This page is based on material created by the Stanford Center for Teaching and Learning.
Office hours, tutoring, and review sessions are often central to your effectiveness as a Teaching Associate. They allow you to get to know your students as individuals, to discover where students are having problems, and to work with them one-on-one. They give undergraduates a forum for raising concerns or asking questions that they might be reluctant to bring up in class. And if several students individually raise similar concerns, you should consider addressing them in the next section or at least mention them to the professor.
Getting Students to Office Hours
- Announce your office hours regularly—and then keep them.
- Stress that students can come to office hours to address difficulties they’re having with the course, to raise questions and issues that the class didn’t cover, to clarify course material, or simply to chat about the course subject.
- Consider requiring students to come to office hours at least once. TAs who do so often report that they know their students better and that students seem more comfortable talking in class after meeting in office hours.
Having Effective Office Hours
- Make students feel welcome when they come to your office hours. Try to engage them in subjects other than the current week’s assignment—even five minutes spent chatting about how the semester is going can mean a lot to a student.
- Give students your undivided attention. Ask questions. Listen carefully. Be attentive, thoughtful, and responsive.
- Try to identify the source of students’ difficulties, but don’t grill students or make them feel that they have to perform. Review principles covered in class, try to assess students’ understanding, and then explain concepts in a variety of ways as necessary.
- Be patient and offer encouragement. You may not always be able to provide the solution that the student is looking for. Be aware of other tutoring or counseling resources to which you can direct your students.
- Don’t make promises about future grades. When students ask what score they will need on an exam or paper to achieve a certain final grade, review the grading policies for the course and remind students of their performance so far.
Tutoring
- Do not just give students the answers. Focus on explaining concepts and presenting them effectively.
- Know the instructor's criteria for a given assignment so that you don't send students mixed signals. If students' work is ultimately graded by someone other than you, you should know what the professor’s standards are and explain them accordingly. Remind students that your assistance does not promise a higher grade in the course.
- Set up specific times to meet with students to avoid crunch or panic sessions before exams or big problem sets.
- Be encouraging and patient. Students often lack confidence more than they lack ability.
Running a Review Session
- Identify the key issues, points, and questions that you must address. To figure out what students need to know, attend the lectures or at least obtain the lecture notes; meet with the professor and the other TAs; and look at past problem sets or exams.
- Prioritize the content you will present. In fifty minutes, you will not be able to review all of the material—will you go for breadth or depth? If you go over a lot of material briefly, make students aware that they are responsible for knowing more details than you have covered. Encourage them to come to office hours if they have questions. If you review only a few topics in more detail, identify for students the other topics that they will need to go over for themselves.
- Encourage students to identify what they really need from a review session—what specific topics do they want to cover? Be prepared to discuss any of the current course topics in as much detail as necessary.
- Actively engage students as much as possible. Prepare to draw out student questions and participation. Students will respond better and learn more if you engage them actively, and you will be better able to gauge whether students are really understanding the topics you cover.
