As I prepare my Spring semester courses, I’m wondering how people handle office hours these days.

For my entire pre-Covid teaching career, office hours were a drop-in affair. I encouraged students to make an appointment outside of office hours if they wanted to be sure they could talk to me without the chance of another student popping in. But the posted office hours could not be reserved; they were for anyone who happened to show up.

Then, during Covid, I worked with a wonderful grad student teaching assistant who encouraged me to reserve half of my office hours each week for student appointments. She told me it would make me more accessible to students.
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