International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Volume 3, Number 1, January 2009

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Research Article

Excerpt

Two Minute Training in Class Significantly Increases the Useof Professional Formatting in Student to Faculty Email Correspondence

Many university faculty value email as an important tool for communicating with colleagues, but express frustration with a high incidence of unprofessional email correspondence from students. The goals of this study were to document the frequency of specific formatting mistakes that contribute to faculty’s unfavorable perception of student emails and to determine if training could reduce these errors. We analyzed emails from students to three instructors of different rank and gender co-teaching two sections of a large introductory biology class: one section received two minutes of basic email etiquette training, the second section served as the control. We report a significant increase in overall professional quality of student emails in the trained class due to more frequent use of proper salutations, appropriate capitalization, and a class-specific subject line. These data suggest that most students do not send intentionally disrespectful messages and respond to guidance in constructing professionally formatted emails.

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Bios

Nancy Aguilar-Roca
University of California, Irvine
Irvine, California, USA
nmaguila@uci.edu

I am a research specialist for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) UCI Professor Program, and a lecturer for the Department of Developmental & Cell Biology. My background is in comparative and evolutionary physiology, but my current research interests are development and assessment of active teaching strategies in large lectures. In addition, I currently teach Cell Biology and train graduate student discussion leaders for Introductory Biology.
Website: http://www.researchandteaching.bio.uci.edu/index.html

Adrienne Williams
University of California, Irvine
Irvine, California, USA
adriw@uci.edu

My Ph.D. is in comparative animal physiology. I am currently a research specialist for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) UCI Professor Program, and a lecturer for the Departments of Developmental & Cell Biology and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Irvine. After teaching multiple discussions in Introductory Biology, I now teach graduate students and new lecturers how to teach the discussions using active learning techniques. I am currently developing a workbook to guide new Biology graduate students while they are teaching. I also evaluate teaching strategies in large lectures, mentor undergraduate peer tutors, and teach Physiology to non-majors in a large-lecture format.
Website: http://www.researchandteaching.bio.uci.edu

Rahul Warrior
University of California, Irvine
Irvine, California, USA
rwarrior@uci.edu

As an Associate Professor at the University of California, Irvine, my laboratory research is directed towards understanding how cells communicate with each other during embryonic development. We study these questions in the fruitfly Drosophila, using a combination of molecular and genetic techniques. I have taught large Introductory Biology classes for the last six years, and am interested in developing strategies to effectively convey scientific principles and approaches as well as factual information. I believe that basic scientific literacy will be essential for students to navigate a future society that is being dramatically molded by advances in genomic technologies.
Website: http://www.ucidevcell.org/faculty/rahul-warrior/

Diane O’Dowd
University of California, Irvine
Irvine, California, USA
dkodowd@uci.edu

I am a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Professor in the Departments of Developmental & Cell Biology, and Anatomy & Neurobiology at University of California, Irvine. My research lab studies the activity of living neurons in the brains of both flies and mice. We are interested in understanding how genetic and environmental factors regulate changes in neural circuits that underlie learning and memory. Teaching is also an important facet of my career. Most recently I have been developing and testing strategies aimed at improving student learning in large introductory biology classes.

Websites:

http://www.researchandteaching.bio.uci.edu/index.html
http://www.healthaffairs.uci.edu/anatomy/odowd.html

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