Stephen Ehrmann
Posts: 11
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| 29/05/2007 18:04 |
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During the chat session, the topic of assessment as added work came up. I alluded to a study indicating that that time demands on instructors, while comparatively rigid in the short term, seem more malleable in the long run. Parkinson observed that work expands to fill the time available. The instructor corollary is that we spend all the time we believe we can afford to make a course as good as possible. That instructional practice gets built into the syllabus, routines and expectations of students so it is hard to change in the short term. But in the longer term, instructors may have considerable freedom of action here, and in other phases of their lives, to adjust how much time they spend. This pilot study by Geith and Cometa, though quite small, hints at this reality. Time spent teaching a course seems more a function of the individual instructor than of the course format (e.g., campus versus various distance learning formats).
http://www.tltgroup.org/resources/F_Eval_Cases/Geith_Cometa.htm
The study is a chapter in the Flashlight Cost Analysis Handbook. |
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Derek Rowntree
Posts: 35
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| 30/05/2007 10:41 |
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I guess you're talking about instructor workload here, Stephen, and my own Open University experience reminds me how any conscientious teacher can easily drive herself or himself into overload with an online course, constantly logging on (24/7 and at home as well as work) for fear of neglecting a student in need of help, sorting out a patch of misguided peer teaching or simply keeping up with all the interesting points that are being made in the online classroom. If you don't, you can get to feel marginalised but if you do, you risk burn-out!
A related question is whether your institution recognises the amount of extra time required by online teaching and assessment. Or do expect to you to teach another f2f class as a replacement for the one that has migrated to online?
Students also are prone to overload pressures with online learning and assessment, especially if they are expected to get involved in discussion, collaboration and peer-assessment. Will they stick doggedly with their (say) 40 hour per week norm? Or will anxiety lead them to spend far more time on your online course than you'd expect them to spend on a classroom version, perhaps at the expense of their performance in other teacher's classes? What does experience tell us about this? |
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Stephen Ehrmann
Posts: 11
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| 30/05/2007 12:42 |
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[quote]A related question is whether your institution recognises the amount of extra time required by online teaching and assessment.[/quote]
Derek, that's the point of this study. There's a question about whether online teaching and assessment really does "require" extra time. The Geith and Cometa study compared faculty who were experienced in both a campus-bound form of teaching and a distance learning format. The instructors they interviewed all had the first impression that the distance format was more time-consuming. But after a 45 minute individual interview, in which they analyzed the different components of teaching in both formats, their perceptions had changed. Some had reversed their conclusions, because their own estimates indicated that the campus format was more time-consuming for them. Some instructors now estimated that the two formats were the same. Still others concluded that, for them, the distance format was more time-consuming. For the whole group, the two were about the same. What was more striking, for me, was that the instructors varied radically in how much time they each spent. At this institution, experienced instructors had enough freedom of action in how they designed and taught their courses that, over time, they could adjust their workload to fit their sense of what was needed and bearable. To repeat, this was a pilot study. But the results do ring true to me.
Another important point: these instructors were experienced in both modes. I have little doubt that, the faster the pace of change, the higher the transient workload. I believe that we need to quicken the pace of improvement in teaching and learning (including updating course content as well as teaching methods). That implies finding ways to do so that don't increase workloads. That's why, here at The TLT Group, we have been focusing on 'low threshold' ideas for teaching improvement and faculty support. See, for example, this web page on using short online clips to fuel "5 minute workshops" for faculty: http://www.tltgroup.org/TLT5.htm
I'd like to see some 5 minute workshops to help faculty incrementally improve assessment practice.
We've also been collecting easy-to-understand assessment ideas from instructors. This list, for example, was assembled with a survey to people attending a conference several years ago:
http://www.tltgroup.org/seven/4_Feedback.htm
We've got a slightly larger collection of such ideas for Strathclyde and our other subscribing institutions |
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Derek Rowntree
Posts: 35
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| 30/05/2007 18:06 |
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| Thanks Stephen, those are useful looking resources you've drawn to our attention. |
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