Email, perhaps the simplest of the information technologies at our disposal, can be quickly and easily utilised in ways that (1) improve student comprehension in small group teaching, (2) enhance a sense of community within the group, and (3) free student attention from the task of note-taking so that more students can engage with the topic fully. To use ‘IT’ thus requires almost no technical skills beyond what everyone at the university already possesses. What is necessary is a plan for using the technology so that higher quality discussions are able to occur more frequently.

At the start of the semester, instructors interested in using email in ways outlined above must begin by creating an ‘email network’ for each small group. In the first meeting, the instructor must get the email addresses that the students actually use, as the university-provided accounts may not be consulted frequently. During the first class, just as each student is assigned a particular date/topic for presentation or for leading discussion, each student can also sign up for ‘secretarial duty’. The secretary is responsible for writing down what happens so that everyone else can concentrate on the discussion; the secretary must also edit the transcript and then mail it to everyone in the group. Instructors will be shocked at what some students think others have said. But with email networks, it is far, far easier to correct misinformation: simply hit ‘Reply to All’ and then correct the class notes before sending them out again. Each student takes on this duty approximately once, allowing opportunities for the quietest students to participate actively.

There are several key benefits to this system.  Immediately, 80% of the students (assuming a tutorial group of 10) are freed from note-taking (and are unable to hide behind the semblance of intensive note-taking). The system thus separates data-transmission (which only one student must attend to) from actual thinking and discussion. It does not guarantee open and confident discussion, but it certainly removes a serious obstacle, since all students know that they will receive a transcript by email, and that the corrections will be forthcoming if there are egregious errors in the write-up. This kind of quality control is impossible in ordinary tutorials, as the teacher does not really learn the degree of misinformation until students take the final exam.

Another benefit: one has—apart from the single student presentation and a general notion of whether students have participated regularly—a record of which students have responded, and so the evaluation of tutorial participation for purposes of ‘continuous assessment’ can be done a bit less impressionistically. In addition to the student presentation and the (now documented) student discussion, instructors may wish to grade the write-up and can, at any rate, get some diagnostic information on the student’s writing ability.

If the instructor is comfortable with constructing web pages, the sessions can be put up on the Web for student reference. The chief benefit of publishing all tutorial transcripts in this way is that students can then be invited to ‘compare notes’ between tutorial groups and so determine which topics were central and which were of passing interest in a given tutorial. The distinction between the central and the peripheral may seem commonsensical to the instructor, but very few students are likely to agree.

Email networks can be used, finally, to redirect useful questions from a private to a public context. For instance, Student A asks the question that you wish had been asked in class. So you say, “Write me an email,” and then send the question and answer to all students in the class. This obviously saves the instructor time since he/she need not answer the same question several times, but it also aids in the creation of public space: students who could never ask a question of the instructor in physical reality often feel encouraged by the game-like atmosphere of hyperspace. Insofar as they are less afraid of losing face, they have ‘hyperface’, the digital equivalent of face. Will a wrong answer or a silly question make one lose face? Yes, in a way that a wrong move in a game will make one ‘lose a life’. Loss of hyperface is much less grave than losing face in non-virtual reality, and so the game-atmosphere that prevails in email discourse can be an aid to instruction as it frees even the shyest student to experiment.