MANAGING TIME FOR TEACHING

Dr. Julie Sievers, Director

The Center for Teaching Excellence

Works Cited

Robertson, Douglas Reimondo. Making Time, Making Change: Avoiding Overload in College Teaching.  Stillwater, OK: New Forums Press, 2003.

Boice, Robert. Advice for New Faculty Members. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon, 2000.

First Things: Know Thyself

How are you actually spending your time?

Perception ≠ reality

. . . go research yourself

Track Your Time

Tools: reverse day

planner log or diary time map

spreadsheet

collect 2 wks data

See Joli Jensen, “Who Knows Where the Writing Time Goes?”

Observe Your Habits

• How do you deal with distractions: phone calls, student emails, internet browsing, social media, meetings, hallway chit-chat?

• When do you start and stop working?

• Where do you work with greatest focus?

• What time of day do you work best?

• How much sleep do you get?

Do My Choices Match My Goals & Values?

Every moment, you are making choices about your time.

Do you make them intentionally?

Or

do you simply respond to whatever comes at you first or hardest?

At its most fundamental level, managing time intentionally is about consciously choosing

between two (or many more) good things. It is about making difficult choices and committing

ourselves to those choices. Most profoundly, using time intentionally is about values conflict,

discernment, and commitment.

Time is a resource: we must learn to invest our time in what we value—and to say “no”– in

correspondence with our deepest priorities. - Douglas Robertson

Reconcile Values with Realities Identify the Major Areas of Your Life

Include areas you value but neglect

Assign times for each area

There are 168 hours in a week. Work: _____ hrs / wk

Family: _____ hrs / wkHealth / Exercise: _____ hrs / wkCommunity Work: _____ hrs/ wkSleep: _____ hrs / wk

Identify the Major Areas of Your Faculty Work Assign a Weight to Each Area Do the Math (for weeks, months, semesters, or

years)

For example: Work: 50 hrs/week*

Teaching and advising: 70% = 35 hrs/wk

Service: 15% = 7.5 hrs/wkProfessional development: 15% = 7.5

hrs/wk

Keep doing the math

Teaching: 35 hrs/week-3 office hrs-12 in-class hours (4 x 3 hrs each)

= 20 hrs for course prep & grading / 4 courses

= 5 prep & grading hrs / course / wk

Translate Values to Your Calendar

Use a “Sunday Meeting” to block out your week. Kerry Ann Rockquemore, The Sunday Meeting  

1. Block your time commitments on weekly calendar (hard commitments + values)

2. Create Your To-Do List3. Map Your Tasks Onto Your Time4. Realize that You have More Tasks than

Time5. Make Hard (but Conscious) Decisions

Think: Do you make conscious decisions about your time? • If so: what’s your process? • If not: what prevents you?

Write: your thoughts on a piece of paper.

Think / Write

. . . with time to spare

Preparing to Teach

Why Less is More

Good teaching ≠ covering maximal content

If your main goal is to be comprehensive, you may:

Generate more material than you can actually cover

Present material at a pace too fast for student participation or deep engagement

Spend lots of time in painstaking preparation

Some numbers, from Boice’s research:

Faculty who focus on comprehensive content coverage spend

10-15+ hrs / week per class (includes prep, teaching, ofc hrs)

Or 40-60+ hrs / week for a 4-course load

3:1 - 4:1 ratio of prep time to classroom teaching time

In spite of hard work, they often encounter:

Unengaged students

Poor student comprehension

Mediocre student ratings

Personal distress

Traits of time-effective faculty

According to Boice’s studies, successful faculty achieve:

2:1 ratio of prep time to class time

High levels of student involvement in class (taking notes, asking questions, engaging in discussions)

Brief, tentative lecture notes

Moderately paced lecturing that allows students to take notes and comprehend points

Work without rushing and busyness

More time better teaching

In fact . . . Too much prep can diminish the

quality of your teaching.

Note to self: Conscientious teaching

does not require constant exhaustion.

Strategy 1: Prepare Reflectively“A growing reflectiveness, especially in terms of

audience awareness, helps simplify teaching materials to their most memorable and connectable essentials.

As teachers grow more calm and contemplative, they more often organize lectures and discussions into a few central points they hope to make for the day.

They replace the additional points they were tempted to make with more examples and applications of the central points.” (Boice, 23)

Essential or Not?

