In my experience with teaching online courses, it is necessary to have excellent time management skills to allocate adequate amounts of time for online work. I feel that teaching online is more time consuming than teaching a face-to-face course, because of the extra time it takes to communicate with the students or to guide students that are not comfortable with the online environment and technology.
I agree with what I read in that " Therefore, the role of online instructor will include offline tasks as well as online tasks." and if you are organized, you can stick to the task at hand because it is very easy to get distracted and take longer than expected.
I find being organized and utilizing a to-do checklist helps me to stay on task with my online courses.
To be an effective workload manager you have to be efficient with your time and focused on your goals.
I will use many of the strategies described to help myself and my instructors improve on our time management skills.
Instructor and technology support are key to a successful online class.
The Frequently Asked Questions forum sounds like a good way to address questions that continually come up, while reducing the amount of time needed to respond to each student asking a similar question. FATQ also applies.
That workload always maintain organization and having a heavy workload you should be focused in setting priorities and remaining on task.
It is important to have proper organization when delivering material in an online course. The student should feel comfortable navigating through the online portal system in order to find homework assignments, quizzes/exams, and reading content. This helps to reduce anxiety and stress for the student, and allows for a smoother teaching experience for the instructor.
While workloads can vary from course to course, week to week, day to day - organization, time management, and realistic expectations for self (and students) are essential.
Teaching online means establishing a time schedule and following good practices with time management.
I felt guilty when I "locked in" at work and didn't answer the phone. Now I know that it is a management tool. It is also important that your team also learn to organize their time
Comment on Courtland Grimm's post:
Learned the importance of setting scheduled time for activities
A control of Time Management and not get sidetracked.
Organization is key when staying on top of your workload for online courses.
I have noticed that when I tell students (who are currently not my students) that I have taught the course they are taking, they are more keen to coming to tutoring and getting additional support in the coursework.
Time management is a critical component of successful online instruction
I took away an idea for having a discussion board so that students could help each other troubleshoot issues that arise. Hopefully, that will cut down on the number of emails I get at the beginning of the course.
There must be a symbiotic relationship between instructor workload and student learning in order to be successful
Keeping a schedule and sticking to you planned work load for that day is important to be an effective online teacher. Manage the pace and keep the students focused and away from distractions is key.
