It’s Never Too Late to Get to Know Your Students
Summary:
2024-2025 CTE undergraduate student teaching consultants share their perspectives on office hours.
By Eric Lin (Pre-Commerce, '27), Sophie Quraishi (Biochemistry, '26), Linh Luc (Foreign Affairs, Global Public Health, '25), Jim Carlisle (Youth & Social Innovation, '26), and Dedra Dadzie (Chemical Engineering, '25)
Office hours are a great opportunity for faculty to support students. They provide a space for students to ask questions about course material, clarify concepts, discuss grades, and explore topics in greater depth. Moreover, students can receive individualized support to improve their understanding of the subject. Beyond academic support, students value the time to learn about their professors and their research, find out about academic opportunities, and seek mentorship and career advice.
However, in our experience, students may leave office hour visits more confused than they were before. Professors often go beyond the scope of the student’s knowledge – when you’re passionate, it’s easy to get carried away by the conversation and want to get a few steps ahead, and as students, we find professors’ enthusiasm contagious. However, if students are coming into office hours with a shaky foundation, trying to build a mansion on top of that may cause their understanding to crumble down. Using advanced concepts while explaining course content to students can cause more disorientation. Instead, the focus should be on solidifying a student’s thought process – having the student explain their thinking first makes any gaps in their understanding apparent, which can then be worked through.
Clarify the purpose of your office hours
Some students hesitate to go to office hours because they are unsure of what to ask. Clarifying the purpose of office hours and giving examples of ways to use them (academic support, learning more about a professor's research, career advice, small talk, etc.) early on will decrease any anxiety or hesitations students may have going into office hours and will encourage meaningful conversations. This is particularly important for students who are coming to UVA without the same academic preparation as their peers. It will level the playing field for first-generation, transfer, and international students, as well as students from marginalized communities who may not know how to leverage the opportunities that are provided in office hours.
Organizing themes and managing group office hours
Sometimes there are many students during office hours, and it may get a bit difficult to ask a question, especially if a select few dominate the conversation. Being deliberate about the topic or regulating how much time is spent on each concept is particularly helpful in this case to ensure that the most questions on the target topic get addressed.
Organizing office hours around specific themes, including but not limited to assigned readings, exam preparation, project guidance, or test corrections, helps students understand what they can expect to cover and discuss upon attendance. This encourages participation throughout the semester, and in addition, it ensures large groups of students can still achieve their goal and have their questions answered due to the focused nature of the meeting. Sometimes, open discussion office hours will be the way to go, but other times, especially when students may be faced with a challenging task, setting a theme or focus of the session and making it known beforehand presents a streamlined and time-considerate approach.
Invite feedback and plan for extra sessions
Invite students to come to office hours if they have suggestions for how to improve the class or if they seek resources that might not be offered or made readily available, such as research grants.
Often, students find that office hours conflict with their classes or prior commitments. Offering additional Zoom office hours invites students who may not typically be able to attend. This is especially appreciated the week before an exam, when students with class conflicts feel like they’ve missed out the most on critical information you provide during office hours. Recording any of these Zoom sessions may also prove beneficial and increase accessibility.
Offer versatile formats
Sometimes students prefer individualized time to understand a concept or to discuss more personalized career advice and guidance. Others may prefer to ask as a group, bringing friends for support. You may want to ask your students which formats they prefer.
Consider scheduling tools
Utilizing platforms such as When2meet or simply sending out a poll with a couple of different times that you can offer makes office hours easier to schedule and ensures that more students can get the help they need.
It’s never too late to get to know your students
Many students enjoy getting to know and learning about their professors on a deeper level, whether that be about their research, career, and educational journey, or just a bit about their personal lives. It also helps for professors to get to know their students in return. Some professors invite their students out to lunch or to grab a cup of coffee, in an effort to get to know them outside of the classroom and foster a better learning environment. (Faculty can take advantage of “Mead Money” from the Mead Endowment--faculty automatically get $50 per semester to take students to lunch or coffee. College of Arts and Sciences students can likewise initiate lunch plans with their professors through the College Council’s “Take Your Professor out to Lunch” program.)
Office hours also present a unique chance for your students to get to know you both as a person and as a model for the career path they might have started looking at. In classes with a large amount of TA office hours, students often choose to attend professor office hours to gain a deeper insight into what their field entails. Similarly, it is a chance for you to take it a step further by diving into niche topics that will interest both those who have already set their heart on pursuing it and those who may need to see a little of your passion to start sharing it.