Widening Perspectives Invite Openness: Strategies for Prioritizing Time and Managing Workload

 

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In this article, we provide four strategies for rethinking how to prioritize time and manage workload: (1) look at online teaching from an open perspective, (2) adapt course design, (3) modify workload strategies, and (4) rethink how to prioritize and manage workload.

 

Teaching From an Open Perspective

 

Instructors who are open to new perspectives and have ventured into online teaching have discovered differences between face-to-face and online teaching regarding workload. These differences can be looked at in terms of space (tangible versus elusive), time (clear sense versus flexible concept), boundaries (specific location versus no geographical limits), use of the senses (can see and hear learners and touch objects versus the need to adapt senses and create closeness), level of planning (spontaneously add and adapt teaching versus pre-planning), and mental and emotional efforts (predictable time to focus mind and emotion versus perception of always being connected).

 

There are many approaches instructors must use to embark on the online venture such as openness to these differences, organization, discipline, ability to distinguish between work and personal life, and flexibility.

 

Adapting the Course Design

 

It is commonly perceived that instructors can take their face-to-face course and move it to the online environment. However, this is a misperception. Adapting a course requires understanding the online teaching and learning environment, planning, and intentional design.

 

For a new online course, the tasks and time spent designing and delivering the course will take longer and be time-consuming. For a course converted from face-to-face to online, you must rethink how you can teach your course in the new environment. For revising existing online courses, you will need to revisit your tasks and time spent to become more efficient when teaching the course again.

 

Course design should be seen as an essential aspect of teaching online. While in a face-to-face course instructors tend to consider teaching from the first to the last day of class, in an online course the course duration spans from design to course delivery. Therefore, to adapt your course to the online environment, you need to envision the “big picture.” We suggest identifying course tasks and using an instructional design framework to systematically design your online course.

 

Modifying Workload Strategies

 

When instructors adapt their courses to the online environment and use a design framework to guide the course development, they become aware of the differences between face-to-face and online courses, tasks to be accomplished in the new environment, and the period for online courses, they realize that they have to modify their workload strategies.

 

Our book, Managing Online Instructor Workload: Strategies for Finding Balance and Success, describes four strategies for managing workload: design, support, teaching, and time allocation. These strategies are influenced by various institutional factors, including the type of institution, policies and procedures that guide the institutional practices, number of courses taught, enrollment, level of instruction, position ranking of the instructor, and infrastructure support. Depending on how these factors are combined, instructor workload is affected.

 

Rethinking How to Prioritize Time and Manage Workload

 

Teaching online can be time-consuming. It involves a combination of institutional factors and requires different instructional preparation. It can increase instructors' workload if they don’t know what designing and delivering online instruction entails. Instructors who have not used a systematic approach to adapting their materials for the online environment tend to use workload strategies that they are familiar with but that may not necessarily be effective or efficient in their work and personal life. To find balance and success in online teaching, instructors must widen their perspectives, rethink their teaching practices, and be open to new ideas.

 

Rethinking means considering and reconsidering your current teaching practices in a new light. When going through this mental process, the tendency is to reinforce old assumptions and ways of doing things. What needs to happen is a change in mindset – abandoning old assumptions about teaching and discovering and accepting new ones. We suggest a four-step rethinking process.

 

The process of rethinking starts with looking at your current teaching practices by identifying your course tasks (design, administrative, facilitative, and evaluative). Then, use an instructional design framework as a systematic approach to guide you in developing a new course or revisiting an existing one. The next step is determining what tasks you are accomplishing when designing and delivering the course and estimating how much time you might spend on the course.

 

Once you can review your process and identify strategies that best fit your situation, consider alternatives, then decide on the workload strategies that will balance your work and personal life. This process of rethinking your teaching practices is a dynamic one. Your work and personal life situation are in constant motion. You need to revisit the process regularly to find balance and success but remember that you are the person who knows what works best for you. Check the table below to see which chapters on our book provide the action steps.

 

Rethinking Process for Prioritizing Time and Managing Workload

Action Steps	Chapter(s) in Book
1. Look at current teaching practices by identifying course tasks	Chapter 3
2. Use an instructional design framework to guide the design of a new course or revisit an existing one	Chapters 3 and 4
3. Determine the tasks for course design and delivery and time estimation	Chapter 3 and 4
4. Consider alternatives and decide on strategies that provide balance between work and personal life	Chapter 5

 

Reference

 

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

Sandy Manages Workload When Current Information Drives Content

Sandy is an academic staff for an international organization within a four-year higher education institution. Her primary position within this organization involves administrative work; however, she is responsible for teaching one four-credit undergraduate online course. Sandy’s online course has an average enrollment of 20 participants and is offered during the regular academic semester from 8 to 16 weeks in duration. The course content focuses on current global issues. This means that her course must be updated each time she teaches it. Sandy uses design, support, teaching, and time allocation strategies to manage her workload.

