Legal Commentary

Yesterday's post about the efficacy of e-mail office hours prompted an interesting and (to me at least) unexpected discussion in the comments section. As you can see, a few commenters indicated that they tell students that they won't answer substantive questions over e-mail for a variety of reasons, including: (1) if students can get answers over e-mail, they won't approach professors (as much) after class and during office hours, which leads to negative consequences; (2) e-mail exchanges are not pedagogically effective (because the student isn't quite asking what the e-mail suggests and/or because it is just the professor feeding the student an answer rather than the student learning it); (3) because e-mail is costless, it leads students to think of the professor as the first resource for an answer; and (4) e-mail answering can be time prohibitive and counter-productive.

In many ways, the choice to ban student substantive questions over e-mail seems similar to the choice to ban laptops in class, a choice that has often been discussed recently (see, e.g., here, here, here, here, and here). Just as some professors want students to fully engage in class discussions and not hide behind their laptops, some professors want students to engage with them after class and/or during office hours and, well, not hide behind their laptops. Indeed, I know one professor at my school who makes it mandatory that each student in his classes stops by his office at least once a semester so that he gets to know his students (and they get to know him) better.

That said, there are many pros to answering student substantive questions over e-mail. Some students learn better seeing answers written down than hearing answers to questions. If a student is at home trying to work through a case and can get an answer from me via e-mail within a matter of minutes, this can be more effective than the student waiting a day or days to get an answer. If I'm responding to an e-mail, I can give a little bit more thought to my answer than if I am immediately responding to a student's question after class or during office hours. And, I'm sure that readers can think of many more pros and cons to answering/not answering student substantive questions over e-mail. So, what do you think? Do you answer student substantive questions over e-mail or not, and why or why not? You can respond by leaving a comment and/or responding to the following poll.

-Colin Miller