Building Better Office Hours

How can I help students understand how to use office hours?

We frequently hear from faculty that students don’t come to office hours, even when they are struggling. It is initially confusing that students don’t make use of this time for extra support. What’s worse, that confusion can turn into frustration that our students are ignoring the efforts we put into our teaching when we carve out this time for them. If you’ve had these experiences, you are probably hoping there is a better way to structure office hours—and there is! 

This article will help you consider the value of office hours, understand the barriers that prevent students from getting there, and offer easy-to-implement strategies to turn things around.

Why are office hours important?

We tend to take it as a given that students should visit their professors’ offices, but it’s worth stopping to think about why we want students to come to our office hours and what we want them to learn from the experience. Research tells us that meaningful, positive interactions between students and faculty contribute to student success in a variety of ways. For example, these interactions have been shown to support development of cognitive skills, improve classroom engagement, increase academic self-challenge, and support students’ sense of belonging. You probably have additional anecdotal evidence of these positive effects as well as many other ways that taking time to visit their instructors’ office hours can help students succeed. But despite all these potential benefits, many students still don’t show up!

Why don’t students come to office hours?

It can be easy to dismiss students’ lack of engagement in office hours (or in any learning activities) in negative ways: they are lazy, they don’t care about the course, they don’t care about their learning, etc. (Ugh, kids today!!) But in fact, there are several factors that influence students’ decisions about coming to office hours that have more to do with their developmental stage and their beliefs about learning.

  • Traditional-aged college students are, developmentally speaking, adolescents (until age 26!). This means that they are still developing the self-regulatory skills, like help-seeking behavior, that are important to academic success. 
  • Some students may think that visiting office hours, especially to ask for additional help, is a sign of weakness and may signal that they don’t belong in the course (or in college!). This can be especially true for students who are underrepresented in an institution, a major, a discipline, or a course. 
  • First-generation students who don’t know the “rules of the academic game” may not realize that building relationships with faculty is not only beneficial for them in school but can also help them form important connections to support their success beyond graduation.
  • Students may be intimidated because they don’t feel like they know how to initiate a one-on-one conversation with a professor.
  • Students may feel like coming to office hours is really a waste of valuable time for professors who would rather be doing their own work. This may be especially true of first-generation or low-income students.

Chances are that many students experience not just one but many of these thoughts and feelings in relation to office hours, making it really tempting for them to simply opt out. How can we help them see the value of spending time to build a relationship with us? The remainder of this article will outline two different sets of strategies for improving office hours: (1) a small steps approach that helps you encourage students to visit your office by creating a warm welcome and (2) a higher effort strategy that will guarantee to get students to visit your office. 

Small steps approach: Lower-effort strategies for getting students to your office hours

If your goal is to increase students’ comfort and lower perceived barriers to them coming to your office hours, there are four small steps that can help. You may implement all of these steps at once or try them one at a time.

Step 1: Consider what’s in a name.

Some faculty have observed that 1. Change the name of “office hours” isn’t the most welcoming term—and in fact doesn’t really explain what should happen when students come to see you! If you want to send the message to students that the times you’ve designated aren’t about your presence in your office but are instead about your willingness to help them, you may want to use a different name. For example, using a name like “student hours,” “student drop-in times,” or “ask the professor” can show that this time is theirs and that you expect to spend it with them (Felten & Lambert, 2020, 118-19).

Step 2: Help students know what to expect.

Students who aren’t experienced with visiting their professors’ offices may not know why they should visit you or what they would do there. Instead of just telling students when and where your office hours will be, let them know that coming to see you will help them be successful. For example, provide information on your syllabus that helps them prepare for a visit to your office. You might suggest that they take a little time to prepare first by making some notes about their questions, their work on upcoming assignments, or something they would like to discuss with you. You may even want to encourage students to visit your office in small groups; this can help students feel less anxious or intimidated and can also help you manage a higher volume of visits if you teach large classes. Overall, you want to help students see office hours as a normal part of what college students do, even if they aren’t struggling. Below is some sample language that you can adapt for your syllabus.

Student hours: One of the secrets of success in college is building relationships with your professors, and that’s why I have set aside time each week to meet with you. (See the front page of the syllabus for my office number and directions.) While I want you to come to me if you are facing challenges in the course, that isn’t the only reason to stop by. You may want to discuss an upcoming assignment, talk about something that came up in class that was really interesting to you, talk about other courses in the major, or just stop by to chat. It can be a good idea to make some notes about what you’d like to discuss, especially if you have specific questions that you’d like to ask, to help us get our conversation started. And don’t hesitate to bring classmates with you! 

Step 3: Plan a field trip on the first day of class.

If your office is in close enough proximity to the classroom where you teach (and your class isn’t too large), consider showing students where to find your office on the first day of class. This helps send the message that you really do welcome them to visit you, and it can also help reduce their anxiety about locating your office. Just be sure to reach out to students before the first day of class to ask if any of them require accommodations related to physical disabilities and be sure to use the most accessible route to your office so that all students can get there.

Step 4: Remind students about office hours throughout the semester.

