Suggestion 102. Install a telephone "hotline"

IF YOU WANT TO:

• Know if the class is understanding you or not

• Know if the students are bored or confused

• Receive on-going feedback from students

Installing a telephone "hotline."

A telephone "hotline" allows students to report course-related difficulties at the time they are having them, e.g., at 10:00 pm when trying to solve a problem or understand a difficult section in the text.

One economics professor received a mini-grant from the Academic Senate Committee on Teaching to install a telephone answering service in the TA's room and has used it for several years in a large introductory course.

"Students are reminded of the availability of the `hotline' throughout the course," he explains. "Although they can call me or the TAs directly during regular hours, this allows them to report difficulties at odd hours or to register anonymous gripes on the tape. Each morning one of the TAs listens to the tape and refers the problems that should be taken up in lecture to me and those which should be taken up in the discussion sections to the other TAs.

"Perhaps the most useful aspect of the telephone hotline is as a safety valve," the instructor explains. "There is no way a course of 800 is going to be anything but impersonal. I try to acknowledge that and give students as many chances as possible to be heard."

Limitations on Use of Suggestion

  Discipline:  None
Course Level:  None
 Course Size:  Above 150
        Mode:  None

Copyright 1983 by the Regents of the University of California

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