Timeline for How to deal with students staying hours past the end of office hours?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
19 events
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| Oct 21 at 17:02 | vote | accept | AegisCruiser | ||
| Nov 9, 2017 at 20:40 | comment | added | rogerdpack | Or warn them first "office hours are over in half an hour, we'll have to end then" :) | |
| Apr 13, 2017 at 12:49 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
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| Nov 1, 2015 at 1:47 | comment | added | The_Sympathizer | @JeffE: So then why not just use what I had suggested, only with "but now I have to get back to work" replaced with "but now my designated meeting time is finished."? | |
| Oct 30, 2015 at 17:25 | comment | added | JeffE | @mike3 I would go even further. It's none of the students' business what you're going to do after they leave. It doesn't matter if you're going to spend the next hour reading StackExchange and playing Angry Birds. Once office hours are over, they're over. | |
| Oct 30, 2015 at 15:24 | comment | added | Jessica B | People vary. Cultures vary. Students have a tendency to be selfish, just like everyone else. The grown-up approach might work, but it's also possible it won't. | |
| Oct 30, 2015 at 8:33 | comment | added | The_Sympathizer | (cont'd) If they hang, then gently ease into creating an impression of busyness, by moving stuff around and getting things out, motioning to the door if necessary, or if your work really involves you leaving, then to start moving out of the office and shutting up shop. Neither would be too far from the truth. These students are (usually) adults and presumably intelligent, so they should be able to understand. | |
| Oct 30, 2015 at 8:33 | comment | added | The_Sympathizer | @Jessica B: So why not go and say what the reason is and then start closing up shop? Then you're not "still sitting there", and you're telling the truth. I don't understand why there seems to be this need for hiding/lying/dancing around the real issue. Why not just be blunt and say that you have to now tend to your other responsibilities/work? "Thank you for your time, but now I have to get back to work." | |
| Oct 29, 2015 at 10:52 | comment | added | Cronax | I would add that it might be a good idea to impose a time limit on scheduled appointments and to start actively enforcing it. If a student can only make a 15 minute appointment rather than an hour long one, they will be forced to be concise in their questions, stimulating them into doing more preparation work. When the students get used to this, you should ostensibly be able to cover their needs in your office hours, so then the option of having an exceptional appointment outside hours becomes available again: 15 minutes of your own time is much easier to accommodate than an hour. | |
| Oct 28, 2015 at 21:27 | comment | added | corsiKa | I would also add that your students are adults. They should be capable of receiving information and making necessary adjustments. | |
| Oct 28, 2015 at 18:43 | comment | added | J... | Help vampires keep sucking if you keep giving up blood... | |
| Oct 28, 2015 at 17:27 | comment | added | Raydot | Yep. The end of the office hours are when you say they are. The demands on your time are only going to get worse as your career progresses. Learning to set boundaries now will help you quite a bit. | |
| Oct 28, 2015 at 14:06 | comment | added | Chris Cirefice | Sadly, and I have seen this often, many students will be annoyed for having come to office hours and not been 'served'. To me that attitude generally indicates a lack of preparation and patience, and even as a student seeing that attitude is discouraging. If I were in OP's situation, I would still have ill feelings about turning away students. Then again, it must be done, otherwise how can you advance as a graduate student? You can't put the rest of your responsibilities on hold... it's just something you have to get used to I suppose. | |
| Oct 28, 2015 at 10:25 | comment | added | Jessica B | @yo' True. It's one way of making things more enforceable though. I can imagine it being hard to get students out of your office if you're still sitting there. If you are locking the door, there's more chance of them going. It doesn't directly address the issue of them taking up too much time, but I think it would help to send the signal that you have other things to do too. I spent the summer explaining to people that I do not get three or four months holiday just because I'm not actively teaching students at that point. | |
| Oct 28, 2015 at 7:49 | comment | added | yo' | @JessicaB But in that case, you are hiding the true problem, right? You don't tell the students that the true reason is you can't spend so much time on the office hours. So why wouldn't you simply say this? | |
| Oct 28, 2015 at 7:26 | comment | added | Jessica B | @AegisCruiser One option would be to actually schedule some meetings at the end of your office hours. I assume you do meet with someone during a week, even if it's not a large part of your time. | |
| Oct 28, 2015 at 6:50 | history | edited | ff524 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Oct 28, 2015 at 6:45 | history | edited | ff524 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Oct 28, 2015 at 6:39 | history | answered | ff524 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |