The 24-Hour Professor. This Chronicle article discusses the workload associated with teaching online, and explores the "conventional wisdom at many campuses: It takes more time to teach in a virtual classroom than in a regular one." The article focuses on Penn State's Lee Grenci, a well-known figure to readers of Weatherwise magazine (such as myself). An interesting article. A few snippets: Although critics of distance education have worried that virtual classrooms mean less contact between professors and students, many professors say the opposite is true. To compensate for the lack of face-to-face interaction, institutions or professors often promise students a quick response to personal correspondence by e-mail -- with some pledging to answer all student e-mail messages within 24 hours. ... "We've had a millennium to figure out how to control workload in a classroom," says Gary E. Miller, who is associate vice president of distance education at Penn State and executive director of its World Campus. "We're in a phase right now with the development of online learning where we're trying to figure out what the rules should be." ... Some distance-education leaders say that quick responses are key to making students feel part of a virtual class. "The instructor has to have a strong presence, and part of that presence is a 24-hour response," says Heidi Schweizer, director of the Center for Electronic Learning at Marquette University... ... The American Association of University Professors has issued guidelines calling for online office hours to take no more time than traditional ones, says Mark F. Smith, director of government relations for the group. "If we're not careful, we're going to have faculty so overwhelmed with answering individual e-mail questions that they don't have time to teach, research, and deal with the larger concerns of the course," he says.
Online teaching workload As an experienced online course designer and instructor, I have to tell you that I have a lot of problems with that article. The professor profiled seems to have some serious organization issues -- both in course design and in time management (both his and the students'). I could see right off that one of his biggest problems is having 200 students -- that is totally ridiculous. No one can teach 200 students effectively -- not online and not in a traditional auditorium type of class either. The second problem, although not stated, is easy to see -- he has not adequately made expectations known to the students. The third major problem is that he is not TEACHING effectively. If he were doing so, he would not be getting emails constantly asking for clarification on assignments, nor would he need two additional people to hold office hours online for him. Bottom line -- there are 200 students, 2 professors and 2 grad students all responsible for different elements of this course. That is not effective online instruction by any stretch of the imagination. I can effectively teach 10 online classes with a total of 200-280 students distributed throughout the classes and not spend more than 25-35 hours a week. I also answer emails within 24 hours -- including once a day on weekends. All students are required to participate weekly in class discussions and to turn in weekly assiginments. I design my courses to optimize time management for students and for me. Spending time responding to every post in discussions is contrary to good online teaching practice. Having taught online facilitation and moderation skills and having conducted academic conference presentations on online communication in OLEs, I can tell you that very few online professors know how to moderate students' discussions online. It takes training and practice and one gets better with experience. However, this professor obviously has no clue how to effectively design and facilitate online discussions. Having more than 35-40 students in a class reduces dramatically the effectiveness with which even an experienced online instructor can teach. Online classes should be interactive -- but the interaction should be primarily between students, not one-on-one between students and professor. Inexperienced professors, like the poor guy in this article, do not stand a snowball's chance of managing, facilitating, or teaching a class with 200 students. With an inexperienced online prof, instructional effectiveness goes from minimal to non-existent in a class like this. I could write on this topic forever -- refuting most of what was stated in that article. If accurate workload for online professors were to be demonstrated, then they should at least have chosen as their primary example an instructor who has some experience, knowledge and training in online instruction and design. This guy designed his own course and is teaching for the first time -- which is no example at all of effective online instruction. My opinion is thumbs down for this article and most of what it portrays about online teaching. Leslie E-Learning Innovations http://elearning.homestead.com
Actually 270 students (though 25% have dropped out), 2 instructors, and 2 undergrad assistants. Perhaps they selected Lee Grenci because he's widely known (author of a standard textbook, and a well-known popularizer of meterology in magazines and on TV). I agree with John that a letter to the Chronicle might be worthwhile. This article sends a terrible message to other faculty who might be faced with the opportunity to teach a course online.
