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.
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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.
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