A few colleges and
universities have begunusing their own students as one of their most valuable
assets for providing more varied and complex technology-related support services
for faculty and other students.
Such programs can enable you to use one
of your institution’s most valuable and often-overlooked unique resources— your
students—to deal with a support service crisis. In return, students gain
important job skills by learning to interact with both faculty and other
students in a professional manner; they also have the opportunity to hone their
technology skills.
There are many reasons for using
information technology to improve teaching and learning. However, most of those
efforts increase overall costs and increase the demand for support services in
the areas of tech support, library services, professional development, and
first-year student orientation. But using students as technology assistants or
consultants shows the most promise for holding down costs while providing
support services.
Expectations for improving teaching and
learning with technology continue to accelerate, and the demand for services is
outstripping budgets. In addition, a shortage of qualified staff makes it
difficult to fill existing support positions. Part of your solution can be a
large-scale program for training and using students to provide technology
support for faculty, students, and staff.
Hundreds of colleges and universities are
already using students to "supervise" computer labs—that is, to make sure no one
steals the computers while they do their own homework and to occasionally answer
questions. But a few institutions have begun using their own students to provide
more varied and complex technology-related support services for faculty and
other students.
In the most successful programs, students
learn how to be effective consultants, master many new technology skills, and
have opportunities to train and supervise other students. In some cases,
studentseven help introduce new instructional applications for technology to
faculty members who are interested in expanding their teaching options.
In some programs, the structure enables a
few professional staff members to supervise hundreds of student assistants
because some of the students can provide much of the necessary leadership
themselves. However, I have never heard of a staff position being replaced by
the use of student consultants; instead, student helpers reduce the magnitude of
the local workforce shortage.
Such programs exploit students in the most positive sense. Many
participating students report that the jobs provide an excellent learning
experience, good preparation for careers, more advanced academic work, and good
opportunities to get to know faculty members more personally. The institutions
gain good technical support at a cost lower than any other
option.
