Lauri Used Co-Teaching to Balance Her Workload

 

Lauri, an associate professor at a four-year institution, teaches three-credit online linguistics courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Her course load is the equivalent of 2.5 courses per semester. Her courses are taught during the regular 15- or 16-week semester with an enrollment of 10 to 25 participants. She co-teaches her online courses with a colleague. In addition to teaching, she also has administrative duties as a coordinator of a certificate program. Lauri dedicates one day a week to her research. To balance her research and service responsibilities, she is not involved with teaching during the summer semester. She uses design, support, teaching, and time-allocation strategies to balance her workload. Below are Lauri’s strategies for balancing her workload.

 

Design	Co-designs with another instructor. Reduces required readings. Provides clear guidelines for discussions. Divides learners into groups.
Support	Obtains technical support through the help desk during preparation stages. Uses orientation activities as part of learner support at the beginning of the course. Shares stories of other learners on their online course experiences in previous courses.
Teaching	Sets specific guidelines for each instructor’s role. Gives rapid response to learners via email.
Time-Allocation	Has a light instructor presence during the week by answering general questions in the discussion area. Has a heavier instructor presence at the end of the week when they wrap up the discussion. Have learners summarize and lead discussions. Sets up blocks of time during the week (3 to 4 days per week). Tells her learners that she is not available on weekends.

 

 

In Lauri’s case, co-teaching seems to have worked as part of her design strategy for the type of online course she teaches. Setting up clear guidelines for co-teaching is essential for an efficient and effective online course delivery. This strategy may not work for everyone, but it is an option. It is important to check the institutions’ policies and procedures regarding co-teaching. Keep in mind that the best strategies are the ones that fit with your teaching and lifestyle.

 

For Lauri, focusing on the course during the week and avoiding weekend teaching, worked well for her to distinguish between her work and personal life. Balancing between light and heavy instructor presence during the week was an efficient way to manage the teaching workload. Selecting one day a week to work on her research prevented distractions from other responsibilities and kept her organized with her research responsibilities. Leaving the summer semester for service and research helped her balance other academic responsibilities.

 

Reference

 

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

Instructors’ Stories about Balancing Workload

 

For the next few weeks, we will share instructors’ stories about balancing their workload when teaching online based on the approaches they used. These stories are the result of 14 interviews with online instructors in higher education. More detailed instructors’ stories can be found in our book, Managing Online Instructor Workload: Strategies for Finding Balance and Success, published in 2011.

 

The 14 stories we selected represent a variety of disciplines (education, health care, linguistics, sociology, science, and early childhood), positions held (tenure-track instructor, teaching academic staff, learning designers, consultants, etc.), course duration (semester, 3-6 weeks, etc.), level of instruction (graduate or undergraduate), and instructor experience. We use pseudonyms to identify the instructors in our stories and maintain confidentiality. The aim is to focus on the strategies that most concern instructors who teach online. In some cases, these strategies overlap. It is our hope that you will be able to identify with some of these stories, learn from them, and apply them to your own practice.  

 

Stay tuned!

 

References

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

Instructors’ Stories Reveal Strategies

 

Through instructors’ stories we found concrete examples of strategies for balancing workload that can fit a wide variety of settings and apply to many different contexts. You can find them in our book Managing Online Instructor Workload: Strategies for Finding Balance and Success.

You may identify with some of these stories, but many will be new to you. While some of the instructors in our examples are prioritizing their time in an efficient way, others are still discovering new ways to effectively manage their workload.

Next week, we’ll look at how to determine the types of course tasks for online teaching and how they can be accomplished within a design framework. For your online course, designing requires planning, intention, and design and an understanding of the online environment. By looking at workload from a design perspective, instructors can better manage and prioritize their time.

References

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