Online Office Hours
Time, location, availability and shyness are all obstacles which prevent me from attending office hours. One way to eliminate these physical barriers is to hold online office hours. You can use Blackboard’s chat application, Twitter’s chat application with hashtags, Tumblr’s Ask Box and Formspring. You will already be in office for office hours and so, if no one physically attends you can monitor your online social network of choice and answer questions uploaded by students. Holding online office hours is an effective way to increase faculty-student interaction because they can 1)be easily incorporated into your regular office hours; and 2)remove physical barriers which prevent students from attending office hours. Check out UTM’s Professor Barbara Murck’s experience with holding online office hours here.