Online Time Management

As some of us are approaching mid-terms and others who are on the quarter system are just beginning their terms, I thought offering recent research for online time management might be helpful. Even if you are not fully online, I believe these research-based strategies could be easily integrated into your course design and approach. The 2021 article by Heath and Shine is entitled, "Teaching Techniques to Facilitate Time Management in Remote and Online Teaching."

The authors note that their research was during and focused on rapid migration during the pandemic, "particularly on converting traditional daytime face-to-face courses into online and hybrid formats." They offer three specific techniques to facilitate time management: asynchronous teaching, chunking, and micro-learning. They further explain how each technique facilitates time management via online teaching and share suggestions.

Asynchronous: removing strict time constraints may offer flexibility to courses without sacrificing quality in the learner’s experience (Rovai, 2002; Skyler et al., 2005; Malkin et al., 2018).
Chunking: introduced by Miller(1956) in “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Our Capacity for Processing Information.” Miller emphasized attention and “cognitive overload.” He concluded that we can recall seven (plus or minus two) pieces of information, which relates to breaking coursework into smaller manageable pieces/concepts.
Micro-learning: provides students “nuggets that are just the right size for cognitive processing” to facilitate their learning process. The concept builds upon Miller’s (1956) concept of chunking since micro-learning delivers course content in brief, feasible doses for students to digest. Encourages students to “solve a problem, direct their own learning, apply their knowledge, or connect with others” (Major & Calandrino, 2018).

Of course all of these approaches should be well aligned to learning outcomes, then they will create more modular designs, which will allow us to more efficiently redesign our courses in the future, regardless of modality.

References

Heath, S. & Shine, B. (2021). Teaching techniques to facilitate time management in remote and online teaching. . Journal of Teaching and Learning with Technology, 10, 164-171. doi:10.14434/jotlt.v9i2.31370