Natalie Manages Her Tasks in Chunks When Designing for Multiple Courses

Natalie is an ad hoc instructor at a four-year institution. She also works as a graduate assistant for a public university and a consultant for a private university. These jobs are part-time while she is working on her doctoral studies. She teaches a three-credit undergraduate-level course with an enrollment of 26 participants during a six-week summer semester. Natalie considers herself a multi-tasker because she works in three different positions, carrying out similar tasks, in different capacities. For her, dealing with all these responsibilities, tasks of each position must have its own space. Workload management for her is not just for the course she teaches; it is also for her personal life. Natalie uses design, teaching, and time allocation strategies to manage her workload.

 

Design	Designs her course for each position in its own online space, time, and physical location. Designs the entire course in the LMS in advance because it includes incorporating voiceover, video, authored video resources, and scripts. This requires sophisticated technology, intensive blocks of time, and focused attention. Completes tasks in small chunks.
Teaching	Uses a scavenger hunt activity to orient learners to the online environment, group discussions to engage learners in conversations about the topic, and team projects in which learners share their work. Uses essays as an assessment tool and provides individual feedback on learner writing. During the semester, she provides quick responses to learners based on her expectations.
Time-Allocation	Accomplishes her work from task to task. Schedules specific time for her online course work. Completes her most important tasks, like grading, when she is most alert such as late mornings or early evenings. Provides feedback in the beginning of the week (on Monday evenings) for about three hours. Creates a schedule for her learners for when to post responses to the discussion. Spends an average of 10 hours a week on the online course. Checks her online course at least once in the morning and twice in the evening. Has virtual office hours for learners to meet with her for questions or concerns about the online course.

             

For online instructors, who work in different positions doing similar tasks, like Natalie does, managing the workload can be complicated. Because instructors in this situation must distinguish between the various tasks, they need to allocate specific online space, time, and physical location to adequately accomplish these tasks. In an era when the Internet is ever-present from job to job and during our personal life schedule, setting boundaries and holding to them, is the solution.

 

Reference

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

Rihanna Considers the Cohort Program a Time Saver

 

Rhianna is a healthcare professor and also holds an administrative position at a four-year research-based institution. She teaches cohort courses at the doctoral level, both online and face-to-face. Her online course is offered every other year to meet the cohort requirement. Enrollment ranges from 15 to 33 participants. As a full professor with an administrative role, Rhianna is also involved in service activities and does a fair amount of traveling. Her online course for the cohort-based program is process-based. She uses design, support, teaching, and time allocation strategies to help balance her workload.

 

Design	Uses a consistent design framework for all courses. Lays out the content, based on modules, and breaks information into topic areas. Develops PowerPoint files with voiceovers. Creates questions for the discussion forums. Identifies appropriate assignments that capture the content. Determines the course pace. Refines the course as she progresses with her teaching. Gives access to the online course material to students prior to the beginning of the semester. Communicates to learners that the entire online course is available ahead of time.
Support	Has support staff to assist in uploading materials (PowerPoint files and voiceovers) to the learning management system. Reuses materials from semester to semester saving her time for other academic responsibilities.
Teaching	With the cohort-based program, student orientation is provided at the beginning of the program when learners get to know each other. Divides learners into groups of five or six participants. Each participant posts comments individually and interacts with others and the instructor in the discussion forum. During the discussions, she avoids answering immediately; rather she reflects on her response and waits to post it until the next day. Uses cooperative strategies in which learners work in groups, but develop individual research questions, participate in discussions to learn from each other, and determine how they will implement their individual study.
Time-Allocation	Allocates a considerable amount of time for her online course during the initial design phase. Blocks out times in her calendar for her work on the course during the semester. Her time commitment becomes lighter as the cohort group begins to take on more responsibilities. When there are more learners enrolled in her online course, there will be more time intensity on her part. Spends 8-10 hours per week checking her course daily, sometimes in the evening, but mostly in the morning. Adjustd her schedule to meet her course participants’ needs.

 

Teaching online in a cohort program is a design approach that can be a time saver. Instructors can follow a standard design established by the program and yet can shape their online courses based on their personality. Cohort learners tend to get to know each other as a learning community from the beginning of the program through a general orientation. This prevents having to create an orientation for each online course and facilitates relationship and trust-building early on. Because learners are part of a cohort, the instructor can better predict learner behavior and anticipate course activities. For online instructors, this means having a better sense of time allocation.

 

Reference

 

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

Angelo Teaches Online for a Variety of Institutions

Angelo is an adjunct professor for three online universities, as well as a full-time public school counselor for children with special needs. He teaches content-focused courses in sociology at the undergraduate level. Angelo teaches three online nine-week courses per semester year-round and one face-to-face course outside of his regular full-time job. His course enrollment averages 20 non-traditional learners with a wide age range. To balance his workload, he uses design, support, teaching, and time allocation strategies.

 

Design	Spent 25 hours per week for eight weeks to redesign one face-to-face course for the online environment during training. This redesign served as a guide for subsequent online course design. Keeps track of course redesign in a notebook and reflects on how he can use that in future courses.
Support	Participated in an intensive training program.
Teaching	Teaches similar courses on a regular basis. This can be confusing when the instructor has learners from multiple courses and institutions. To prevent this confusion, he developed an online form to get to know, monitor, and respond to learners during his online courses. Keeps student information in a notebook to easily identify individual learners, respond to them, or comment on their writing. Sets blocks of focused time aside for writing and responding to his learners. Saves responses from learner feedback and reuses those responses for future courses.
Time-Allocation	Preparation time, including his training, was about 250 hours. Time spent on subsequent online courses was cut back significantly to about 25 hours for each course. Spends an average of 15 hours per week per online course, which can be an overload for someone who has another full-time position. His rationale for working on overload is that he plans eventually to give up his full-time job and teach exclusively online.

