Many points of contact

Or maybe the title should be "many points TO contact" because my students can get to me in so many ways:

Electronically, I get at least a half-dozen pages a day, about the same number of emails, and even more messages via the course website (normal for the online course, of course, but the non-online course students still send messages to me when they upload their essays, for example).

Traditional technology includes the telephone, and I've received about 8 phone messages from students this summer, which averages out to almost a third of my students contacting me this way. That statistic isn't quite accurate, though, since the same students prefer to use the phone.

F2F, of course, is the primary way my students contact me: coming by the office (a few of the online students prefer to ask their questions this way - first time I had that experience was last semester!), staying after class (what a long conversation after the midterm on Monday!), and the conventional in-class discussion. With only two courses, I can actually know my students well, and the points of contact don't feel onerous or incomplete or supplementary or not-the-point: they feel necessary and surprisingly useful, for the students and for me. I can be more thoughtful with them and about them than I can be when I have upwards of 100 students.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that education happens when the points of contact are multiple, sustained, and engaged rather than overwhelming. This observation is not news.