 

Design	Bases the design of her course on the textbook and the most current new. The textbook provides a framework for identifying global issues, which she then enriches with more current events occurring in the world at the time of the course delivery. Invites speakers on a podcast and links to other podcasts and news events. Uses discussion forums, team projects, and a mandatory orientation. Does advanced planning and organization because of timely content. The first time she designed the online course, she started planning two months ahead. However, once she designed the first online course, she followed a model for the next offerings. Using the model, she was able to reduce her time for course design and have the course ready to be released for the learners two weeks before the beginning of the semester. Advanced organization is essential when coordinating course speakers who are identified based on expertise in current issues. These speakers may participate either synchronously or asynchronously. For synchronous participation of invited guests, Sandy has to schedule time and equipment in advance. For asynchronous speaker participation, she has to pre-record and post the guest lecture in the learning management system before the course begins.
Support	Uses the textbook, guest speakers, podcasts, and web links as external support. The textbook as a dynamic resource tool, a springboard to identify and search for new content information. Incorporates podcasts from the Internet and web links related to global issues. Models her online teaching on other colleagues who have used effective strategies such as understanding learner expectations and creating rubrics to grade assignments.
Teaching	Uses one-way content presentation of global issues in her course. Participates in interactive activities with learners as content expert, observer, and facilitator. Uses a team project as a teaching strategy to bring content together at the end of her online course. Makes the orientation a mandatory activity because she believes that in this way learners will be more comfortable online and feel a sense of community.
Time-Allocation	Teaches one online course at a time along with her administrative responsibilities. Streamlines her time allocation for the design stage of her online course by pre-planning and organizing her course materials, reusing existing resources, and using a dynamic textbook. Spends 15 to 20 hours each week updating the current news for the online course, checking on the discussion forum, and grading learner assignments. Blocks out specific time for grading on Monday morning and periodically checks the discussion board to avoid intense work at one time. Limits the number of discussion board postings per week to reduce her workload. Checks the course on weekends, but this is not accomplished at a regularly scheduled time.

 

Managing the workload when the course content must be kept current can be challenging. Sandy discovered efficient strategies to reduce workload before the beginning of the course. She plans and organizes course materials based on external resources and prioritizes her time. Planning helps Sandy focus on the teaching rather than the design during the course delivery. Using external resources as a support strategy can enhance learner experience, reduce instructor workload during course delivery, and provide flexibility when reusing the resources in future courses. During the online course, prioritizing time and setting boundaries can be a time saver for instructors whose teaching is one piece of their work responsibility.

 

Reference

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

Rosalina Teaches a Recurring Mixed-Mode Online Course

 

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Rosalina is an academic staff for an outreach institution. Her experience with online education involves co-teaching a grant-funded one-credit graduate-level course in the discipline of education. This online course has an enrollment of 15 participants and is offered for six semesters on a recurring basis for a total of three years. This online course involved considerable preparation in the beginning because it is offered as a mixed-mode approach using synchronous videoconferencing and asynchronous online interactions. Her role in the outreach institution involves instructional design, teaching, training, and instructor support. Teaching counts for 15% of her workload. Rosalina uses design, teaching, and time allocation strategies to manage her time.

 

Design	Puts herself in the role of the learner. Develops the syllabus and course units, gathers electronic resources, creates protocols for videoconferencing, develops videos on DVD, practices videoconferencing before the beginning of the course, and places the course materials in the learning management system. Shares the course design with two other instructional designers. One designer assists with developing content and activities, while the other one incorporates the content and activities into the learning management system.
Teaching	Provides an orientation on videoconferencing and online activities. Uses project-based activities (group and individual) and the discussion forum. Conducts formative evaluation during the online course with the purpose of refining and reshaping the course. Learners work independently and co-instructors serve as content experts, facilitators, and resources during the online course.
Time-Allocation	Co-teaching is a way to manage her workload. Each course instructor is responsible for specific duties related to the online course. Has strict guidelines for the discussion forum including the maximum number of meaningful postings per week, limited number of words per posting, and learner-shared leadership roles. Takes on the role of resource specialist allowing learners to work more independently.

 

Online courses that are offered on a recurring basis can provide time-saving benefits. In Rosalina’s situation, the team knew the mixed-mode online course was going to be taught for the duration of the grant project. Knowing this, the team invested a sizeable amount of time in the design phase of the online course. They also knew that once the course design was completed, there would be less time spent on revisions in future course offerings. The team approach is also a way to balance the workload because each team member can be assigned specific tasks before and during the course. Courses that include synchronous and asynchronous technologies can increase instructor workload. However, with the use of protocols, guidelines, and sufficient practice, workload can be reduced.

 

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.

