Tag Archives: Office Hours

The ‘Hidden Curriculum’ of Office Hours

Equity and Inclusion, , , ,

By Devon Coutts
Ph.D. Candidate, Philosophy
CELT Graduate Student Assistant
devon.coutts@stonybrook.edu

In my previous post, I outlined the problem that many undergraduate students do not take full advantage of faculty office hours, and gave a few suggestions for how instructors can encourage more students to attend. In this post, I want to take a look at another aspect of the problem: many instructors do not believe that it is their responsibility to encourage students to attend. The question guiding this post is: Why not? What assumptions underlie how instructors view their responsibilities around office hours?

To try to answer this question, I visited three instructors during their office hours and asked each of them what they were doing to encourage students to attend. Two said they included on the syllabus when and where office hours would be held. The third not only included when and where they would be, but invited students to drop by if they have specific questions, need extra help with the assignments, or if they simply want to talk. Of the three, he was the only one who had any students attend office hours within the first six weeks of the semester. 

Two men sit at a desk facing each other and talking.
Do you explain to your students why they should come to office hours? Why or why not?

The first two instructors gave revealing answers about why they do not explicitly encourage students to attend. One explained that she expected students would attend if they had specific questions or wanted to discuss their grades on significant assignments. The other expected students to be able to monitor their own progress and assess for themselves whether to seek extra help in office hours. In other words, both assumed that students already know what office hours are for, and thought that there was no need to explain that asking specific questions, discussing assignments, or seeking extra help are reasons to attend. 

However, recent research brings to light how these assumptions put certain students at a disadvantage. Assumptions around the proper use of office hours are part of the “hidden curriculum” of a university: those unspoken rules and expectations about how to interact socially with instructors and how to take advantage of institutional resources. As Anthony Abraham Jack notes, students rely on “cultural competencies developed before college” to navigate the hidden curriculum, but not all high schools have the resources to support students in developing such competencies (Jack, 2016). For instance, the “doubly disadvantaged” – students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds who enter college without any kind of prep or private school experience – tend to “lack the skill set or desire to engage faculty, even as they perceive their peers reaping the benefits of forging relationships” (Jack, 2016). These so-called “doubly disadvantaged” students experience higher degrees of disengagement, to the extent that some feel unable to reach out to professors even when they are at risk of failing a class. One student reports that she did not realize that she needed to contact her professor until he reached out to her first: “Even though he said if you don’t turn in this paper you’ll fail, it wasn’t until I received that email that I realized I needed to email him” (Jack, 2016). While many students eventually learn the skills to engage with faculty and to advocate for themselves academically over time, they may also miss out on access to institutional resources and opportunities to build relationships until sophomore or for some, even the junior year. That could mean missed opportunities to apply for summer jobs, internships, grants, and other experiences that enrich the curriculum and lead to careers after graduation.

Jack’s research highlights the importance of meeting students where they are, rather than where we expect them to be. It is not fair to assume that all of our students know how to seek support when they are struggling. Since very simple things like explaining what office hours are for or emailing students who are falling behind can contribute significantly to creating an accessible and inclusive learning environment, we as instructors ought to do more to normalize this practice in our institutions.  

Reference

Jack, A. A. (2016). (No) harm in asking: Class, acquired cultural capital, and academic engagement at an elite university. Sociology of Education, 89(1), 1-19.

Rethinking Office Hours

Equity and Inclusion, Instructional Design, Research, STEM, TA/Postdocs, Uncategorized, ,

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? 

Two women sit and face each other in an office.
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.

Register:  https://stonybrook.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYqceGtqzwqGN06H2GkNgQA2nS3EL5FVdFm

Questions: Carol Hernandez, Ed.D. carol.hernandez@stonybrook.edu

References

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.