Effective Office Hours

Office hours can be some of the most beneficial time students have with you. One-on-one interactions with specific feedback can provide the guidance students need in order to progress. But how can you make them useful for you and your students?

Choose your office hours and location before the semester begins with care. Some TAs prefer to meet in their private offices, others use public department space, still others meet at a coffee shop or student center dining hall. Wherever you choose to meet should allow you to maintain student confidentiality while also helping both of you to feel safe. It is not a good idea to meet with a student in a closed office; if you do meet with a student in your office, make sure to keep the door open.

Logistics of Office Hours

Once you’ve decided on the when and where, advertise your office hours to your students. If you are teaching a recitation section you can create a ‘section syllabus’ where you provide your contact information, office hours and locations, and general guidelines for the section (bring your book, make sure you’ve read the material, arrive on time, etc). In class, you should also explain what office hours are to students. As Barbara Gross Davis explains in her book Tools for Teaching [Second Edition]:

New students may be more comfortable and familiar with using e-mail to get information or ask questions. Tell students about the value of face-to-face interactions and informal conversations about course topics, assignments, outside reading, and their academic progress (492).

The final logistical point of office hours is consistency. Unless an emergency arises, make sure you are at your office hours on time. Starting or ending them early or late is inconsiderate. Students often need to rearrange their schedules or travel from other campuses to meet with you. They, therefore, must know that you will be there. It is often more convenient to schedule them just before or after class but if at all possible stagger them a bit. A student who is unable to come to your office hours at 2 on Tuesday (for a TTh 3:20 class) will probably be unable to come to those on Thursday at 2. Some TAs offer regular office hours and then others by appointment.

What to Do in Office Hours

Once your students are in your office, what do you do? This depends on your teaching style and what the class requirements and needs are. In the syllabi that I used as a teaching assistant and now as an instructor of my own classes, I include the following section which both explains my rationale for office hours and lets students know my expectations:

I hold office hours at the times posted on the first page of the syllabus. Office hours are a wonderful time to come in and discuss readings you don’t understand, work through problems, clarify main problems in the texts, or just talk about the class in general. I will not grill you about the class or test you about what you bring in to me. The point is to help you better understand the class. However, do not expect me to rehash what we’ve done in class if you missed a day. Make sure you are prepared with readings and actual questions to start our conversation.

If you have continual schedule conflicts with the posted office hours, please email me to set up an appointment. I do have additional meeting times available during the week but you must schedule an appointment early.

It is important for me to have my students know that I am available to help them, but that they must also be prepared for office hours to make them effective. Other ideas for office hours include [taken from www.wpi.edu/images/CMS/CEDA/one_on_one_tips_August09.pdf —link broken]:

• Clarify—course expectations; what is being asked in homework questions; answers of homework, quizzes, or exams; concepts or operations, grading.
• Help students prepare—for exams or lab experiments; problem solving; writing (papers or lab reports)
• Answer questions
• Motivate and establish a rapport with students
• Teach—study techniques; time management techniques; suggestions for further reading

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