How To Get to Know 200 Students (Almost) Overnight

Direct interaction between students and teacher is essential to effective teaching. Unfortunately, it is often lacking in large classes. We have developed a system which facilitates efficient asynchronous communication between teacher and students. Students' questions are stored in a database, and the contents of the database are accessed via the Web in various forms. For example, the teacher can review all student questions on a particular topic, prepare a single answer to a common question, and store the answer in the database. Students' grades and pictures are stored with their questions (accessible only to the teacher), allowing the teacher to learn the students' names and faces while reading their questions. A student can review other students' questions (without names attached) along with the teacher's answers. Our system helps the teacher get to know many students quickly and respond to their individual needs, and helps students learn outside the classroom.