Building better online office hours

How can I make my online office hours better for students—or just get them to show up?

We frequently hear from faculty who teach online courses that students don’t make use of office hours, even when they are struggling. It is initially confusing that students take advantage 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 way to build better online office hours—and there is! It begins by exploring the value of office hours, the barriers that prevent students from getting there, and easy-to-implement strategies to turn things around.

Why are office hours important?

Instructors often assume that students know they should take advantage of the opportunity for individual support from their professors, but it’s worth stopping to think about why we want students to use our office hours and what we want them to learn from the experience. Research tells us that meaningful, positive interactions between students and faculty in any course contribute to student success in a variety of ways. For example, these interactions have been shown to support development of cognitive skills, improve engagement, increase academic self-challenge, and support students’ sense of belonging. Interactions between students and faculty are particularly important for student success in online courses, and it requires some additional thought to ensure they are built into these courses effectively. If these benefits are so important, why don’t students take advantage of them?

Why don’t students come to online office hours?

It can be easy to dismiss students’ lack of engagement in office hours (or, in fact, 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!!) We might also think that it just isn’t possible for students to have meaningful interactions with us in the online environment. 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, still adolescents (until their mid-20s!). This means that they are still developing the self-regulatory skills, like help-seeking behavior, that are important to academic success. At the same time, even more mature students may still struggle with self-regulating their learning behaviors.
• 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 the institution, the major, the discipline, or the course.
• First-generation students who don’t know the “rules of the academic game” may not realize that building relationships with faculty is beneficial for them in school and can also help them form important connections that will help them 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 not realize that faculty often find mentorship and teaching relationships to be a gratifying part of their work. This means they 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 come to your office hours 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 online 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: Provide flexibility.

It is important to have regular virtual office hours where students can “drop in” with their questions. However, many students take online courses because they have challenging schedules. Be sure to communicate to students that you are available outside your designated hours and invite them to schedule meetings with you. 

Step 2: Consider what’s in a name.

“Office hours” may not be the most welcoming term—and in fact doesn’t really explain what should happen when students come! If you want to send the message to students that the times you’ve designated aren’t about your virtual office but are instead about you being available 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 3: Help students know what to expect.

Students who aren’t experienced with meeting with their professors individually may not know why they should visit you or what they would do in office hours. Instead of just telling students when and where your office hours will be, let them know that you want to see them! You can also 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 come to virtual office hours 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 office hours link in the left-side navigation menu for more information.) While I want you to come to me if you are facing challenges in the course, that isn’t the only reason to drop in. 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 have a 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 ask classmates to join virtual office hours along with you! 

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 an online discussion gets really exciting—tell students that you would really like to continue that discussion in your virtual office hours! Use Brightspace announcements to invite students to your virtual office hours (or to make an appointment with you) at multiple points during the semester. 

Higher effort approach: The office hours assignment

The small steps approach can have an impact on how many students you see in your virtual office hours. 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 virtual office a low-stakes assignment. This assignment isn’t only about getting students to meet with you on Zoom, but it’s also about providing the structure and scaffolding to help them learn to make the most of their professors as resources to support their learning. Using this assignment in an online course can be an important way to help you make students feel more connected to you and more supported in 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.