It’s about time…

Time is a crucial element in planning teaching and learning. So why are we so bad at estimating it? This blog post started with a Twitter thread and the thoughtful discussion around it conviced me there is probably more to this topic than can be expressed on Twitter. I am not claiming to provide a silver bullet here, but I think it’s useful to point out a few important aspects to bear in mind, especially when designing for the online environment.

Teaching and learning have a different temporal dimension online. As the time units that guide our face-to-face course planning (e.g. two-hour lecture, one-hour seminar) have become irrelevant, we are struggling to estimate how long certain tasks will take in the online environment, both for us and for our students. Because we operate in a new learning space, we run two risks: (1) to spend too little time both for planning and teaching, leaving students with little guidance and support and (2) to spend too much time, over-design the course, thus overwhelming students with a myriad of resources (the pedagogical version of digital hoarding) and unrealistic tasks. Read about how to avoid cognitive overload here.

Quantifying learning?

Trying to get this balance right is crucial for our well-being and that of our students. Calculating time pragmatically (yes, calculating!) can help us manage our workload and also manage student expectations. We might not get it right the first time around so we need to keep trying. This can only be an iterative process.

Here are some ideas on how to approach this:

• First things first: we can only have a realistic time estimate if we have a clear idea about our teacher presence. How much time are we planning to spend interacting with students? In which way(s)? At which points in the course does the interaction need to be more intense? And how are we planning to provide feedback?
• Consider the fine line between structure and flexibility. Clear task instructions and precise timelines are useful, but offering students a choice on how to tackle certain tasks is part of the flexibility that makes studying online attractive and helps them train their self-directed learning skills. Try to account for both structured time and unstructured time in your estimation.
• It’s a matter of alternately zooming in and zooming out. We need to go granular and calculate time on task but at the same time we also need to maintain a holistic view of the learning process. Learning activities do not exist in a vacuum, they ideally build on each other and require preparation time as well as time for feedback and debriefing.
• Don’t forget your students. Make sure you communicate your expectations in terms of time and outputs clearly. Ask them for feedback often (at least in the beginning) and try to adjust accordingly.

Some useful tools

Estimating time is closely linked to the course design process. The Learning Designer is a tool that enables educators to design and plan their courses in detail, including various activity types, time on task, synchronous/ asynchronous ratio, activities that require teacher presence vs. independent learning, etc. It is also a useful platform to share course design with peers, an important element for creating a community of practice.

There are tools that can help estimate Time on Task, but we still need to be mindful of generalising and try to remember who our students are and the diverse situations they are in. We need to take into account the various types of learning (passive/ active, individual/collaborative, etc) included in the course and the balance among them. Spelling out the activity instructions step by step, including expected outputs, can help clarify what the task really involves, enabling us to make a more precise time estimation. More resources on this can be found here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

We should probably take a moment to honestly consider the amount of time we spend and demand of students to spend on our courses. Quantifying learning is definitely no easy task but it can prove to be a useful exercise that enables us to focus on designing for learning.

Big thanks to Maxine David, Maha Bali, Tim Fawns, Colin Hickie and Dustin Hosseini for their contributions on Twitter. Let’s keep the discussion going:

Thanks for reading! I am looking forward to reading your thoughts or suggestions in the comments below. For more insights, analysis and tips on (higher) education, online teaching and UX design, follow me on Twitter and/or sign up to my newsletter!