It is important to me to get as early of a start to the day as possible. My routine starts at 7 am. I am running an 6 day a week workload due to the fact I am currently facilitating 8 courses. In conjunction to operating my computer consulting business.
Having these two full time jobs at times can be daunting, but the computer business end is as flexible as my time in the classrooms.
It is imperative, i follow along my daily template to make sure all the day's items have been addressed. Normal days will include grading, discussion posting, and emails. Other duties, like retainment are not done every day, but are also scheduled. Everything has a day.
I start my day at 7 am, before all the phone calls. In conjunction to teaching I still operate my computer consulting business. It does allow me to have some flexibility, but at times, will interfere with the teaching workload.
I am currently running a 6 day a week workload. I am teaching 8 classes. Monday & Tuesdays are always my main grading days. I have developed a checklist. I need to check off every work day in order to keep on task. Each day it has some repeated elements like, grade, check emails, discussion posting, but other days there are more items, like following up on missing students and their assignments. During the one weekend day, I only try to spend 3-4 hours max.
Joan,
Wow - three different schools? I'd forget where I was supposed to be when. ;-) Keep up the hard work. It's good that you realize you were born a procrastinator and how to stay away from that. Thanks!
Time management is a must for me as I teach at three different schools. Two are online universities and one is at our local community college. Although I teach Pharmacy Technician courses, the course lengths are all very different and the courses are also different. One school goes by quarters so the course is approximately four months long, the second one has courses five weeks long, and the third has courses that are ten weeks long. I have to say that I am fortunate to have a laptop computer and a desktop computer, because I have to use three different browsers to accommodate the three colleges. I have a fairly strict regime in order to be organized. I even schedule in sleep time and times to eat, because as ridiculous as it sounds, I can get so busy that I’ll realize its 6 pm and I haven’t eaten all day. I have a calendar on my computers where I have everything scheduled, and it alerts me when it’s time to stop what I’m doing. I approximate how long I will need to grade papers, lectures, preparing for the following day, posting discussion topics and responding back to those posts. I also schedule these things by colors to help me to prioritize. The most important thing I found was to schedule time for miscellaneous. Regardless of how well we plan, things always come up. There is always a student or two that may need a bit of help, grading papers possibly took more time than usual, and we all have personal hiccups. I was born a procrastinator and when I first started teaching I was constantly overwhelmed. I had to actually take a time management course myself, and for me I have found that time management is something I continue to learn. If I follow my calendar, my day goes by smoothly. I have found that my life, in general, has become far more organized as a result.
Jean,
What you have provided us in this posting do help instructors to be consistent in their communication each day as they have a system for communication. Thanks!
There are a few consistent time management practices I follow:
*Allocate at least an hour a day to online course Q & A, emails and the like.
*Holding consistent office hours for students to attend and or view archives
*creating smart phone reminders of grading deadlines, live chats and office hours.
Christina,
There are instructors who are "night owls" and those that are "early birds" and work well in the a.m. Finding the time where you can concentrate on the task at hand is the key. The template of responses and calendar to help with organizing your time will help save you time. Nice job.
In reference to the lecture, I am a "night owl" and find that the best time to work is after the family has gone to sleep. Especially with grading. E-mail goes off and I have the office to myself.
I also find it helpful to have a written calendar. Having a calendar on my e-mail can be distracting when there are always new e-mails coming in when trying to figure out my schedule.
In responding to student e-mails, I also find it very helpful to have template responses. For instance, when a student is letting me know that they have submitted their late assignment, a standard e-mail thanking them for the update and to watch for my comments goes a long way for them. And it is a simple copy/paste action that saves time to work on the more complex student e-mails.
Leigh,
Providing the info that you do will help students develop more time management skills and keep up with the needed item in the online environment. Thanks!
I have a list of repeat, on-going tasks that need to be accomplished on each day of the week. These are things like, "post announcement", and "send email re:assignment". These tasks could become rote, however, there are so many of them that one or two tend to be forgotten if I'm not careful! I find my daily list helps me to achieve the "best practices" that I strive for.
In addition, I try to check email every day (although I have found it hard to set a time for this because some emails contain tasks which take up quite a lot of time).
Alan,
That makes sense. Any time you have some free time and can work ahead, the better. Sounds like you have a system that is working for you. Thanks for your post as it provides others with good tips.
Alan,
Consistency does help students remember assignment due dates, chats, or whatever you may be doing.
Thanks!
Alan,
Glad you have taken some tips from Dr. Rodriquez in this forum. Keep learning and moving forward. Take care.
Hector,
And, any more it's not only about time management, it's about priority management. We have to know what's most important and what should be done first. Thanks for your input.
Hello Dr. Crews,
To be an effective online facilitator you need to have very good time management skills. Personally I have developed a schedule where I allocate time to the different tasks/duties associated with facilitating an online class.
Time is allocated to review emails and other communications from the students, answer questions on assignments or course content. I also set time aside to participate in discussion threads regularly. Finally, enough time is also allocated to grading to ensure students get formative, timely, relevant feedback.
Making use of course Announcements where you share with your students your course requirements, expectations and availability reduces amount of time needed to facilitate an online course effectively. Poor time management leads to a terrible online facilitation experience which will frustrate both the instructor and the students.
Hector Morales
Hello Dr. Rodriquez:
I will try to follow your example. I don't have near the workload, but I do teach for two online universities, do teach day classes on contract, and do write test prep.
Best regards,
Alan Grayson
That makes a lot of sense Denise. I use sticky notes to remind myself of faculty meetings. Otherwise I try to be consistent in the scheduling of chats and in the posting on discussion boards so I know that I have to post on Monday, Wednesday and Sunday.
It's easy to get distracted. I try to use free time to get ahead where I can, such as crafting announcements, discussion board posts and learning materials. I teach at two online universities. Both allow me to construct announcements and schedule when they will be visible. I also like to get a jumpstart on grading by starting on Sunday afternoon, rather than waiting until Monday. Finally, I have deadline for everything such as completing grading at one school by Monday and completing grading at the other by Tuesday. I try to check email at least twice a day. I try to focus on the task at hand and do my work in batches.
For the most part I am successful, but sometimes I get distracted and have to refocus.
Peter,
Glad you brought up the out of office announcement. That's important. I use it in conjunction withe an announcement to students letting them know I'll be out of town for a bit. Thanks!
Deborah,
You have to set time to work and set time to NOT work. We have to keep our sanity and do all we can to not become a 24/7 instructor. Thanks!