It’s easy to assume that students know that we are available to them because there is information on the syllabus, but students may need reminders to help them realize that you remain available to them throughout the semester. Opportunities for these reminders might happen when an assessment or assignment is coming up or when students are working with challenging concepts or material in class. You might also issue a special invitation when a discussion gets really exciting right as the class period ends—tell students that you would really like to continue that discussion in your office! In addition to verbal reminders in class, consider sending email invitations.

Higher effort approach: The office hours assignment

The small steps approach can have an impact on how many students you see in your office, but if you want to go even further and guarantee that students will see office hours as an important part of their success, consider making a visit to your office hours a low-stakes assignment. This assignment isn’t only about getting students to walk through your office door, but it’s also about providing the structure and scaffolding that will help them learn to make the most of their professors as resources to support their learning. An office hours assignment should include planning work that will help students feel less anxious and reflective work that will help them make sense of the value of their visit and plan for using what they learned from the experience. 

Feel free to use and adapt the sample assignment below for your own courses.

Assignment #1: Visit My Office!
Due Friday, September 13, by 5 p.m.

Purpose of this assignment
Building a relationship with your professors is important for your learning and for making lasting connections that will help you build a network of support during and after college. In fact, I think it’s so important that I’m making it an assignment for the course! This assignment will help you learn how to prepare for successful visits to your professors’ offices, how to engage with professors one-on-one, and how to make the most of your time with us.

Steps to completing this assignment successfully
Below are the steps that will help you complete this assignment. 

Before your visit

1. Read this assignment carefully and reach out to me if you are uncertain about the expectations or need clarification about how best to approach your work.

2. Look at your schedule and my student hours schedule. Choose a time to make your visit (before September 13) and put it on your calendar. If you can’t coming during the designated hours, please let me know ASAP and we will find a time that works for both of us!

3. Prepare for your conversation with me by making some notes about the questions below. Doing this preparatory work will help us start our conversation. 

  • What questions do you have about this course? These might be questions about the content or questions about how the course is structured.
  • Tell me about an upcoming assignment in this course that you are excited/anxious about.
  • Tell me one interesting thing about you that will help me understand you as a learner.
  • Tell me about something you value/care about/are proud of. This can be something related to the course or something else.

4. Make sure you know how to locate my office [give directions here].

After your visit

1. As soon as possible after you leave my office, make some notes for yourself in response to the following prompts:

  • What is something I learned about this course that I didn’t know before?
  • How will what I learned help me be successful in this course?
  • What other instructors’ offices will I visit this semester?
  • What is one question I will ask when I visit their office?

2. Use your notes to write a short paragraph (5-7 sentences) describing what you learned and how you will use it to support your success in this course and another course this semester.

Submitting your Assignment

Your paragraph is due on Friday, September 13, at 5 p.m., in Brightspace. Submit your assignment as an attachment in .doc, .rtf, or .pdf format. 

Responding to Possible Challenges

While the idea of getting more students to visit your office may sound great, you are probably wondering how it fits into your particular teaching situation. It’s helpful to think about how you will manage different situations that may come up when you begin accommodating more visits to your office.

Making adjustments for large classes

If you teach a large class, it may not be practical (or even possible) to have each student visit your office individually. One variation is to have students arrange to come to your office hours in small groups. You can still have some conversation with each individual student, and a small-group format will allow you to get through several “visits” in just a few minutes. While a group office hours visit doesn’t allow the same level of individual relationship-building, it can have the benefit of reducing students’ initial anxiety. It can also help students see the value of meeting with their professors and building a habit of seeking support for their learning.

Making adjustments to accommodate student schedules

We know that our students have complex lives—and complex schedules—and may not be able to come to our office at the times we have designated as student hours. There are a few ways to deal with this. You may consider adding some additional hours just for the first two or three weeks of class to allow some flexibility. You may also think about whether it makes sense to use a class period for individual office visits so that students are already committed to that time. Finally, you may consider offering some virtual hours so that students who aren't on campus every day still have the opportunity to meet with you. If you are uncertain about what will work well for your students, ask them for feedback. Including them in this planning demonstrates your respect for their time and will help ensure their participation.

Accommodating students with physical disabilities or limited mobility

Be sure that your syllabus provides clear directions with information about accessible routes to your office. If you have students who require accommodations related to physical disability or limitations, you may need to work with them one-on-one to ensure that they can complete an office hours assignment successfully. You may also choose to opt for virtual meetings in these situations if your office is not easily accessible.

References

Felten, P. and Lambert, L. M. (2020). Relationship-rich education: How human connections drive success in college. Johns Hopkins University Press.

Kim, Y.K. and Lundberg, C.A. (2016). A structural model of the relationship between student-faculty interaction and cognitive skills development among college students. Research in Higher Education 57, 288-309.

Nowak, Z. (2021, December 14). Why I Require Office Hours Visits. Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2021/12/15/benefits-requiring-students-come-office-hours-opinion

Sachar, C. O. (2019, May 13). Office Hours: Why Students Need to Show Up. Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2019/05/14/why-and-how-encourage-students-schedule-office-hours-outside-class-opinion