Leslie, I do a little online teaching, and a lot of face-to-face. I can't imagine teaching some 270 students in an online class, even with 2 TAs and tech support. (That's my teaching load for the year -- solo!) Your replies, both here and at the Chronicle, state that this should be no trouble at all. What, I think, you've failed to grasp is something pointed out in Dana Zimbleman's reply to you on the Chronicle's online Colloquy page http://chronicle.com/colloquy/2002/email/21.htm: there's a big difference between teaching at regionally-accredited universities than at an online continuing-ed shop accredited by ACCET or the unaccredited UniversalClass.com. Jon Porter Butler University
Last time I checked, Sonoma State, Cal Poly, UCSD, Cal State Hayward, Cal State Bakersfield, Michigan State University, Chapman, Drake (and several others where I am scheduled to teach in the Fall and cannot name at this point in time) were all regionally accredited -- when exactly did that change and how did I miss that? My website does not list anywhere near all the undergraduate and graduate courses I have taught, am scheduled to teach, have designed and am in the process of designing. That is on my CV and is not for public view. You and Dana both failed to understand my point. I do not teach one single class with 270 students. Anywhere from 100-250 students are distributed throughout all the classes I teach in one semester. I have had as many as 103 students in one class -- and even then it's just not as hard as you people make it out to be. My background and education is EDUCATION -- perhaps that is the difference. I KNOW how to teach -- traditional and online -- and my evaluations over the years in public schools and college and the business sector speak volumes for my instructional ability and talent in the classroom -- virtual or traditional. That's another MAJOR problem with college professors -- they simply do not know how to teach. Most have never had an education or teaching course or online instructional training. They know their content areas but they do not know how to teach (although there are some very talented college professors). And even if a professor is a talented traditional teacher, that does not in any way mean s/he will be effective online for the medium is quite different and calls for different instructional methodology and communication. For the most part they make it harder than it is -- and they cannot believe that someone out here can do what they obviously cannot. If you cannot handle as many online classes (and students) as you do traditional classes with the same or even less workload, then there is a serious problem with course design and/or instruction. Part of my teaching responsibilities include training college instructors/professors HOW to design effective online classes and HOW to teach those classes. There are plenty of training courses at plenty of universities for online instructors -- perhaps those having organizational and time management difficulties should consider enrolling in one of those. Just my opinion
Re: Online teaching workload Why isn't that a contradiction? OK, lets get out our calculators: 280 students x 2 activities (class discussion and "weekly assignment") = 560 student activities/week. 560/35 hours = 16 student activities per hour, or 3.75 minutes/student activity. (This falls to only 2.68 minutes/activity if you only put in 25 hours/week.) That's assuming an instantaneous computer and no time spent doing anything else. Hell, I spend more than 3.75 minutes on each Degreeinfo post. How could I respond to serious ideas that quickly? Even if you ignore class discussions and spend no time reading them at all, you have (ideally) 7.5 minutes per weekly student assignment. Can a university level assignment be read, and a useful and thoughtful response composed (let alone typed) that quickly? What if the material isn't elementary and involves some creative thought on the student's (and your) part? I can't get past thinking that teaching ten simultaneous classes is a seriously excessive teaching load.
Re: Re: Online teaching workload Very good questions -- let's see if I can clarify -- though I haven't seemed to do so well at that thus far Your mathematical examples are right on the money IF you teach in the traditional manner. If I taught like that, then I would suspect I could not handle 10 classes with 20 students in each either. I believe that the "normal" traditional course load is.......... what?............5 or 6 classes? And in many colleges, some of those classes have 200 students or more. Some of my undergrad classes were those "auditorium" formats -- and the professor did not teach and we didn't learn. We simply memorized and regurgitated on multiple choice tests. 200 students in one huge class is quite different from 20 in ten classes or 30-40 in six classes. There are no absolutes of course. It depends on many variables -- the content, the assignments, the course design, students' experience in online learning, how many of the classes are the same content, assessment design, quarter or semester or 6-8 week course, instructor's experience and competence...........the list is endless. I did not say that one could not teach 200 students -- I said 200 students in one class is ridiculous -- especially if one is also teaching several traditional classes. If I had an online class with 200 students, the first thing I would do is break it up into groups of 20, each with separate discussion area, email addy for instructor, inbox/dropbox, assessment folders, etc. So that, in effect, what you end up with is a lot of smaller classes rather than one huge class. This can be done right in the same online class. I know -- the next question is -- what's the difference? 200 students is 200 students. Not so. Two education degrees and 25 years of teaching experience have taught me a lot about effective instructional strategies in different types of learning environments. Keep in mind too, please, that entire semester-length graduate education courses teach ONE element each of what I am trying to explain here in one small post on a discussion forum. Online teaching is different -- you cannot teach the same way you do in a traditional class. Learning is different. Assessments are different. The problem comes when instructors try to transfer a traditional class to an online format and do not take into account the different instructional methodology. There are so very many instructional strategies that facilitate student learning: teams and groups, communicating individually, in groups, pairs and as a whole class, peer teaching and peer assessment......... the list goes on forever. The old tried (and not so true) pedagogy (and andragogy as the case may be) is that one listens to lecture, reads a text, completes assignments, and moves on the the next content topic. Everyone does the same thing at the same time and moves along at the same pace. This is just not the way it happens online. And instructors who try to make it happen that way are doing their students a disservice and are going to work themselves into the ground. What they end up with is nothing more than a correspondence course with an online discussion area to post answers to some of the assignements. That is not a true interactive distance learning course. I teach interactive courses -- not traditional courses transferred to an online format. Online teaching and learning is a whole new way of instruction -- and it just cannot be done with the same old traditional methods. Online teaching and learning provides an unprecedented opportunity for personalized instruction -- which put responsibility for learning on the students and frees up the instructor from all that horrendous administrative crap to have time to really guide learning with individual students, small groups or the whole class.
