I am wondering if the following strategies might help Trinh:
- Trinh could set up some potential guidelines to help students be a first line of support for each other before contacting her. For example, she could ask them to ask each other if there are general questions about the course that they may want/need help with. It would only be after they have asked each other, and not been able to resolve a situation that she would be contacted. I have found that this is a process that other teachers in f2f have employed, and it seems like it would also be effective for on-line courses. However, it can be taken a step further. At the beginning of an on-line course (especially one the size that Trinh teaches) students may have difficulty establishing a sense of community. In some situations it could be beneficial to immediately “pod” some students to be form initial support peers for each other. Members of pods could also access each other for additional support. This might cut down on the number of contacts students make and also benefits the class by encouraging students’ development of a learning community – often a foundation of a learner centred course.
- As far as organizational logistics, although this does not address the number of e-mails she receives, Trinh could clearly specify which e-mail address she will respond to, and which she will not. Ideally, only one would be used to send information to students – this way students can use the same one to contact Trinh. She could also clearly state that questions via her blog and twitter will not be responded to (and stick to that rule). While this will probably not eliminate students contacting her through multiple avenues, it might help simplify some of the contact.
- Another organizational decision Trinh could make relates to the concept of “office hours”. When the above While the conventional “office hours” are not possible, there are ways to streamline Trinh’s contact for the times when students do need to contact her. A number of people I know have designated specific times in the day when they will read and respond to e-mails. People are free to e-mail when they want, but they are automatically notified that their e-mail will be read during a specific time period. Given that Trinh’s students are in different time zones, she may prefer to have her “on-line office hours” staggered to respond (as best she can, given her own time zone needs) to different time zones.
I do have a minor question regarding this scenario. I wonder why it is necessary for all students to participate in the live stream of lectures (as one example of the range of multimedia activities). Why couldn’t the lectures at least be saved and made available for students to view at their own convenience (especially as it is an on-line course with students in diverse time zones)? Asynchronous communication can still occur relating to lectures.
Jo