Increase Office Hour Attendance

Are you finding that you're repeatedly asking your students to attend office hours, but still see low attendance? You are not alone.

Office hours are often conducted in-person, on a scheduled day and time that the instructor is available. Typically these hours are posted online and in the syllabus. Yet, most students do not attend. Below are some options to try, that may encourage more students to attend your office hours!

Have you tried virtual office hours? 

This option does not have to be for online courses only. To do this you can use Zoom, and link it to your Canvas course. Instructors who have tried virtual office hours have been impressed with more students attending. This could simply be because students were unable to make it to campus on the scheduled day/time for office hours, but instead could join virtually. Here are some instructions to get you started (requires ASURITE log-in).

Share a funny video with students about office hours.

Another option to consider is that students think they must attend at the start of the scheduled time, and stay the whole time. This can be explicitly stated to not be the case, but perhaps sharing a humorous video will get them to understand what to do and how beneficial office hours can be!

Video: Introducing FOH: Faculty Office Hours by ASU Online

Do you suffer from stress, sleep deprivation, or an Academic Status Report denial? You may be one of the millions of students suffering from Fear of Meeting One-on-One With My Professor ....or FMOOWMP.

Video: What are Office Hours? By Andrew Ishak

A humorous portrayal of office hours reality.




Do you have any ideas to share to encourage office hour attendance? Post them in the comments!