Leslie wrote: Why is your CV not for public view? (Mine is not online, but will be once I get a chance to set it up. E-mail me and I'll gladly send you a copy.) According to your own website, you were awarded an MSEd last year and that you are scheduled to teach a summer class for CSU Hayward. You mention no other university-level teaching. The majority of your teaching experience seems to be proprietary continuing ed. short courses. Yet you claim here that you're teaching at What are you teaching, and at what level? Why can you not name them? (Full disclosure: I do mainly freshman & sophomore world history and culture surveys, but also teach mediaeval(300/500 level) and modern Europe (200), the Crusades(400), Revolutionary France(also 400), and the Excelsior grad. research and writing. I'm full-time, with a 3/4 load this year, plus a bit of adjuncting (one or two classes a term) across town: it worked out to a 5/5 this year and about 225 students. Butler University and the University of Indianapolis.) You also wrote: (Emphasis added.) Then you've never had to deal with four sections of undergraduates. So. Ten classes of say 25 students. 25-35 hrs a week. HOW? The math only works if (i) you never have more than one class at time or (ii) you do absolutely no preparation or grading. Of course, your response will be that either I have not read your post carefully enough or that online teaching and learning is different from traditional teaching and learning. Jon Porter Indianapolis
Well, you got part of it right anyway Online teaching and learning IS different. My work this summer is all graduate ed tech courses and I will concur that teaching undergrads is more difficult than teaching grads, though I believe that will change over time. I currently work with K12 and college teachers as well as some business trainers in online instructional methodology. Undergrads are quite a bit more "needy" and if allowed to do so, will email instructors on a daily basis about everything under the sun. It took some design and organization changes to reduce the "hand holding" but they do get the message if expectations are clearly stated upfront. However, it can never be totally eliminated and even grad students attempt to do that from time to time. By their own admission, many instructors have said that few of those daily emails are important enough to warrant 24 hour turnaround - which is what the debate is all about. It is my experience that if the course is organized effectively, instructors won't need to answer constant, unimportant emails on a daily basis. And the important emails deserve 24 hour turnaround, in my opinion. In some respects online teaching is like traditional teaching in that younger students need to be taught how to be responsible learners more than they need to "be taught" course content. The only bad student evals I ever got were from those who did not want to do the work and were quite irate that I would not make it easier and/or tell them exactly how to do it. But there will always be students like that, both grad and undergrad, and in both traditional and online classes. Such is the nature of teaching
Leslie, If you were one of my students, I'd scrawl on the bottom of your bluebook page "You have not answered the question" and assign a distressingly low grade. The old challenge was "Show me your tools." I'm still waiting. Jon Porter Indianpolis
The evasion was intentional. I value my right to privacy -- especially in the virtual world. I have no idea if you are who you say you are -- or anyone else here for that matter -- not to mention all the "lurkers" on a public discussion forum. I will not divulge personal information. Guess I'll have to accept that low grade
I'm not asking for your SSN and bank account numbers. I'm asking you what classes you have taught and where. You claim to be an experienced online teacher, yet your master's degree is a year old; whilst you claim to teach at a number of universities, the available evidence shows you teaching only one summer class; when pressed for details, you claim that it is all private information, even tho' your education and experience is all listed on your web page. At the same time, you pontificate about teaching, both here and in the Chronicle's online colloquy, and how we university teachers -- all with verifiable experience -- don't know what we are doing. I see buzzwords and jargon, not real substance and experience. You have yet to answer the question Dana Zimbleman posed you over on the Chronicle. I too am curious: You have claimed on several occasions that it is possible to teach 250 students online and only work 35 hours each week. HOW? Jon Porter AB Wabash, MPhil St Andrews, PhD Nottingham
There are means of communication other than public forums and my communication with others is not your concern. In a nutshell (and this is all you are going to get so quit badgering me) I have instructed and/or designed online grad ed tech for the institutions previously mentioned, independent (non-credit) courses for business and professional groups, and have recently been accepted as online adjunct faculty at several other universities, although I have not yet instructed any courses for those. In the past 4 years, I also have instructed traditional college undergraduate Business Communications, Sociology, Freshman Comp and College/Career Success courses and held the position of the college Learning Center Director. And before you go nitpicking again – yes, much of my college teaching has been prior to receiving my MSEd (which I have had for one year). My experience and expertise combined with previous grad work were good enough for me to teach in college without a masters degree. Think and say what you like -- I have no need to further explain my credentials, experience and knowledge to anyone in a public forum.
