This post was developed for an educational technology/professional development workshop in the College of Education at The University of Florida. Feel free to add any additional thoughts or comments as you see fit.

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 Workload Management Strategies for Online Educators 

 

In a study authored by Larry Ragan and Sara Terheggen (2003), workload management strategies were catagorized into four groups:

(1) authoring strategies,

(2) teaching strategies,

(3) course revision and improvement strategies, and

(4) institutional strategies.

For the sake of this presentation, I will focus on a selection of highly relevant strategies (1) authoring and (2) teaching strategies only. On occasion, I have pulled in one or two additional research sources to provide additional strategies relevant to designing online courses.

 

 

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AUTHORING STRATEGIES
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Start with a course development model

Define your objectives, learning outcomes, exit competencies, and an explanation of how the learning process will be evaluated.

"By developing a course development model at the begining of the course authoring process, faculty members can avoid inconsistencies in content presentation, misapplication of technologies, and confusion regarding roles and responsibilities" (Ragan & Terheggen, 2003, p. 14).

 
Provide specific instructions for assignments

Providing specific and detailed instruction significantly reduces faculty workload by reducing student queries and instructor intervention.

Examples:

(1) specify word/and or page count and qualitative expectations in assignment criteria, or

(2) establish grading rubrics and make them available to students
(Ragan & Terheggen, 2003, p. 17).

 

 Design balanced instructional activities

Examples:

(1) try using self-graded assignments for a way to review major concepts

(2) try using peer-evaluation to share assessment workload

(3) use self-evaluations

(4) limit the number of activities designed into the course
(Ragan & Terheggen, 2003, pp. 18-19).

 

 

 Finalize one module or unit before developing remainder of course

This allows early guidance and adjustment so that subsequent units follow with minimal adjustment. (Ragan & Terheggen, 2003, p. 19).

 

 

 

Develop rubrics for each graded assignment

Rubrics (formatted explanations) provide learners with the criteria they need to meet, thus reducing the number of questions an instructor might receive. Rubrics also reduce grading time by using consistent criteria accross assignments. Finally, rubrics provide an order of importnace for evaluation criteria and allow for more precise evaluation of student work. (Ragan & Terheggen, 2003, p. 20).

 

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TEACHING STRATEGIES
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Provide a detailed syllabus

This reduces faculty workload by limiting the number of student queries on an assortment of issues including the schedule, assignments, supplemental readings, grading, ethics, prerequisites, goals, and learning objectives. "Sometimes it is easier to create the syllabus as a final step in the course development process."
(Ragan & Terheggen, 2003, p. 22).

 

 

Define frequency of interaction

So, since your online is asynchronous, you should be available to assist students any time, day or night, right?

Hmmm.... Probably not.

Let conversations in discussion forums go on and see how they develop before jumping in with the "answers." Consider creating weekly synopsis/review posts. Point out strong points made by students and correct student generated points that are off-target. (JALN, 8, 2, p. 35)

 

 
Define operating parameters of your course

Doing so eliminates many questions surrounding the frequency, response time and quality of interactions between students/students, and students/faculty.
(Ragan & Terheggen, 2003, p. 23).

 

 

 
Establish a routine.

Establishing a routine for regular and planned interaction within the online course and with students help faculty members to remain in control of their workloads.
(Ragan & Terheggen, 2003, p. 24).

 

 

  

Establish consistent methods of communication

The use of public posting areas, discussion forums, and/or e-mail announcements for questions of general interest to the entire class reduces the need for individual e-mail responses to commonly asked questions. Students come to rely on accessing announcements posted in a general format if used consistently.

Use the right communication tool for the right task. For example, if the question requires a simple announcement, use e-mail. If the question requires discussion between the students and faculty member, use a public discussion board.
(Ragan & Terheggen, 2003, p. 27).

