Revamp Your Office Hours

Kara Monroe
5 min readJan 4, 2024
Image made with Canva Pro.

As someone whose full-time faculty role also included a staff role where I had to be in the office every day anyway, I never considered keeping “office hours” as anything other than just going to work. However, I know for many of my fellow faculty, office hours feel a lot like being put in the penalty box. Unfortunately, office hours are often spent alone, but they still have an air of unpredictability about them. Will today be the day a student actually drops in? If so, what will they want to discuss?

Today’s idea may add some consistency, help you build out some great content to supplement your courses, and demonstrate to students that you care.

Let’s take a look at a round up of ideas.

Take Your Office On The Road

While some administrators may require that you are actually in your physical office for office hours (I’m sorry if that’s who you work for), most should be comfortable if you advise students clearly and early where you’ll be doing your office hours. My favorite place would probably be in a student union coffee shop or an area of the library or learning commons where you can speak with students freely.

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Kara Monroe

I am a world traveler, part-time road warrior, and home body all wrapped up in one gadget-loving package. Writer, photographer, chef, and aspiring artist.