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How quicklyshould you expect


Hilltopmom
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In general, how quickly should you expect a college professor to return a student email, pertaining to a current assignment?

 

It's summer session & the instructor is only on campus to teach this one class, no office hours, other than "by appointment". Only contact info given was the college email address.

 

Those of you who are professors, feel free to speak up. Thanks!

 

If a student doesn't hear back, when they email a second time, should they attach the original email (maybe it got lost or something?)

 

I'm not sure what advice to give my DE kiddo. (His previous classes were all with a CS professor who returned emails within the hour, which I don't think is typical)

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I'd think that will vary a lot by the instructor. My dd is taking a summer course, and her instructor stated 24 hours, M-F, but that she doesn't check emails on weekends. She gave an app through which students can text her on weekends and for times that they need faster answers. Obviously, she wants to be contacted and made that clear. 

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If you do send another email, I would forward  the original with a return receipt request and say something like  "I am wondering if you are receiving my email". It's possible that the email was blocked or put in junk mail.

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Sometimes if I send an email that I suspect was missed (I miss important emails all the time.), I will reply to the same email and just write nicely, "Just in case you missed this, I was wondering if  you could help me with this question ... "  

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If the instructor is not on campus other than to teach one class, he may not be able to answer email until the next class day. How often does the class meet? If the course is still in session and meets several times a week, I would recommend the student to simply approach the inctructor at the next class period and ask whether he received the email. 

 

During the semester when I teach five days a week, I try to answer student emails within 24 hours during the week and have this expectation in the syllabus. However, I also have a colleague who does not have internet access when he is not on campus because he lives far out in the country, and he can only read email on days he is teaching.

 

If a student feels an email may not have sent or may have been overlooked, I would resend the original email with a short note after 48 hours, if it is during the week. I have 650 students and receive so much email that it could be entirely possible that an email I meant to answer vanishes in the inbox and I forget. 

However, if the email was sent on a Friday, DO NOT send nagging reminders over the weekend complaining that you did not receive a response.

Edited by regentrude
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OK,thanks all.

It was sent first thing thursday morning.  He shouldve pulled her aside after class thursday night, but felt uncomfortable doing so,because the issue was about his group partner (she's not responding to him and so he cannot complete his assignment as assigned).

 

We need to work on that skill, obviously.

 

He may have gotten a reply by now,he's out of town now & I haven't heard from him.  

thanks

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It was sent first thing thursday morning.  He shouldve pulled her aside after class thursday night, but felt uncomfortable doing so,because the issue was about his group partner (she's not responding to him and so he cannot complete his assignment as assigned).

 

 

I would definitely not expect a reply before an evening class for an email sent that morning. 

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Well, he resent on Sunday evening. It's Tuesday & he never heard back from her.

He'll complete the assignment as much as he can without her input on the partner issue.

 

Depending on how it's graded,he may wind up having to withdraw. Which would suck, because the writing assignments are not that hard, just a partner problem.

I really wanted him to get this class out of the way over the summer.

 

Live & learn

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