By Luis Colon Instructional Designer luis.colon@stonybrook.edu
Last month, members of CELT traveled to Buffalo, New York to attend the SUNY Conference on Instructional Technology (CIT) hosted by the University at Buffalo to participate in the event as well as present some of the work that we have been doing. The CIT conference started in 1992 and since has provided faculty and instructional support professionals a space to share their experiences, delve into common issues, work towards finding solutions, and explore the many innovative avenues that allow instructors to enhance the learning environment through the use of technology.
The theme of this year’s conference was: Creating Inclusive Innovation in Higher Education, and showcased engaging sessions from faculty and instructional support professionals focusing on topics such as course design, assessment strategies, artificial intelligence (AI), immersive technologies, and more. In addition to these sessions, there were also exhibits from sponsors including D2L, Lumen Learning, and Respondus, as well as other exhibitors showcasing products and other technologies that could be used in the classroom to enhance the learning experience as well as increase engagement.
The University at Buffalo was a great location for this year’s CIT 2024 conference.
During the conference, we presented at two different sessions. Our first session, Critical Conversation on Generative AI, focused on our response to the boom of AI tools to support teaching and learning in college classes at Stony Brook University. The session opened with the CELT AI Timeline, illustrating how CELT started with collaborations with the academic integrity office. CELT proactively communicated to the SBU faculty about the best practices on generative AI in their classrooms and provided ongoing support and training sessions. We stay abreast on the latest AI tools and explore the benefits, challenges, and potential use cases with interested faculty members at Stony Brook University. During the past one-and-a-half-year period, CELT hosted 22 AI events with 1,110 Attendees. The AI panel discussion series covers topics like academic integrity, AI best practices, AI ethics, student perspectives, creative AI in art education, AI, and research. Monthly AI talk sessions allow faculty to ask questions and share their experience. Generative AI in Higher Education workshop series focuses on AI tools training, AI guidelines, assessment redesign, and ethical and practical AI usage for teaching and learning.
Ultimately, as AI tools continued to develop and become more capable it became clear that we would need to expand our offerings to meet the needs and demands of interested stakeholders which we have done over the past year.
During the second half of the session, we opened up the floor to respond to questions for the audience to join the discussion and share their thoughts. The audience shared both valuable insights and ideas regarding AI usage as well as valid concerns regarding the capabilities and rapid growth of the technology. We shared resources at the end of the session and were able to speak to some of the audience members who had additional questions or were interested in continuing the conversation.
Our second session, Exploring VR Applications in College Classes – An SBU Showcase, focused on the applications of virtual reality (VR) of faculty members at Stony Brook University. They explored the capabilities of these types of tools and how they can fit into their course goals and enhance their overall instruction. We began by discussing how the effective utilization of VR can positively impact teaching and learning and discussed specific tools that provide diverse experiences in VR that can be incorporated into any course. This included 360° photo and video, WebXR tools such as FrameVR, and immersive VR tools used in simulation-based learning. We then discussed our collaborations with faculty and staff members at the university and how they are currently using or planning to utilize VR in their courses. This included the work of Mark Lang from the School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (SoMAS), Dr. Guleed Ali from the Department of Geosciences, Dr. Carol Carter from the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, and Dr. Gary Marr from the Department of Philosophy in collaboration with Paul St. Dennis from the Department of Information Technology (DoIT). Then Dr. Guleed Ali presented via Zoom on VR virtual field trips as an inclusive pedagogy strategy in his Geoscience class.
The second part of our session was a hands-on immersive showcase, audience members could try on some of the VR applications we discussed. We set up three stations with Meta Quest headsets where audience members could see firsthand the diverse use cases of VR technology in the higher ed learning environment and familiarize themselves with working in VR. This also allowed us the opportunity to speak with audience members about their experiences with VR in the classroom, how they may be using VR in innovative and exciting new ways, and how they would like to be using VR in the classroom in the future.
CIT2024 was a great opportunity to gather insights and explore technology in teaching and learning!
