During a typical semester, many of my students visit my office hours to ask questions about material, seek mentoring advice, or to 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 schedule.
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 group of 18 students into three groups of six 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 to focus their learning and gauge 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, I can use these groups to create group discussion boards to help students support each other in their learning. These groups will also be used in my hybrid classroom.
Matthew Neal
George R. Stibitz Distinguished Professor of Mathematics
Chair of Mathematics
Computer Science/Mathematics/Computational Science/Data Analytics