Sophie Vershbow ’11, a graduate of Friends Seminary in New York City, told The Spectator that her high school teachers would set up chatrooms the night before a big test. Vershbow remembers those online sessions being “so helpful because not only did you get help from the teacher, but you got help from everyone else in the class.”
These online communication programs are especially helpful to students studying abroad, like Eric Kuhn ’09, who is spending the year at the London School of Economics. Kuhn corresponds with his advisor, Government Professor Frank Anechiarico, via Skype. “He sits in his office and I sit in London and he advises me,” Kuhn said. “The technology is amazing in my situation because of that pond between us!”
However, students and administrators, including Dean of Faculty Joseph Urgo, do not think online office hours should replace traditional tete-a-tetes entirely, arguing that there is no substitute for face-to-face meetings that are hallmarks of the college experience.
“Professors use email, web sites, instant messaging, and other technologies to increase their accessibility to students,” Urgo told The Spectator. “But at Hamilton, where personal interaction is among our core values, these technologies are all additive; they cannot replace the standard, which we continue to find valuable and incapable of simulation, of the face-to-face, sit-down experience between the student and the professor, talking.”
In addition, multi-part questions are too difficult to type out, according to Arielle Cutler ’11. “I feel like the few times I have met with professors face-to-face, it was essential that we were in fact face-to-face,” Cutler said. “These times generally consisted of further explanation of a concept, clarification of an assignment, things where it would be awkward and too complicated to communicate virtually.” Chemistry major Katie Donahue ’08 concurs, pointing out that “explaining Chemistry over an email is hard. Also there is something nice about sitting down and talking face-to-face with a professor. Feels like you know them a little more.”
Looking ahead, Nora Goddard ’11 observes that these live-action, mini mentoring sessions are preparation for the world beyond academe: “Talking to older, more experienced people is a skill necessary for most professions, so students should begin now, while in school, instead of afterwards, where the lack of knowing how to have a conversation with a superior could be detrimental.”