The experience of attending and presenting sessions at CIT in Buffalo this year was an exciting and informative experience for our team. It was great to network and collaborate with other colleagues in teaching and learning more about the future of technology in our discipline. Our team returned with many great ideas and approaches that we are excited to implement in our own work.
By Luis Colon
Instructional Designer
luis.colon@stonybrook.edu
On April 12th, the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching held their annual Teaching and Learning Symposium. Over the years, the event has allowed educators, researchers, administrators, and more to come together to discuss various aspects of teaching and learning as well as celebrate teaching and learning practices and initiatives at Stony Brook University. The central theme of the day was Innovative Pedagogy which was at the center of conversations and various learning experiences held throughout the day. The theme illustrates the importance of finding new and exciting ways to engage with and include students in the academic environment as well as empowering students to pursue lifelong learning. Close to 100 faculty members, graduate students, staff, and administrators attended the day-long event held in Ballroom A of the Student Activities Center.
The event opened with words from Dr. Carl Lejuez, Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, and then led into the keynote event of the day. Dr. Marsha Lovett presented an interactive workshop on innovative teaching and how practice and feedback can be an impactful practice in the classroom. Dr. Lovett is the Vice Provost for Teaching & Learning Innovation at Carnegie Mellon University as well as a Teaching Professor of Psychology and former director of the Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence and Educational Innovation. Her passion for combining teaching and research is illustrated in the book How Learning Works, which has been translated into multiple languages and is now in its second edition with the new subtitle: How Learning Works: Eight Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching.
Dr. Marsha Lovett delivered an informative and engaging keynote workshop.
The workshop focused on the importance of incorporating opportunities for students to engage in “deliberate practice” where they are challenged appropriately and focus on clear and specific goals. These opportunities allow for observed performance where students would be able to receive targeted feedback that they would be able to use to improve their skills and apply in further practice. To provide targeted feedback, Dr. Lovett recommended incorporating rubrics into assignments as a grading tool where criteria for success is outlined and to remind students to utilize the rubric before, during, and after working on the assignment.
To address the concern of allowing students to practice often without having a huge amount of grading, Dr. Lovett suggested incorporating opportunities for students to engage in active learning. She touched on many different examples of active learning strategies from shorter tasks to whole-class activities which provide students the opportunity to not only practice applying important skills but also allows students to receive feedback through the explanations of concepts and discussions that spark from active learning in the classroom.
Dr. Lovett closed with a discussion on how to provide effective SPACE (Specific, Prioritized, Actionable, Constructive, Expedient) feedback in a manner that is not only easy but also efficient and applicable to courses of all types and sizes. Her suggestions included framing your feedback in relation to your overall learning goals, highlighting priorities in the work, providing class-wide feedback on common pitfalls and errors, and developing a “key” or collection of frequently used comments to use during grading.
Following the keynote session were breakout sessions where Stony Brook University faculty and staff delivered sessions focusing on four different tracks highlighting major topics in teaching and learning today including Course Design, Student Engagement, Virtual Experiences, and Artificial Intelligence (AI). There were three breakout sessions where attendants had the opportunity to either stick to one particular track or attend sessions on different topics of interest. Faculty presenters from across both campuses discussed practical approaches and strategies to implement in classes and recounted their own observations with these innovative teaching practices.
Faculty and staff participated in learning sessions and activities throughout the all-day event.
The 2024 Teaching and Learning Symposium was an exciting event that provided an open forum for faculty, TAs, and staff to engage in discourse related to teaching and learning with their colleagues. From using generative AI as a “junk generator” and having students critique its outputs to effective practices to foster inclusivity in the classroom environment, this event addressed many facets of teaching and learning to help students feel welcomed, engaged, and appropriately challenged in their coursework and overall experience at Stony Brook University.
If you would like to learn more about how to make your courses effective, engaging, relevant, and inclusive, you can purchase a copy of How Learning Works: Eight Research-Based Principles for Smart Teachingby Dr. Marsha Lovettat this Amazon link. Linked below is the Google Collaborative Note-Taking Document from the day’s events to catch up with session materials and notes from the various sessions offered.
