Professional Emails

• Below are some tips for emailing in a professional, education environment.

• It is important to keep yourself organized and to be careful and deliberate when responding to emails as an educator.

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• As you become more senior in your career, you won't have to spend nearly as much time crafting responses, but as a new teacher (and a young one) you need to be extra careful.

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Example 1:
​Upset Student

There will always be students who claim you are being unfair even when they have no ground to stand on. Those students often feel that they can go over your head and can threaten you into doing what they want.

• Take note of my initial email
• Her choice of words and implicit threats (parents and Dean)
• The timing of her back to back responses
• Her downgrading me from professor to Mrs. (neither of which are my title)
• My response - the wording, the systematic approach to each of her concerns 
• Over the course of several days, I received feedback from several superiors before sending the final draft back to the student
• The student never responded, did not officially withdraw from the class, stopped showing up, did not turn in any assignments, and ended with an F in the course

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Example 2: 
​Student Claims Bias

Students will often feel that your grading is unfair. Having strong organization, a clear rubric, a clear model, and clear feedback will be integral to you proving you are in no way biased against that student. Students often believe their work is much better than it actually is. When you confront them with reality, it is impossible for them advance their claims.

• Student emailed my teaching assistant, his grader, and she forwarded on to me
• The TA had completed his rubrics and added notes to help him understand why he scored the way he did on all of his assignments.
• Note his language - he clearly thinks he is being respectful, but he is also leveling a clear accusation
• Claiming a person biased is a major accusation to make - he has made it with little to no thought
• Note how his language is incorrect - decisive is clearly not the word he meant and bias should be biased
• Note my systematic response
• Note that because I am organized, I was able to go back and look over each of his assignments quickly and carefully and respond according to his work
• The student never responded back and later, when his final project partner dropped out of class, he had positive interactions with me and was able to adjust to the new workload and situation.

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Example 3
Student Wants Exceptions

• Many students and parents will want you to make exceptions on their behalf. 
• You must always be fair. It is okay to provide accommodations and adjust things according to extenuating circumstances.
• However, people will often want much more than that. Do not give in to the pressure. Ask a mentor for help and guidance if you are worried or don't know how to respond.

• Note how this student, like the others, makes a lot of assumptions and uses language that is accusatory without thinking much of it.
• Note how the student makes claims about me being unfair in regard to her attendance and claims ignorance. DRS info is on every professor's syllabus, she did not have accommodations, and she missed 15 classes over the course of the semester. 
• This is only one thread of emails from this student, who sent many of these email threads at the very end of the semester, right before grades were due.
• She also failed to submit her and her partner's final project without telling her partner until the deadline had passed.
• Notice the complete lack of email etiquette on her part
• Note my systematic refute of all of her claims and that I let her know it upset me to hear her accusations.

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