Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Swampfox10mm]

How many students visit you per week?

We had a meeting recently, and our boss became somewhat upset with the attitude of some foreign staff members when they said, "No students come to visit us during our office hours -- we just sit there and surf." We have really nice offices, which are either private or shared, depending on how long we've been there.

This came up in discussion because our school also has an "English Lounge" for students to hang out in and converse in English, and in trying to improve it, it was determined (by our peers) that it would be a good idea to hold some of our office hours there. I think it has been working quite well so far, but I think our boss sensed that some people didn't really care to make the change, although no one directly said such.

Our boss, who is a pretty fair guy, said that the Korean teachers are required to report on how many students visit their office in a semester (keep a log). They are required to hold at least 50 visits. I suppose hearing this made me feel a bit guilty, so I've started passing around a sign-up sheet during my classes, and requiring every student to visit at least once during the semester, or more than that if they care to complete an extra-credit assignment. The experience has been somewhat refreshing, actually. I've met about 70% of my students in the past 3 weeks, although they spend about 10 minutes meeting with me either alone or with a partner from class.

How does your university handle the office hours thing? For years, they just said, "You need to have XX office hours per week" and never monitored us.

[koreatimes]

[Swampfox10mm]

Teachers must hold 50 per semester. I did more than that last week alone. Short 10 minute visits, though.

[Unposter]

If you count all the people who just stick their head in my door and say hi and then leave, it would be quite a lot!

But, I have found the number of students I get depends a lot on how hard the class is, the subject matter and whether it is a departmental class or just a Liberal Arts class.

When it is a departmental class, students take the class fairly seriously and like to brown-nose and will stop by my office a lot more. If it is just some general Liberal Arts class, students have better things to do.

I also tend to get more students in my office when it is a content course and they have direct questions to ask then if it is just a nebulous conversation course, though you still get an occasional person with excessinve confidence who stops by "just to converse."

Personally, I tend to keep my door open and encourage my students to drop by, talk in the halls and before and after class - all things few to no Korean Profs do but in my personal opinion trying to compare office hours between Korean Profs who teach content versus an Instructor who teaches Conversation is not appropriate. Your relationship with your students and the types of questions are very different - not to mention your status at the university.

Interestingly enough, where I work, a few years ago, the administration passed out smiley face lapel pins and tried to start a smile and talk to your student campaign. Can you imagine? A few die-hard Korean Profs wore the pins, though I didn't see anyone smile or talk to people on campus, but few others wore them and soon the whole silly thing died out. The only people I see saying hello to everyone they meet are the native English-speaking Instructors and and the native Russian-speaking Instructors.

Anyway, bottom line is if you have an open door policy and talk to your students about things they can/should visit you about, it should be enough and you don't really need to force them to come. Personally, I don't want to force my students to come to my office. When I was a student, it would not be something I would appreciate, though I would have appreciated a Prof who geniuenly (sp?) welcomed me when I did have a question. The latter is what I try to foster.

[Who's Your Daddy?]

In my undergrad days I can remember visiting one professor often for a big project. But the other professors in my four years I can't remember visiting.

And I don't want to be telling my female students they must visit me.

[toonchoon]

At my uni, foreign teachers don't have required office hours. I don't think Korean profs are required to have them either, but I could be wrong.

I have an open-door policy, and not a day goes by without one or two students coming by for one thing or another.

The other day, our supervisor told us we get bonus points on our prof. evals if we log meetings with students. I'll probably start logging these for admin purposes. Can't hurt.

[koreatimes]

I have a question for you college teachers, if it is ok to ask here. I teach high school students, and I noticed the good students would rather focus on tests and other things after they find out the extras I am assigning them won't change their grade. It might improve their English, and that is why I give higher level students something to work on different than most of the class. Otherwise, it would just be that student answering and everyone else listening.

Have you experienced the same thing in college, or are they more motivated to do better without a grade? Does this have any relationship to the thread where they may or may not be coming to office hours? How much of their grade depends on your class or performance in your class?

[Swampfox10mm]