While some professors at Boston University emphasize office hours as an important academic tool, social media sites and other modern approaches are becoming more common, students said.
“One of the biggest benefits [of social media] is immediacy,” said Micha Sabovik, assistant dean of the College of Communication Student Services, in an email. “The digital age has created a culture that demands instant gratification, so new online tools are a must for our students.”
Social media and websites such as Blackboard allow students to find a syllabus on their smartphones, download reading materials and quickly connect with professors and peers, she said.
“Almost all of our professors use Blackboard for their classes, but more mainstream social media, especially Twitter, is becoming more and more prevalent in student-teacher conversations,” Sabovik said.
COM integrates social media, both for academic and administrative purposes, she said.
“The ‘practice what you preach’ mantra certainly comes into play here. If a class focuses on the benefits and practices behind non-traditional media, it helps to have both the professors and students to be engaged with that technology,” Sabovik said.
Between her own account, @DeanSaboSays, and two main COM accounts, @comugrad and @BUCOMGrad, the college reaches out to about 4,500 followers, she said. The COM Student Services administration also manages Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts for incoming freshmen and the COM Ambassador program.
Amy Bennett-Zendzian, an instructor in the College of Arts and Sciences, said she started a Facebook group for her EN120 class.
“So far I’ve been able to answer several students’ questions about homework through the group, but there are still two students who haven’t joined—which means I won’t be able to use it for official communication for the class,” she said.
Bennett-Zendzian said she also managed a Twitter account for students to access, which offered supplementary materials. However, she said she has given up on it.
“It’s not very effective since, as far as I can tell, most college students don’t use Twitter,” she said. “It’s more of a thing for public figures and institutions.”
While some professors are experimenting with social media, not all professors find it as beneficial as others.
“A school’s faculty spans many generations, personalities and views on new media,” Sabovik said. “Social media isn’t for everyone.”
Laurence Breiner, an English professor in CAS, said he prefers to make himself available to students through email and office hours. He said email is effective more immediately than Blackboard because students check their emails more often.
“In my experience, almost everyone is more thoughtful and more interesting in email than in texting, tweeting or instant messaging,” Breiner said. “That makes it a much more productive use of time.”
College of Engineering junior Troy Wilson said his economics professor manages a Facebook group for the class.
“I think it’s pretty useful when your class is full of so much discussion that you can’t really fit it all in the actual section,” he said. “We had a lot of side comments on the Facebook page.”
Wilson said the entire class joined the group and most students actively post on the page. He said the professor posts links to academic articles and other useful information for students to access.
“I like Blackboard. I think it’s a nice way to have documents that you might have lost, or just announcements,” said College of General Studies sophomore Alexis Brogden. “The whole Facebook and Twitter thing — I’ve never had a professor use it. I never really found a need for it because I feel that I’ve always been able to contact them through their office or email.”
Brogden said most of her professors communicate with students by sending emails saying to check Blackboard for updates, but she would prefer they just email all the information. Because she does not check Blackboard constantly, it is possible to miss things, she said.
Brogden said she would participate in a professor’s academic social media account if it were purely academic, but expressed concerns about a professor having access to her personal social media networks.
“The thing is, my Twitter isn’t purely academic,” she said.
CGS sophomore Linda Yung said if her professor had an academic Twitter account, she would consider following it, but didn’t want her professor to follow her back because it would be too invasive of her personal life.
“I just think there’s boundaries between personal life and academic life,” Yung said.
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