By Luis Colon and Jenny Zhang
CELT Instructional Designers
luis.colon@stonybrook.edu and yi.zhang.13@stonybrook.edu
CELT Symposium on Teaching and Learning: Faculty, graduate students, staff and administrators attended the day-long event in the Student Activities Center.
The Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) held a Teaching and Learning Symposium on March 24. The theme for this year’s conference was Transitions.The theme reflects how we navigate across multiple changes, such as those with technologies, learning modalities, and in our teaching practices as we strive to provide a more inclusive environment for students. Close to 100 faculty, graduate students, staff and administrators attended the day-long event in the Student Activities Center. Participants from across the university attended sessions that explored transitions and discussed how to best navigate transitions as we are going through them while also anticipating and preparing for future transitions in higher education.
The event opened with a statement from Dr. Carl Lejuez, Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, and promptly launched into the keynote event. Dr. Kelly Hogan and Dr.Viji Sathy presented a highly interactive workshop on Inclusive Teaching that modeled concepts, strategies, and activities that instructors can adopt in their own teaching practice. Both Hogan and Sathy are award-winning instructors from the University of North Carolina who are deeply passionate about student success, equity, and inclusive teaching. They have been featured in national publications such as The Chronicle of Higher Education, The New York Times, and others. Their recently published book, Inclusive Teaching: Strategies for Promoting Equity in the College Classroom, analyzes ways that instructors can design their courses and their teaching practice to help students feel that they are welcome and that they can succeed in the academic space.
The workshop started by bringing attention to how inequities can manifest within the learning environment. To address these inequities, Hogan and Sathy provided practical skills and strategies, saying, “It’s our job to ensure that all students have the ability to succeed.” Concrete examples included: “Provide [lecture] notes with blanks, so students can be prompted to recall and fill in the blanks. Use subtitles, visual prompts, and microphones. Pause in time to give people a chance to construct their ideas.”
Throughout the session, participants were encouraged to reflect on their own teaching experiences and to consider how they could use what they took from this session to reduce inequities in their own courses. Hogan and Sathy kept the workshop interactive by utilizing polling, think-pair-share, and other learning strategies to model the value to engaging learners and to keep the audience focused on the learning objectives of the session. The audience responded positively and many continued discussions later on as the event progressed.
Session One, titled Supporting Students Through Transitions, was led by Dr. Kristin Hall of CELT as well as Brandon Bjertnes, Jennifer Poma, and Jennifer Rodriguez of U-RISE. This session focused on the deluge of changes that higher education has experienced over the years and specifically addressed how to best support the next generation of students as they re-learn how to navigate the in-person learning environment in post-pandemic times. The presenters discussed how the definition of the “traditional college student” has changed as the next generation of college students bring more diversity to higher education institutions nationwide. This session provided strategies to address the different learning needs of these students by understanding how they learn best and prioritizing their success. The presentation combined local university data and research-backed practices to ensure that attendees would be equipped with new strategies that could make a difference in their teaching as soon as they would be implemented.
Following the first session were the Food for Thought concurrent table sessions where attendees would have lunch and the opportunity to seek out a table in the ballroom that would be focusing on a research topic of interest related to teaching and learning. The topics ranged from active learning, the utilization of virtual reality and/or augmented reality, TA training and assessment, and more to provide a space for attendees to delve deeper into topics that were of interest to them and would help them to develop their own practice further. Attendees that I spoke with expressed excitement at the opportunity to have time for discussions with others interested in similar topics and said it was a great experience to either learn new skills or reframe and refine old ones.
Virtual Reality
The CELT virtual reality team showcased the potential of virtual reality (VR) for enhancing education and collaboration through a captivating VR demo session. Held in the Student Activity Center (SAC) 302, the event drew faculty members who were eager to explore various VR applications for teaching and learning. Three interactive stations were set up, offering immersive experiences using 360 videos, WebXR Framevr, and Horizon Workrooms.
Station 1: 360-Degree Video
Mark Lang, a 360-degree video and photo expert at the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS), has been revolutionizing education through immersive experiences that enhance student engagement, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Mark’s collaboration with Dr. Darcy Lonsdale led to a virtual field trip to the Rocky Intertidal Zone at Crane Neck Point on Long Island Sound, allowing students to explore marine ecosystems remotely, and learn from Dr. Lonsdale’s narrative at the same time. Mark’s ingenuity in customizing equipment for challenging marine environments has improved the quality of the videos. His station attracted many interested faculty. In that demo, they were transported to a realistic sense of presence, observing the ecosystem through the Oculus headset. Faculty were thrilled to learn how this technology could be utilized to take their students on virtual excursions, making remote and inaccessible locations easily reachable for educational purposes.
The CELT virtual reality team showcased the potential of virtual reality (VR) for enhancing education and collaboration through a captivating VR demo session.
Station 2: WebXR Framevr
The second VR station introduced WebXR Framevr, an innovative platform for creating and sharing immersive content. Here, participants took a guided tour of a virtual CELT classroom, complete with interactive whiteboards, 3D objects, and multimedia resources. The experience was not only engaging but also demonstrated how virtual learning environments could help break down geographical barriers and foster collaboration between students and educators from all around the world. The WebXR virtual classroom can be accessed through VR headsets, computers, or tablets, making it a most sustainable VR solution.
Station 3: Horizon Workrooms
The third station allowed faculty to experience Horizon Workrooms, a virtual collaboration tool designed for remote meetings and team building. Participants who donned the Oculus headset or computers can join a virtual business meeting. The immersive environment enabled seamless communication and collaboration, showcasing the potential of VR to revolutionize how we work and learn together.
After testing the different VR experiences, faculty members engaged in discussions about the various features of each technology, as well as the hardware and software setup required. They also brainstormed practical applications for their own classes and considered how to integrate VR into their curriculums best to enhance student engagement and learning outcomes.
Anne Moyer, Sohl Lee, Daniel Amarante, Anthony Gomez III, and Kevin Reed served on a faculty panel discussion, ‘The Rebound After Remote: How Teaching Online has Transformed Current Instruction.’
Following the break for lunch, participants continued to Session Two, The Rebound After Remote: How Teaching Online has Transformed Current Instruction. This part of the program featured a panel discussion facilitated by Dr. Carol Hernandez and Jenny Zhang of CELT, where faculty discussed what they learned and how they grew professionally as a result of teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. The panel featured Dr. Anne Moyer from the Department of Psychology, Dr. Daniel Amarante from the Department of Chemistry, Dr. Sohl Lee from the Department of Art, Dr. Kevin Reed from SoMAS, and Anthony Gomez III, who is a PhD candidate in English Literature. The session not only provided a wealth of experiential knowledge but included inspiring anecdotes and stories as the panel shared what kept them motivated during the early days of the pandemic and how the experience allowed them to reflect and adjust their instructional approaches to meet their student’s needs. For the panelists, the time spent learning and growing during the era of remote learning would continue to be valuable to them to this day as many still use these strategies in their current teaching practice.
Session Three, Brightspace: Lessons Learned, was led by Diana Voss and Jennifer Adams of the Division of Information Technology and focused on some of the most impactful teachable moments that they have experienced as the university has shifted to using D2L Brightspace as the learning management system for Spring 2023 and beyond. The session was informative and useful as faculty, TAs, and staff were provided with some of the most useful and popular features in D2L Brightspace to help enhance the learning experience, create an inclusive classroom environment, collect student data, and more. The Q&A section of the presentation allowed the attendees to engage with the presenters and discuss some of the challenges that they have encountered throughout their transition to D2L Brightspace. Attendees either had their questions answered or were able to set up a time where they could consult with someone from the Division of Information Technology to find solutions to these challenges as soon as possible.