Reflect Draft clear goals for

students’ learning (learning objectives)

Reflect on your learning goals

Consider how they apply to the material at hand

Simplify (and Reduce)

Consider ways to “cut to the chase”

Solve the “right problem”

“Research distinguishes

expert problem solvers

as people who

take time to pause

and to

consider alternatives,

who make sure they are

solving the right problem

or answering the right question.”

(Boice 24)

Your New Motto: “Perfect is Not Beautiful”

Robertson: “Perfectionism is grossly inefficient.”

Boice: “Moderate Over-attachment to Content and Over-reactions to Criticism”

Suggestion: Practice early & mid-course evaluations / feedback from students

Suggestion: Encourage early (& regular) feedback from colleagues – classroom visits, feedback on course materials

Why? Solve the right problem Borrow others’ brains Understand course as

work-in-progress Ameliorate perfectionism

Bonuses:

“A slower, more deliberate style of preparing and presenting

Simpler teaching notes, organized around essential points and directions,

Reflective teaching can

leaves teaching materials less rigidly structured and more creative, exciting.”

lead faculty to spend less time looking at notes, more time eliciting student involvement and comprehension.

lead faculty to say things more directly , simply, or memorably

Strategy 2: Prep early and informally

Use pauses in other activities to think about teaching ideas

Do prewriting or preplanning activities, like creating rough drafts of conceptual outlines, then successively revising these

Talk through their ideas with others

Set early deadlines for completing preparations

Begin collecting and connecting materials long before formal planning begins: put notes into files, rearrange ideas and categories in files, look for illustrative cases, tentatively arrange materials for classroom presentation

Outcomes of early, informal starts

“[efficient] participants translated their prewritten and pre-diagrammed notes into class notes well before the [inefficient] nonparticipants began preparing their classes of similar dates.

[These] participants [spent] less total time [ . . .] getting ready for class, usually a savings of at least half the time spent preparing by matched nonparticipants.” (25)

Strategy 3: Prep in brief, regular sessions

Prep in brief, regular sessions

“Initiating early work in sessions so brief they necessitate no major scheduling (ie, during interstices of existing schedules). Only later, when early preparations are habitual, are they more formally scheduled.”

Starting “early, before feeling in the mood . . . . Use freewriting; build on notes or conceptual outlines

from prior session.

Brief, regular sessions . . .

“. . . keep efforts unpressured, reflective, constant, and timely.

“ . . . keep teaching prep limited to durations that do not interfere with other important activities during the rest of the day, such as exercising, social life, and scholarly writing.”

Avoid the costs of long, uninterrupted work sessions

(1) “the scenario of working under pressure and excitement until hypomania and its sequelae of sadness and disinterest set in,

(2) the inefficiencies of preparing materials beyond the point of diminishing returns, and

(3) the inconstancy of working that bingers evidence” (Boice 40).

How to fit them in? Allot daily time.

Schedule them if necessary.

1. Think: • How do you control time spent prepping for

class? Name one strategy that has worked for you.

• What is a challenge you face?

2. Pair with someone at your table

3. Share your success and your challenge.

Think / Pair / Share

. . . while still being learner-centered

Managing Student Interactions

Don’t Hoard Responsibility

Use non-teacher instructional feedback – 32 Peer discussions & peer teaching E-textbook interactive features & online

quizzing

Make students responsible for obtaining course materials – 41 monitoring their completion of course

assignments – 42 preparing their own study guides

A Time and Place for Everything

Create a place befitting each activity – 48 Where do you work best? Go there.

Be able to block access to you -49 Leave the office? Work at home Know your campus options Know your community options

Stick to Your Knitting: Refer to Others

You do not have to be a: Counselor – 67 Writing consultant Computer support desk Librarian Disability expert

Get familiar with Student Academic Support Services http://think.stedwards.edu/acadservices

Short with Many, Long with Few Use asynchronous communication (email, voice

mail) to control your interactions with others.

Don’t always be available by the door, phone, email : limit immediate access to you- 61

Teach your students your communication system - 62

Create a time and place to process asynchronous communication - 63

Limit emailing, etc to the time available - 64

1. Think: • How do you control the time you spend

interacting with students?• What is a challenge you face?

2. Pair up with a different neighbor.

3. Share your success and your challenge.

Think / Pair / Share

Grading Efficiency: Tips and Strategies Managing Time for Research and Scholarship

Other Aspects of Managing an Academic Career

On the CTE web site: http://think.stedwards.edu/cte/blog/post/managing-time-teaching

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