Teaching Tip: Let your students text you

This tip is based on feedback from 338 students across four Los Angeles college campuses.

88% of the students surveyed agreed with the statement, “If all of my professors used Remind, I’d do better in college.”

Remind is a free website that allows instructors to reach their students via text message (and allows students to reach teachers in the same manner).

Through the app, the instructor’s number is anonymized so your privacy is protected. The benefits of opening up this line of communication are endless and communicating with students in this natural way integrates the course into their regular lives.

Students will squeeze in their coursework whenever possible and, in many cases, the 2–3 hours they find is their only time available to complete coursework.

Imagine that your student is trying to take an online quiz but he notices that your quiz has an error. If he can only reach you via email, then he may be waiting 2–3 days to receive guidance on how to proceed (long after he’s logged out of the exam). There are a few negative outcomes in this case: the quiz may be due before you reply to his email, the allotted quiz time may run out, or the student may not have time later in the week to return to the quiz. This is, in fact, the most common story that I hear from my…