35: Sitting on Zoom alone during my office hours
Today’s diary is just a strain of consciousness during my Zoom office hours. I am sitting here alone staring at myself in this little box waiting on students to jump in to ask questions. I’m sure many of you remember actual office hours in person. They were productive. Online office hours? Not so much.
>>>>DIARY: I am going to be 40 soon and I am learning to write a bike all over again
I spend my office hours trying to do work, but I don’t want to get started on grading or some project just to be stopped halfway through because a student jumps onto my office hours. So I sit and stare and wait. I check email and now I am writing in my blog.
My fear is that these Zoom office hours are going to be the new normal for office hours. We had online office hours before the pandemic, but it wasn’t ALL your office hours, so when students didn’t come, it wasn’t a big deal. Now you have normal office hours all online and NO ONE COMES TO THEM.
So how can we make these Zoom office hours productive. I have a few thoughts.
Give extra credit to students who attend. I don’t like giving extra credit, but if a student stops by and talks to me outside of class, I know it would help them in some way. That makes it worth it to me.
Have cool virtual backgrounds. My students love my llama and Baby Yoda backgrounds. Tell them they have to stop in to your office hours to see your new Tiger King background.
Make office hours last only minutes. Maybe they slack off because they have a whole hour to log on. Tell them you know have Zoom office minutes. They have a seven-minute window to ask you questions.
Extra credit?
That’s all I got. My office hours are about done for now, so here’s to tomorrow’s Zoom office hour possibilities.
