Time Management Tips for Online Teachers
Teaching Online Takes as Much Time, if Not More, than F2F Teaching
Mar 10, 2009
Discussion forums will extend and strengthen the social interaction that occurs naturally in a face to face class. Students who were otherwise shy, or at least not participative in the live discussion in a f2f class, will often come out of their shells and spend a great deal of time participating in the online discussion. Students who tend to dominate live discussions will still participate in the online discussion, but others will have a chance to respond because the discussion is asynchronous.
Other benefits of the online learning environment include practical ones like freeing up classroom space and being able to offer classes at times that are convenient for both faculty and students.
Time Requirements Will Change
However, these benefits come at a price. Time requirements need to be carefully considered for both students and faculty. Managing time is critical in order to prevent students from leaving because of lack of interaction and to make sure faculty do not over-or under-do the time on task in an online course. Over-doing it could result in faculty burnout and under-doing it could result in lower student retention. A balance needs to be found that will work for everyone involved.
CMS Learning Curve
Part of the time management process for instructors is the learning curve in the use of the Content Management System (CMS). This could be Blackboard, Moodle, Angel, or any other system that is designed to hold and deliver content. Not only does the instructor need to know how to use the CMS, he or she must be prepared for upgrades and new releases of the software, something which always seems to add challenges for instructors.
Getting Started In Online Teaching
When online learning just started becoming popular, the learning curve for faculty was very steep. The software was not very sophisticated and required teachers to know more about technology than they really needed to know. This is where the fear of online teaching started.
Thankfully, software is much more user friendly than it was, making the transition to online teaching somewhat smoother. More and more people are familiar with the Internet, although just being able to navigate MySpace is not enough to be immediately comfortable with an online CMS.
Take the Focus off the Technology
Learning how to use the CMS is still an important step in the process and instructors must accept that learning the software will also require some time on the part of the student as well. Here are some strategies that instructors can use to help the students right away, saving time and taking the focus off the technology and putting it on the content.
- Structure the course carefully
- Use the discussion forums extensively
- Do not overload the students the first two weeks
- Publish the course schedule in several places in the CMS
- Let the students help each other
Remember, the goal is to have the software running quietly in the background while the student is learning the content in an efficient manner.
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