At the beginning of the fall semester, 2011, I was dealing
with a scheduling conflict that was going to require that I drive 45 minutes
(each way) one extra day of class just to hold office hours where my students
may or may not have actually visited me. As an adjunct, my office would have
been a cramped room with other adjuncts present (not an ideal place for a
student to voice serious concerns). I
had considered making the long, gas burning journey on an extra day every week
just to sit in the coffee shop in the library and spend even more of my meager
salary sipping overpriced coffee while wishing that my students cared as much
about their college careers as I did.
It just didn’t make sense. Why waste so much time, money, and gasoline
while actually helping no one?
I needed to re-think my responsibilities as their teacher.
And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that although the “Office
Hours” requirement is very much needed, the way we conduct our office hours
needs to change. I needed to find a better way to interact one-on-one with my
students.
Although students SHOULD prefer human interaction, it’s not
our job to change what technological evolution is causing. Our job is to teach
the material, to follow guidelines, and to mentor students into their next
classes.
Here is a video explaining what happened when I skyped with
my students:
