Kay Blocks Out Time for Her Online Courses

 

Kay is a Clinical Assistant Professor at a four-year institution on a 12-month contract. She teaches 3 to 4-credit undergraduate courses in the discipline of health care. Her courses are offered during the regular 15- or 16-week semester and during the 12-week summer semester. Her online course enrollment varies from 20 participants during the regular semester to 12 participants during the summer semester. Her responsibilities focus on teaching, administration, and service. Kay’s teaching workload involves 12 units per semester: 7 to 10 credits of teaching, one credit for service, 1 to 3 credits for administration, and 0.5 credit for e-learning for the department. She teaches two online courses during the summer semester. As part of her administrative duties, she coordinates a program within her discipline. Her face-to-face courses are hands-on and interactive. When moving her courses to the online environment, Kay had to rethink her workload by incorporating design, support, teaching, and time allocation strategies.

 

Design	Focuses on how to distribute course activities to balance her workload among all courses in each semester. Spends 10 to 12 hours preparing the online courses before the course starts. Designs throughout the course duration and spends four hours per week designing the course during the semester.
Support	Seeks course innovation by attending conferences and involving learners in sharing resources. Uses one-on-one support from the teaching and learning center at her institution, peer support, and institutional support through the help desk.
Teaching	Uses group discussions, games, and creative activities as her teaching strategies. Develops a detailed syllabus about course expectations. Communicates to learners her guidelines for responding to their emails (within 48 hours) and communicates her level of participation during the course delivery. First checks the discussion forum and emails and then moves on to other aspects of the online course.
Time-Allocation	Is disciplined with her schedule for the online courses. Mondays and Wednesdays, she blocks out time from 9:00 AM to noon for online courses by closing her office door and letting other colleagues know that she is teaching at that time. Reserves time in her calendar for teaching online.  Checks her courses every day as a cross out mental check list for the day. Allows some flexibility in case personal issues arise. When a personal issue occurs, she rearranges her schedule.

 

Kay’s workload focuses primarily on teaching and service. Thus, blocking out time for the online courses is critical for helping her manage her workload. Kay closes her office door during these times to avoid distractions and dedicates exclusive time for her learners. In doing this, she shows colleagues that she is allocating specific time for her online courses during regular work hours. Kay is very disciplined with implementing her closed-door approach and checking her online courses every day as a way to mentally cross off her daily tasks.

 

Reference

Conceição, S. C. O, Lehman, R. M. (2011). Managing Online Instructor Workload: Strategies for Finding Balance and Success. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.