Strategies for Finding Balance and Success – TEACHING

 

Our book, Managing Online Instructor Workload: Strategies for Finding Balance and Success (Conceição & Lehman, 2011), suggests four strategies that are based on four major themes that emerged from an instructor/learner study we conducted: 

1. design strategies, 

2. support strategies, 

3. teaching strategies, and 

4. time-allocation strategies

These strategies can guide and help online instructors determine how to manage their workload and prioritize their time so that they can find balance and success in their work and personal life. This week we’re looking at the third strategy – TEACHING.

3. TEACHING – The strategies instructors use in their online teaching comprise a major part of their workload. These teaching strategies serve as the plan of action for delivering the online course. Instructors carry out tasks during and at the end of the course to meet their teaching goals. These tasks are related to administrative, facilitative, and evaluative responsibilities. In Chapter 3 of our book, we explain how the administrative, facilitative, and evaluative tasks affect instructor workload and address approaches to carry out these tasks more efficiently and effectively to balance workload. 

 

Finally next week: 4. TIME-ALLOCATION STRATEGIES

 

References

 

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

Strategies for Finding Balance and Success – SUPPORT

 

As we noted in our last posting, in our book, Managing Online Instructor Workload: Strategies for Finding Balance and Success (Conceição & Lehman, 2011), four strategies based on four major themes emerged from an instructor/learner study we conducted: 1. design strategies, 2. support strategies, 3. teaching strategies, and 4. time-allocation strategies. These strategies can help instructors determine how to manage their workload and prioritize their time so that they can find balance and success in their work and personal life. Let’s look at the second strategy – SUPPORT.

 

2. SUPPORT – The support strategies used by instructors in online courses depend on the instructor’s level of experience in teaching online (is the instructor a novice or has he/she previously taught online courses); the type of course being taught (is it a content course, process course or a blend of both); the level of the course offering (is the course an undergraduate or a graduate course); learner enrollment and learner needs (how many students are enrolled in the course and what are the specific needs of the learners); and the type of technology(ies) used (is the course solely online or is the instructor using blended technologies – both asynchronous and synchronous). Support strategies can take the form of one-on-one support, institutional support, peer support, and/or external support.

Next week, we'll look at: 3. TEACHING STRATEGIES 

References

 

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

 

Strategies for Finding Balance and Success – DESIGN

 

The first workload strategy is DESIGN. Instructors use the following design strategies to manage workload:

• pre-planning to make sure that everything is ready prior to the beginning of the course for their learners 
• anticipating all course responsibilities and plotting them on a grid or timeline to see the "big picture" 
• prioritizing course activities to easily see which ones need more time and which less 
• anticipating learners’ needs so that needs are met before they become concerns 
• reflecting on and revising courses already taught so that the courses are up-to-date and relevant.

 

The more instructors can pre-plan and visualize the "big picture" the less they will have to be concerned with time-consuming issues during the actual course delivery. 

 

Next week, we'll look at: 2. SUPPORT STRATEGIES.

References

 

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

 

Strategies for Finding Balance and Success

 

In our book, Managing Online Instructor Workload: Strategies for Finding Balance and Success (Conceição & Lehman, 2011), we discuss four strategies based on four major themes that emerged from an instructor/learner study we conducted:

1.    design strategies 

2.    support strategies

3.    teaching strategies

4.    time-allocation strategies

 

The focus of these strategies is to help instructors determine how they can manage their workload and prioritize their time to find balance and success in their work and personal life.

Once an instructor becomes experienced with online teaching, managing time should become a natural part of workload. The workload strategies we discuss can help by serving as guidelines for practice. In the next weeks, we will focus on the four strategies. Stay tuned!

 

References

 

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

Using a Template to Preplan for Managing Tasks and Prioritizing Time

 

By using a template to manage workload for online instruction you can preplan your design and delivery responsibilities and tasks.

First, you'll need to become familiar with the online course design components that will help to make the virtual seem "real" for your students. Because these components are tangible they can be converted into tasks and time.

Our "Template for Managing Tasks and PrioritizingTime," contained in our book Managing Online Instructor Workload: Strategies for Finding Balance and Success can serve as a guide for workload and time spent when creating your online course of any kind:

1.    a new course

2.    conversion of a face-to-face course to online course

3.    revision of a course you've already taught online

The template will guide you in identifying and laying out each course sequence, the type of tasks within each sequence, the period during the course when each sequence takes place, and the estimated time spent on each task. 

For new online courses, the template can help you estimate tasks and time spent during the course design and delivery.

For a converted course, the template can help with the process of rethinking how to teach the course in the new environment.

For existing online courses, the template can help you revisit tasks and time spent and become more efficient when teaching the same course again. We hope you enjoy using the template!

References

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