You are Invited to Discussion Hours

Reflection on my recent post

I recently shared a post and video about my tips for developing belonging in the classroom. One of my tips was to avoid using the term “office hours” and replace it with something that better communicates the meaning. Over the years I have found that “discussion hours” does a better job of encouraging students to visit my office.

This tweet sharing the same advice went viral last week.

Lauren S. Hallion, Ph.D. @LaurenSHallion

PSA: I changed “office hours” to “drop-in hours” a couple years ago and attendance more than doubled.

In my version of the tweet, I shared my experience with changing the name to discussion hours.

Dr. Abdullah Al Bahrani @DrAAlBahrani

I am a huge advocate of changing office hours to another name. I have used discussion hours for a while now. Here is what I noticed after making the change. Thread 🧵

Here is also an image from my door, that shares my “Discussion Hour” times and also has a QR code to my Linktree. The QR code is a recent addition. I will report back on how students perceive it.

Dr. Abdullah Al Bahrani @DrAAlBahrani

Here is what my office information looks like. The QR code links to linktr.ee/draalbahrani

Dr. Abdullah Al Bahrani @DrAAlBahrani

I am a huge advocate of changing office hours to another name. I have used discussion hours for a while now. Here is what I noticed after making the change. Thread 🧵

Small changes make a difference. While there is no “evidence” that this works, it is a start. It also provides a good opportunity for a researchers to test out this hypothesis.