During a typical semester, many of my students visit my office hours to ask questions about material, seek mentoring advice, or discuss things of interest to them. During the transition to remote learning, I did not want to lose that connection with my students. So I divided my class into groups of six and held virtual group office hours, held at times aligned with my students’ schedules.
For my Multi-variable Calculus course this fall, I will expand on this practice. In a typical semester I have four to five office hours per week. This coming semester, I will divide my class of 18 students into three groups of eight and schedule weekly 30-minute office-hour sessions with them. In addition to checking in with my students and answering their questions, I will provide an entry-level content question for them, with a goal of focusing their learning and gauging their understanding. I plan to keep the composition of the groups consistent for at least ½ the semester to accommodate for scheduling challenges. In this way, these groups can build natural group discussion boards to help students support each other in their learning. These groups will also be used in my hybrid classroom.