Overall, the 2023 Teaching and Learning Symposium delivered on its promise to address transitions in teaching and learning at the higher education level in an environment that celebrated growth and professional development for all. The event provided an open space for faculty, TAs, and staff to engage in discourse related to teaching and learning with their colleagues in a constructive manner. On the topic of education, theologian John Cotton once said that, “Those who teach, must never cease to learn.” That sentiment is as true today as when it was first written. Events such as the CELT symposium ensure that professional learning never ceases and that today’s educators become better each day.
If you’d like to learn more about the CELT Symposium, here is the Google Collaborative Note-Taking Document from the day’s events. If you have notes to share, please feel free to edit and add your notes. Also, here is a reference sheet from the keynote speakers Dr. Kelly Hogan and Dr. Viji Sathy that they shared after their session.
By Carol Hernandez, Ed.D.
Senior Instructional Designer CELT
carol.hernandez@stonybrook.edu
The Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching offers the Online Teaching Course (OTC) multiple times a year with two options: OTC and OTC Accelerated. These multi-week online courses will provide you with basic pedagogical, research-based practices specific to the online space and will assist you in planning instructional activities for your course. We will not focus on how to use Brightspace, but rather how to best use technology to meet your pedagogical goals. These courses will be delivered asynchronously online with one optional synchronous session.
OTC: This is a 5-week asynchronous course. Plan on spending 3-4 hours per week with assignments due weekly. We suggested logging on 4 times aweek during this course.
OTC Accelerated: This is a condensed, 2.5- week version of the OTC. Plan on spending 6-7 hours weekly with assignments due every 2-3 days. We suggest logging in daily during the course.
Take the OTC this summer and work with our team of instructional designers.
(2.5-weeks) Wednesday, July 12 to Friday, July 28, 2023
If you are an instructor who has already taken the OTC fairly recently, and you need assistance in Brightspace, you can request a one-on-one consultation by filling out this form: https://forms.gle/Wn2qY4CrwyocW61J9
If you are an instructor new to teaching online, take the OTC and after that, start meeting with an instructional designer.
If you are an instructor who is only revising a course, you can request a one-on-one instructional design consultation by emailing: CELT@stonybrook.edu.
Welcome Luis Colón, a new instructional designer at the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching at SBU. Read on to learn a little more about him.
What is your favorite part of your job? My favorite part of the job so far is working with a great team who have been extremely welcoming and supportive of my growth. I also love working on engaging learning content and being a part of the learning process for students, faculty, and staff.
What did you do prior to working in CELT? I started my career as a middle school English teacher where I taught 8th grade. I taught courses such as English 8, Intensive Reading, Creative Writing, and more. I also worked with students to develop multimedia for the school for school productions as well as for the weekly video announcements.
Take a break for tea.
Coffee or tea? I don’t drink coffee at all, only tea. There’s so many different kinds of tea to try!
Where would you like to visit (real or fictional)? I would love to visit Japan at some point in my life. I have always wanted to go ever since I was really young and I enjoy learning about its culture and history.
What was the last book you read? The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa
By Carol Hernandez, Ed.D.
Senior Instructional Designer
carol.hernandez@stonybrook.edu
Is creativity a skill you want to increase in your teaching practice?
Perhaps we all in some way, strive to be creative and to use creativity in our teaching and learning practices. But have you stopped to think about how creativity is defined and measured? How is it taught?
Creativity is a critical skill as identified by the 21st Century Skills Framework, which focuses on a comprehensive list of abilities, skills, and attitudes that young people around the world will need to be successful in their personal, professional, and civic lives. This is becoming increasingly important as each day we are witnessing artificial intelligence and other technologies showing up to help us do our work. While at the same time, there is no end to the number of wicked problems we are faced with in every aspect of our lives, which may feel increasingly complex.
Complexity on its own, is not inherently good or bad. But it does present us with an opportunityto be creative in our teaching practice. In the 30s and 40s, Ellis Paul Torrance was a teacher in Georgia who noticed that some of his students had off-beat ideas, but were not necessarily fitting into the traditional classroom structure. He believed that creativity and standard intelligence tests were not measuring the same thing. He wanted to explore and measure creativity on its own, which led him to create the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. He is now considered the Father of Creativity Research. And you can learn more about his ideas here. As defined by Torrance, creativity is (1966, p. 6):
A process of becoming sensitive to problems, deficiencies, gaps in knowledge, missing elements, disharmonies, and so on;
identifying the difficulty;
searching for solutions, making guesses, or formulating hypotheses about the deficiencies;
testing and retesting these hypotheses and possible modifying and retesting them;
and finally communicating the results.
Using this definition, how could you adjust your teaching practice to help your students be more creative? If you’d like to test your own creativity, there are a number of free tests online. Here is one offered by AULIVE, an online resource for creativity and innovation.
Torrance, E. P. (1966). Torrance tests of creative thinking—norms technical manual research edition—verbal tests, forms A and B—figural tests, forms A and B. Princeton: Personnel Pres. Inc.
Writing to Learn (WRL) is a pedagogy approach that incorporates short low-stakes written assignments, peer-review, and feedback to help students gain conceptual understanding. A literature review of more than 200 studies that reported using WTL strategies in STEM courses summarizes that this approach has been shown to help students meet learning objectives related to content knowledge, conceptual understanding, scientific method, critical thinking, effective communication, metacognition, and professionalization (Reynolds et. al., 2002). Despite the evidence, WTL is still not as widely used as it could be. Join us this Wednesday for a panel discussion with faculty that have used WTL in their STEM courses.
Writing to Learn in STEM Panel Discussion Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2022 at 1 p.m. ET. In person: CELT Faculty Commons E1332 Melville Library and Zoom
Research shows that using Writing to Learn strategies in STEM courses helps students gain communication and critical thinking skills.
References
Finkenstaedt-Quinn SA, Petterson M, Gere A, Shultz G. Praxis of Writing-to-Learn: A Model for the Design and Propagation of Writing-to-Learn in STEM. Journal of chemical education. 2021;98(5):1548-1555. doi:10.1021/acs.jchemed.0c01482
Reynolds JA, Thaiss C, Katkin W, Thompson RJ Jr. Writing-to-learn in undergraduate science education: a community-based, conceptually driven approach. CBE Life Sci Educ. 2012 Spring;11(1):17-25. doi: 10.1187/cbe.11-08-0064. PMID: 22383613; PMCID: PMC3292059.
Is it impostor phenomenon or is it something else? The term imposter phenomenon was coined in 1978 by researchers who studied high-achieving women. It is used to describe feeling like a fraud that is experienced by some accomplished individuals, especially when undertaking high profile roles or assignments. However, critics point out that the 1978 study did not include women of color, poor women, or women from a variety of professions. These are limitations that we now recognize as pertinent to the lived experience of people who are marginalized in society. Now that we are more aware of larger systemic issues such as racism, classism, and other discriminatory practices that cause individuals to doubt themselves, Tulshyan and Burey (2021) write, it’s time to change the focus from trying to fix “women at work instead of fixing the places where women work.”
We will have a chance to discuss impostor phenomenon and strategies that instructors can apply to their teaching so that students do not have to suffer through self-doubt. Join us on Wednesday, Nov. 16 at 11 a.m. ET for a CELT Inclusive Teaching Panel discussion, Addressing Impostor Phenomenon Through Your Teaching Practice.
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
What are some ways to mitigate feelings of impostor phenomenon that your students may experience?
References
Clance, P. R., & Imes, S. A. (1978). The imposter phenomenon in high achieving women: Dynamics and therapeutic intervention. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research & Practice, 15(3), 241–247. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0086006
Tulshyan, R. & Burey, J. (2021). Stop telling women they have imposter syndrome. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2021/02/stop-telling-women-they-have-imposter-syndrome
By Devon Coutts, Ph. D. Candidate
Student Instructional Assistant Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT)
devon.coutts@stonybrook.edu
When I was a teaching assistant, students often came to meet with me. Sometimes, especially before exams, there were so many that I had to offer additional sessions and bring in extra chairs to accommodate them all. But when I became an instructor, that changed. Suddenly, students rarely came in. And when they did, the meetings would be brief, lasting only the time it took for me to answer a question or two. I began to wonder: what happened? Why did my students stop coming? It could have been because they felt intimidated by my new role as an instructor, or because my office hours conflicted with their other classes. Or, perhaps my students did not believe that attending office hours would benefit them?
Are students coming to your office hours?
Mine is not an isolated experience. Overall, faculty report that students don’t come to office hours. However, research shows that both students and instructors benefit greatly from interactions outside of the classroom. Building positive relationships with instructors personalizes the learning experience, and encourages students to succeed in all of their courses. Conversations during office hours are less structured and more spontaneous than lectures, and can generate new research opportunities and insights into the course material on both sides of the discussion. At the same time, the instructor is gaining experience in the art of teaching–and more importantly how to revise their teaching practice to connect with learners.
There are several reasons why students don’t come to office hours. Griffin et al. (2014), noted that the most important determining factors include things like perceived convenience of the office hours, the course level, or whether the course is required or an elective. In a recent National Public Radio story (Nadworny, 2019) students described office hours as “‘intimidating’ or ‘terrifying,’ ” because attending office hours means “talking to the smartest, most powerful person you know.” Because of such anxieties or the perceived inconvenience of attending, some students prefer to email, to ask questions during class, or to meet with a TA instead. In a research article titled, “Office hours are kind of weird:” Reclaiming a resource to foster student-faculty interaction, the authors studied survey responses from 625 undergraduate students and found that oftentimes students do not really understand what office hours are for or why attending could benefit them Smith et al. (2017).
So, how can instructors take a more active role in encouraging students to seek meetings outside of class? One option is to require students to come to office hours as part of their grade. An instructor who takes this approach assigns 5% of the final grade and requires students to complete two one hour office visits with him, the TA, or one each. In an editorial for Inside Higher Ed, the instructor explained his approach and reported that many of his students said they found it very or extremely useful (Nowak, 2021). Another option is to reframe office hours as tutoring sessions or review (Joyce, 2017). “Tutoring” has a clearer purpose than the traditional, open-ended “office hours,” and its benefit for students needs no explanation. Alternatively, holding office hours in public spaces on campus, in libraries, cafes, or even in the hall outside of class, can help students feel more comfortable approaching professors for help. Offering virtual sessions can also be a good way to make office hours more accessible to students whose schedules prevent them from attending in person.
As instructors, if we want students to take advantage of office hours, then we ought to make it clearer to them why office hours are valuable. However, raising student interest in attending office hours is only one part of it: instructors also need to make an effort to anticipate student anxieties and be available to meet with students.
The approaches mentioned here offer a few ideas that instructors can think about for restructuring their office hours to make them more accessible. In my next few posts, I’ll explore the barriers preventing students from attending office hours, and discuss ideas for instructors looking to restructure their office hours in greater detail.
How do you approach office hours? If you have any suggestions, please feel free to leave a comment. Join us for a CELT Inclusive Teaching Discussion Panel on Wednesday, Oct. 19 at 1 p.m. ET.
Griffin, W., Cohen, S. D., Berndtson, R., Burson, K. M., Camper, K. M., Chen, Y., & Smith, M. A. (2014). Starting the conversation: An exploratory study of factors that influence student office hour use. College Teaching, 62(3), 94-99.
Joyce, A. (2017). Framing office hours as tutoring. College Teaching, 65(2), 92-93.
Nadworny, E. (2019). College students: How to make office hours less scary. National Public Radio. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/2019/10/05/678815966/college-students-how-to-make-office-hours-less-scary
Nowak, Z. (2021). Why I require office hours visits. Opinion: Teaching and Learning, Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2021/12/15/benefits-requiring-students-come-office-hours-opinion#.YyoRGLBq4Q0.link
Smith, M., Chen, Y., Berndtson, R., Burson, K. M., & Griffin, W. (2017). “Office Hours Are Kind of Weird”: Reclaiming a Resource to Foster Student-Faculty Interaction. InSight: A Journal of Scholarly Teaching, 12, 14-29.
What is your favorite part of your job?