Ellen Uses a Variety of LMS for Teaching Multiple Online Courses

 

Ellen teaches online courses for more than one institution. Her primary responsibility as an instructor is for a community college, where she teaches online courses in health care at the undergraduate level. In her primary instructor position at the community college, her duties are determined by union rules. Her workload includes teaching an average of 17 credit hours per semester. If she teaches a three-credit online course, she gets a 5.8% load attached to the online course. For example, a three-credit course would be the equivalent of 20% load plus the added percentage for online courses. Each course must carry a minimum enrollment of 16 and a maximum of 24 participants. As part of her load, she coordinates fieldwork with 20 learners, which accounts for 5% of her workload. In addition, she is required to participate in service activities. For those, she is a member of three college committees that meet sporadically each year. 

 

Ellen also teaches online courses as an ad hoc instructor for two other institutions. These ad hoc positions focus primarily on teaching. One drawback of teaching at different institutions is you never know if the institutions will use the same learning management system (LMS). In Ellen’s case, each institution uses a different LMS, which becomes a challenge. As a veteran online instructor, she can manage her workload with minimum support strategies; however, she uses design, teaching, and time allocation strategies to function efficiently and effectively as an online instructor.

 

Design	·      Plans ahead to manage workload. ·      Determines all course activities and assignments including when they should be released in the LMS. ·      Spends about 12 hours on each course design, but once the courses are designed, her tasks become a matter of administrative, facilitative, and evaluative functions.
Teaching	·      Uses quizzes, group discussions, and projects. ·      Returns emails within 24 to 48 hours. ·      Teaches from home because she is not interrupted and dedicates long periods of time to different courses.
Time-Allocation	·      Blocks out small chunks of time, early in the morning and during evening hours, except on the days she teaches on campus. ·      Sets up online office hours to avoid a 45-minute trip to campus and other transportation issues such as road construction and parking.

 

One of Ellen’s major challenges when teaching for a variety of institutions is to keep up with the different LMS. She discovered that planning ahead of time for her online courses, prioritizing course activities, and setting up the release dates of course features helped her better manage her workload. This approach is also a time saver because the instructor is relieved from having to be constantly monitoring the different features of the various learning management systems during the delivery of the online courses. For example, when teaching multiple courses, it is difficult to remember the specific units and their activities for each course. By having them pre-set, the instructor’s time is freed up to participate in group discussions, provide learner feedback, and respond to participants’ concerns.

 

Reference

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

Bruno Balances His Workload by Teaching Online During Short Semesters

Bruno is a full professor at a four-year institution teaching courses in the discipline of sociology at the undergraduate level. His three-credit 100-level online courses are offered during the winter break (for three weeks) and summer semester (for six weeks). Course enrollment varies from 25 to 35 participants. He teaches his online courses during these time periods to focus specifically on his teaching and research. During these times, he does not have any service responsibilities and is able to spend set hours for the course and research activities. He uses design, support, teaching, and time-allocation strategies to balance his workload.

Design	The first time he designed his online course, he spent about 40 hours preparing the materials. Once the online course was designed, his time to prepare the course for each offering was considerably reduced.
Support	Seeks one-on-one instructional design support from the teaching and learning center at his institution. Obtains content ideas and course materials from external resources, such as a local center related to the course topics, short videos from YouTube, and the historical society photos.
Teaching	Uses a variety of teaching strategies for his online course that include: PowerPoint lectures, short videos, group discussions, quizzes, papers, interviews, and the learning management system drop box for learner personal feedback. The difference between the two online course offerings is the amount of content employed in the course. For the shorter session, he removes some of the readings.
Time-Allocation	Uses automated grading on quizzes and group grading instead of individual grading. Provides grading online all the time versus intense grading done for face-to-face courses. Spends 20 hours per week for his online course and allocates 10 to 15 hours for his research activities.

 

For instructors whose responsibilities involve teaching, research, and service, teaching online during shorter semesters in contrast to long semesters can be an effective strategy for balancing workload. Service activities such as committee meetings, conference participation, and institutional projects, can be time-consuming and side-track instructors from teaching and research. Online teaching and research activities require focus, discipline, committed blocks of time, and anticipation of course responsibilities. By choosing to teach online during short semesters, instructors can dedicate focused time to their research, collecting fieldwork data from anywhere.

 

Reference

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

Looking at Online Instructor Workload Through Tangible Course Factors

 

The difference between face-to face and online environments has implications for designing online courses and managing instructor workload. It’s essential to understand this difference and then to look at the overall course and identify course tasks.

You can accomplish this by looking at tangible course factors such as:

·      the number of students in the course.

·      the type of course content.

·      the course format.

·      the interactive strategies.

·      the instructor role or roles that you’ll be taking on.

·      the types of technology you’ll select.

·      the support that will need to be provided.

 

By looking at these tangibles, you will be able to determine the time you will spend on each task before, during and at the end of the course. You’ll also be able to plan the entire course experience, prioritize the tasks, and be better able to manage your workload.

References

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

Lehman, R. M., & Conceição, S. C. O. (2010). Creating a sense of presence in online teaching: How to “be there” for distance learners. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.