One of your responsibilities as a course instructor is to hold office hours. For each course you teach, you need to designate a time and location for office hours and include this information in your syllabus. In this article, you will learn more about office hours at Michigan State, why they matter, and tips / student-facing resources you can use to encourage student attendance at your office hours.
What are office hours? These are dedicated times you’ll be available to students in a particular course, to answer questions, further explain material, respond to individual student needs and/or share resources, and generally support their learning and development. Students can attend office hours individually or in small groups (for example, to ask the same question or if they are working on a group assignment). Some educators use drop-in style office hours, while others set appointment times for students within those hours. In addition, if your course includes graduate teaching assistants or undergraduate learning assistants, they might also have their own office hours or tutorials where they are available for students’ questions.
Do I need to be in my office to hold officehours? You can be present in-person for office hours. You can also hold virtual office hours where students can join over Zoom or Teams, with the waiting room turned on so that you see students in the order they arrived. This can improve access to office hours for students not needing to travel to campus. You can even set up a way for students to schedule their own appointments (eg. this tutorial using Google Calendar) within your office hours. Finally, you can hold hybrid office hours which combine the two. If these are drop-in, you should keep track of the “waiting room” of in-person and virtual participants to know whose turn it is.
How often do I need to hold office hours? Colleges and departments vary in this requirement. Generally, you should plan to spend at least 1-2 hours a week per course.
Will my students attend office hours? Many students don’t, either because they are unfamiliar with office hours and their potential benefits, or because they are busy or have other priorities. This makes office hours an underused resource. It’s important to promote attending office hours because we know attendance correlates with students’ success. Knowing what office hours are and how they can benefit students is considered part of the “hidden curriculum” that we can make more transparent to our students.
How can I promote attending office hours? There are a variety of things you can do to encourage office hour attendance:
- Explain office hours and their benefits in your syllabus and as part of the first class session.
- You can share resources designed for MSU student audiences, like these 3 videos:
- Importance of Faculty Office Hours from the Collaborative Learning Center’s academic success workshops (which also includes tips for writing emails to your professor)
- Professor Eric Juenke Talks About Office Hours
- Professor Brandy Ellison Talks About Office Hours
- There are other great student-facing resources you can share or adapt about how to prepare for office hours, like these instructions from Cornell’s Learning Strategies Center that include a paragraph that office hours are not (a requirement, a detention or punishment, or where your professor will do your homework for you)
- You can share resources designed for MSU student audiences, like these 3 videos:
- Rename your office hours “student hours,” “drop-in hours,” or “chat with the professor” to emphasize what will take place. An Inside Higher Ed article from Spring 2023 highlights some other ways professors are rebranding office hours
- When scheduling office hours for a class, you can poll your students for availability and select a time where the most students can attend. Consider adding “by appointment” times for any students whose schedules prevent their attendance
- If time permits, schedule short 1:1 appointments during office hours early in the course to get to know your students, learn about their goals, and have them ask you any questions they have
- Regularly include attending office hours with a purpose as part of your suggestions for students. For example,
- “This week you will work on essay drafts. If you want any specific feedback, you can come to my office hours”
- “If you have questions about any of the homework problems, you can ask me in my office hours on Thursday”
- “I’m about to hand back your graded essays; I’ll be having conversations about grades and extra credit in my upcoming office hours”
- Use humor! Share this video from Arizona State University, a spoof commercial where FOH (Faculty Office Hours) is the treatment for the condition of Fear of Meeting One-on-One with My Professor, or FMOOWMP