“Viewer Mail”

Presenter 
	Thomas J. Tobin, Duquesne University

Objectives
	“Viewer mail” is not a new concept in the classroom. It is a regular feature of my Intro to Freshman Writing class, occurring about every two weeks, usually just before an assignment is due. The first few minutes of each class meeting when I utilize “viewer mail” is devoted to the answering of written comments and questions from students. Each comment is given public attention, whether it be about a serious classroom issue (“when is the illustration essay due?”) or a comment from the class wiseguy trying to stump me (“who would win in a fight, Jackie Chan or Bruce Lee?”). By allowing for a spirit of learning-as-play where both serious and not-so-serious commentary are encouraged, I have found that my students are much more willing, on the whole, to pay attention to the minutiae of the class discussion, and are more likely to ask questions which trouble them, either on paper or aloud. 
	The reason why I believe viewer mail to be worth a roundtable discussion today is the advent of e-mail. E-mail has been hailed as a panacea which brings shy students out of their shells, and empowers students who otherwise might have felt marginalized. Viewer mail is not such a cure-all, but neither is e-mail.
	Viewer mail is designed to open lines of communication between the instructor and his or her students through an anonymizing process. This has already begun to be accomplished in many colleges through e-mail and other electronic methods of communication, but “viewer mail” has a distinct advantage over e-mail in that it recognizes three objectives that e-mail does not:
	• to create a personal, face-to-face interaction between instructor and student,
	• to preserve the spirit of academic cooperation and love of learning in the 
		classroom, and
	• to maintain open communication between instructor and student at a minimal 
		cost (in terms of either money or time) to both.

Format
• Introduction: discussion of the process, benefits, and drawbacks of “viewer mail,” materials needed: index cards for all, and a few minutes.
• Trial: I will pass out index cards to the participants in the room, and ask them to write down any questions, comments, or trivia “stumpers” that they can think of. In a typical class, this takes about three minutes. I will then collect the cards, and attempt to answer each as best I can. This allows me to keep the lines of communication open with my students without having to wrench pertinent questions from them. If students need to ask a serious question, they know they can do so without fear of feeling “dumb.”
• Discussion: I expect question-and-answer to be the format throughout the presentation--it is more a relaxed seminar about the methodology behind “viewer mail,” and why it is a more effective method of feedback than electronic methods, rather than an anthropology lecture (no offense, science teachers).

Intended Audience
	Although “viewer mail” lends itself to a process-based teaching style--introductory courses where memorization or practice is involved--it is intended for use in any classroom where the students are capable of writing comments and questions. Therefore, my presentation is meant for the classroom teacher, rather than the administrator.