 

Create opportunities for self-directed learning (Conrad, 2004; Berge, 1995)

You know you're content. You can talk about your subject forever. To prevent overloading yourself with the responsibility of creating content, create situations for students to provide content (Conrad, 2004).

--Provide initial structures and the encourage learners' self-direction

 

 

 

Teaching online provides you a wonderful opportunity to rethink teaching and learning from the ground up. Here's a talk given by Alan Kay at TED 2007 that focuses on a powerful idea about teaching ideas that incorporates a number of ideas mentioned above.

 

Other workload management studies for teaching online

In 2003 Lazarus published a research paper that showed the findings associated with how much time it takes faculty members to teach a course online. She examined 3 courses of 25 students each. She asked instructors to self-monitor the amount of time it took them to complete the following activities:

(1) reading and responding to emails,

(2) reading, participating in, and grading 10 online discussions, and

(3) grading 15  assignments.

The data showed that teaching each online course required 3 to 7 hours per week, with the greatest number of emails and amount of time required to engage learners during the first and second weeks of the semester. Participation in and grading the discussions took the most time and remained steady throughout the term.

The study concludes by asserting that [if adequately designed] the time needed to teach online courses "falls within a range of reasonable expectations for teaching live or online" (Lazarus, 2003, p. 47).

Thompson (2004) conducted a study of comparative workload in the online environment. Results of her studies indicate that faculty workload for teaching online courses, as measured by time on task, was comparable to or somewhat less than that for face-to-face courses. However, a differential “chunking” of productive time contributed in some cases to a perception of increased
workload. (Thompson, 2004, p. 86)

Other workload management resources:

Faculty Satisfaction articles from Sloan-C's wiki
A collection of research articles published in the Journal for Asynchronous Learning Networks.

The Myth about Online Course Development: “A Faculty Member Can Individually Develop and Deliver an Effective Online Course” by Diana Oblinger and Brian Hawkins.
EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 41, no. 1 (January/February 2006): 14–15.
"Although the “Lone Ranger” approach to online learning has worked in the past, it does not scale well. Institutions that are sincere about providing high-quality, flexible educational experiences are finding that teams—not individuals—develop and deliver the most effective online courses."

Assessment and Rubrics:

Online Assessment Resources for Teachers-University of Wisconsin-Stout
Here you will find a hand selected index of authentic assessment resources. You are one click away from vital information about performance assessment, rubrics, negotiable contracting, and electronic portfolios. We include links to web based tools for creating your own assessments.

Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators
Assessment and Rubric resources -- a collection of assessment rubrics and graphic organizers that may be helpful to you as you design your own.

Sample Rubrics aggregated by Winona State University
Hundreds of links to a variety sample rubrics ranging from article reviews to visual technologies.

Create Your Own Rubric Tool
RubiStar is a free tool to help teachers create quality rubrics.

References:

Berge, Z. L. (1995). Facilitating computer conferencing: recommendations from the field. Educational Technology, 35(1): 22-30.

Conrad, D. (2004). University instructors' reflections on their first online teaching experiences. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 8(2): 31-44. Retrieved 26 March 2008 from http://www.sloan-c-wiki.org/wiki/index.php?title=University_Instruc

Lazarus, B. D. (2003). Teaching courses online: How much time does it take? Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 7(3): 47-54. Retrieved 24 March 2008 from http://www.sloan-c-wiki.org/wiki/index.php?title=Teaching_Courses_O

Ragan, L. C. & Terheggen, S. L. (Eds.) (2003). Effective workload management strategies for the online environment. A Report Funded by a Grant from The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to The Pennsylvania State University World Campus. April 15, 2003. Retrieved 24 March 2008 from http://search-results.aset.psu.edu/search?q=Effective+Workload+Management+

Thompson, M. M. (2004). Faculty self-study research project: Examining the online workload. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 8(3): 84-88.
Retrieved 24 March 2008 from http://www.sloan-c-wiki.org/wiki/index.php?title=Faculty_Self-Study