Balanced Personal Support
While writing norms are different according to the university cultural context (power distance: institutional hierarchy or more egalitarian communication, e.g. use of titles), Stephens et al. (2009) reveal that an overly casual message, a lack of salutation and unconventional spelling compromised the student’s credibility and the lecturer’s willingness to answer the request. The following hints can be useful for establishing a clear student-teacher communication.
Learner-Centered Syllabi
Learner-centered syllabus might be a helpful way of establishing clear, but kind, boundaries. You can read an article on it here or here. The creation of an interactive syllabus can be helpful to ensure that students are made familiar with the expectations of the instructor in an active way.
Being a “Warm Demander”
From the mid 1970’s, Judith Kleinfeld, coined the term of ‘warm demander’ and it has been written about in educational literature since then. This web article is a good introduction to the topic that offers some useful references at the end. ‘Warm demander’ has also been used by Michelle Pacansky-Brock who coined the term “Humanization”. You can consult a 50 minute session recording that she gave on the topic and a shorter video example (3 minutes) from Michelle; in one of these she addresses assignment due dates in a ‘warm demander’ way.
References
- Alexander, A. (2016). The warm demander: An equity approach. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/warm-demander-equity-approach-matt-alexander
- Bensimon, E. M. & Gray, J. (2020). First-generation equity practitioners: Are they part of the problem? Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 52(2), 69-73.
- Bondy, E., & Ross, D. (2008). The teacher as warm demander [PDF file]. Retrieved from http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/marachi/mle/Warm%20Demander%20Article.pdf
- Kleinfeld, J. (1975). Effective teachers of Eskimo and Indian students. School Review, 83, 301–344.
- McKeown, K. (2018). Why teachers need to be “warm demanders” toward themselves. Retrieved from https://www.teachingbalance.com/blog/why-teachers-need-to-be-warm-demanders
- Neesen, K. (2017). Students, especially African-Americans, thrive with warm, demanding teachers. Retrieved from https://news.virginia.edu/content/students-especially-african-americans-thrive-warm-demanding-teachers
- Palmer, M., Wheeler, Lindsay & Aneece, I. (2016). Does the Document Matter? The Evolving Role of Syllabi in Higher Education, Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 48(4), 36-47.
- Stephens, K., Houser, M., Cowan, R. (2009) R U able to meat me: the impact of students’ overly casual email messages to instructors. Communication Education, 58(3), 303-326.
- Vershelden, C. (2017). Bandwidth recovery: Helping students reclaim cognitive resources lost to poverty, racism, and social marginalization. Stylus & AACU.