 

Teaching online for multiple institutions, in addition to holding down a full-time job, can be a challenge for at least three reasons: preparation time, learner monitoring, and allocating time for teaching. Angelo realizes that time spent on online course preparation, though time-consuming, can be a time saver later because once a course design model has been created, he can reset his online courses more efficiently. He also recognizes that it can be difficult to monitor learners from different institutions during a given semester. He resolves this issue by using a form to easily identify his virtual learners and keep track of their progress. By blocking his time during hours when he is most productive, he can work more efficiently.

 

Reference

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

 

Simon Manages His Workload Based on Years of Experience

 

Simon is an associate professor in the field of education at a four-year institution and teaches three graduate-level online courses. He is also the coordinator for his graduate program. His three-credit courses are offered during 16-week and summer semesters. They are all content-based. Each of his courses averages 20 enrolled participants. Simon has taught online for over 10 years and has been able to draw from this extensive experience and apply it to his online courses. In addition to his teaching, Simon’s other responsibilities include administration, research, and service. He uses design, teaching, and time allocation strategies to manage his workload based on his years of experience.

 

Design	Prepares and organizes content and activities prior to the beginning of his online courses. Places himself in the role of the learner to better select course content, activities, and the pace of his courses. Prepares technology-based activities prior to the course, saving valuable time during the course delivery. This gives him more time during the online course to create a sense of personal presence. Following the completion of each online course, he reviews student feedback regarding the course design and uses these ideas and reflections to help him revise subsequent courses.
Teaching	Creates a detailed syllabus which includes regular office hours. Provides rapid response to course participant emails, rather than letting them accumulate. Uses a grading software program on his notebook computer to write electronic comments on learners’ papers rather than typing them. Posts weekly announcements on audio podcasts and video on YouTube. These announcements engage his learners, help his learners stay on task, and give his learners the sense of ongoing instructor presence.
Time-Allocation	Limits his online teaching time allocation to 10 to15 hours a week per online course. Designates specific times for electronic office hours.

The instructors’ experience can be a deciding factor in determining effective workload strategies, as is evident in Simon’s case. For Simon, his own experience and the experience of others served as valuable resources. The major design strategies he uses are planning ahead of time, establishing detailed course materials, and reflecting on and revising course materials. Keep in mind that new instructors can learn as they gain experience, but should be open to the ideas of their peers and also their learners.

 

Reference

 

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

Brenda Teaches Online Exclusively From Home

 

Brenda is an assistant professor, teaching for a community college with a focus on instruction. Because of her community college affiliation, she does not have research requirements and has few service commitments. Brenda travels periodically to the community college campus for faculty meetings but teaches online exclusively from home. Her discipline is science, and her course duration varies from eight weeks to a full 15 or 16-week semester. Enrollment averages 20 learners per course. Her courses are primarily content-based. Brenda teaches six online four-credit courses each semester, for a total of 24 credits. In addition, she mentors new online instructors for two to three hours a week. Brenda has had experience teaching online and through this experience has developed specific strategies for design, support, teaching, and time allocation.

 

 

Design	Plans and organizes all courses ahead of time, so that she can focus her teaching effort on monitoring learner participation and responding to their needs.For any new course she develops, she spends about 100 hours. For a course that is already developed, she spends about 20 hours before her online course begins to update and revise her materials. Once the online course has begun, she spends another two hours to revise and update as the course progresses.
Support	When Brenda moved her courses from face-to-face to online teaching, she received in-depth course design assistance from her institution to develop her curriculum units. Receives the institution’s instructional designer support for copyright clearance, Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance, and feedback on her courses.
Teaching	Carefully selects textbooks and uses an asynchronous discussion board with prompts, along with lecture concept maps in which she highlights important parts of the assigned textbook readings for the learners. Incorporates quizzes and an extensive webliography of web links for additional resources. Offer two types of labs – a virtual kitchen lab where materials can be gathered at home and a “wet” lab that requires a more traditional lab kit. Learners, through engagement, create a sense of presence with each other while she can serve more as a guide. Students are involved in two large field projects during the semester. Prepares prior to the beginning of the course are quizzes, a mid-term, and a final exam. These are integrated into the online course and she keeps track of them through an online gradebook.
Time-Allocation	Allocates about one and a half hours a day, seven days a week for working on the online courses. Is available 16 hours a day asynchronously to respond to learner questions and needs, and works her time around her family’s schedule (while her children’s nap time is a dedicated time during the day that she can use to focus on her online courses).  Tells her learners know when she will be unavailable. Occasionally uses synchronous technology for feedback, but only when requested.

 

While teaching online exclusively from home can be a benefit, it can also be a deception because it can easily take over your personal life. Brenda discovered early on that she needed to set boundaries to distinguish between her work life and her personal life. Though she is constantly connected to her online courses, she tries to communicate with her learners when she is not accessible. Telling learners that she is unavailable is a way to establish course expectations and have a sense of control over her personal life. In addition, Brenda perceives that her time spent on online teaching can be misleading to skeptical classroom instructors. However, as an online instructor, you do not need to feel a sense of guilt and prove your workload to others. Instead, you need to focus on how to manage your workload to fit your needs and anticipate the needs of your learners. Everything else is irrelevant.

 

 

Reference

 

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