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.

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.

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.

Chuck Manages His Time Rather Than Time Managing Him

Chuck, a teaching academic staff at a four-year institution, teaches early childhood online courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. His teaching workload varies from semester to semester and his course duration lasts from 10, 12, to 16 weeks. Course enrollment varies from 25 to 28 participants. On a given semester, including summer, he teaches two face-to-face courses and one online course. As part of his workload assignment, he is also the program manager. For Chuck, a Type-A personality, teaching online is a 24/7 commitment. It is difficult for him to disconnect; however, he has developed strategies to manage his time. He uses design, support, teaching, and time-allocation strategies to manage his workload. Below are Chuck’s strategies for balancing her workload.

 

Design	Online courses repeat from year to year, so he spends time during the prior semester to prepare for the subsequent offering.
Support	Uses a course orientation with detailed information about the online course as an introduction to the online environment and creation of a context for learner comfort. Uses the help desk for learner support when technical problems arise.
Teaching	Uses group discussions, audio-narrated PowerPoints, audio announcements, and project presentations to accomplish that.
Time-Allocation	Dedicates 20 hours a week to teaching his online courses. Blocks out time daily to check the online course, usually, he does this in the early morning or evening. Checks on the course a little bit every day, rather than in large chunks of time. Manages learner expectations by telling them through explicit communication when he will respond. Has a flurry of learner activity at the beginning of the week and a slower pace toward the end of the week.

 

Managing his time rather than time managing him can be a challenge for online instructors, mainly for Chuck who enjoys being connected 24/7. But this can be a trap. To resolve this challenge, it is important to identify time allocation strategies that can help instructors better manage their time. Over time, Chuck developed strategies that met his needs and created a course that built community.

 

What can you do to avoid being constantly connected with your course? How can you share course responsibility with your learners? How can you allocate your time more efficiently?

Chuck sets up blocks of time to be connected to his online course, uses the community-building approach to involve course participants in learning from and assisting each other, and has a good sense of the pace of his online course.

 

Reference

 

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