New Faculty Teaching Newsletter # 9 (October 5, 2006)
How much time to spend preparing for a class is a concern, especially to new faculty, who are trying to balance setting up their research, doing a good job teaching-often new courses-and having a life. Below we're providing you with two documents on the topic. The first is a summary of a discussion from the national organization of faculty development offices; the second is from the Tomorrow's Professor Listserv.
Lecture Prep Time Discussion
How many hours does it take to prepare for every hour of a course?
This is a key question and one I happened to have gathered data on during a study of new college teachers some years ago.
After checking with others and keeping a log of my own time, I found two ratios that are important to keep in mind. In order to do a good job (i.e., and avoid skimping on the class, as one person noted), this is what it usually takes:
1. For regular, run-of-the-mill courses that you have taught before, it takes 2 hours out-of-class for each hour of class for preparation and grading. This means that, for a routine, 3-hours per week course, the teacher should expect to spend a total of 9 hours: 3 hours of class time and 6 hours of preparation and grading, averaged out over the semester or quarter.
2. For new preparations, i.e, courses one is teaching for the first time, the teacher should double the out-of-class time. That is, plan to spend 14 hours per week: 3 hours of class time and 12 hours of preparation and grading.
Specific situations will cause this ratio to go up or down:
* It will go UP if one has: a large class, lots of writing assignments, etc.
*It will go DOWN if one has: a small class, few writing assignments,etc.
What most administrators forget when handling new faculty in the department is that, for them, many new classes are new preparations. Hence, even if they are teaching the same number of courses as veteran faculty, the work load equivalent of these courses is much larger - leaving them less time for other important commitments, specifically for research-related activities. This is why new faculty typically experience a severe case of overload - even though they are teaching the same number of courses as older faculty.
L. Dee Fink, Director
Instructional Development Program University of Oklahoma Norman
Isn't that 10:1 ratio rather high? Teaching one new 4-credit course would then amount to almost a full-time job.
I was comparing this with Robert Boice's advice in his book "Advice for the New Faculty Member" where he warns new faculty of the dangers of spending too much time on class preparation, and recommends that they try and get it down to about 2 hours of preparation for every hour of class.
In addition to taking too much time away from other important tasks like research, Boice warns that spending a lot of time also leads to too much material being prepared, which results in fast-paced, non-involving lectures that alienate students.
Mano Singham, Associate Director University Center for Innovations in Teaching and Education Case Western Reserve
Our 'rule of thumb' is that it takes 10 hours per hour of course if you know the subject but haven't taught it before; 3 hours per hour of course to update it from teaching it last year and 1 hour per hour of course to recap your notes of last year without changing anything. Less than this is skimping!
Bland Tomkinson, University Adviser on Pedagogic Development, University of Manchester, UK
Posting from Tomorrow's Professor Listserv
Tomorrow's Professor Msg.#257 CLASS PREPARATION TIME - HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH?
Folks:
The article posted below, "How Much is Enough? Too much class preparation may not pay off," by Phillip Wankat and Frank Oreovicz, is from their Teaching Toolbox column appearing in Prism, the magazine of the American Society of Engineering Education, September, 2000, Volume 10, No. 1 P. 41. Reprinted with permission. The authors discuss an excellent, and often overlooked notion; there is a point of diminishing return in everything we do, including the preparation time we devote to our classes.
Regards,
Rick Reis
CLASS PREPARATION TIME - HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH?
ASEE Prism
September 2000
Teaching Toolbox
Volume 10, No. 1
P. 41
How Much is Enough?
Too much class preparation may not pay off.
By Phillip Wankat
and Frank Oreovicz
The myth that more class preparation is always better is precisely that--a myth. Not only can it lead to mediocre teaching but it also makes us feel guilty if we reduce class preparation time, even if our teaching is excellent. This myth is particularly pernicious for new faculty members, because it robs them of time to set up research programs while not improving their teaching.
Of course, reducing preparation time by too much is clearly a bad idea. But how much is enough? Two hours for new lectures and half an hour for lectures you've given before is a good guideline. You may be asking: How can an engineering professor get away with so little? The key is starting early to prevent panic, and spending a controlled amount of preparation time focused on the most important parts of the class.
But surely, if two hours results in a good lecture, then four or eight hours will make it that much better, right? Not necessarily so. Robert Boice, in Advice for New Faculty Members: Nihil Nimus (Allyn and Bacon, 2000), notes that too much preparation time is a very common problem of new faculty members. Excessive preparation can result in too much attention to detail and "covering content" at the expense of overall student learning.
To use such a "lean and mean" process, it is important to prepare for class in small chunks of time, rather than working through an exhausting marathon of preparation. First, a few days before each lecture, take 10 or 15 minutes to develop a title and a brief conceptual outline. Then put it aside and do something else.
A day or two later, return to your preparation and reread your outline. Determine if you have captured the main points. Briefly jot down explanations and examples that explain the key items. Try a "just-in-time" approach, where you introduce an example problem to the class, and then provide the information needed to solve the problem. Use a single example with many "what-ifs" instead of several unconnected examples. Stop working on the lecture after half an hour to 45 minutes.
Later, return to the preparation and finish the details. Then look at the lecture and decide where to put the activity breaks: one or preferably two breaks in a 50-minute lecture. Even though the lecture is not perfect, now is the time to stop preparing. Remember the Pareto principle, or "80-20 rule": 80 percent of the benefit occurs in the first 20 percent of preparation time.
What you have produced is notes, not a completely written draft. If you prefer to use the blackboard or hand-write on the overhead projector, write these notes on paper or note cards. If you use a word processor or PowerPoint, you will now have a rough draft of the transparencies. One last pass through your notes will allow you to correct the worst spelling and grammatical errors and produce acceptable transparencies in minimal time. If you like, hand these out as partial class notes.
Shortly before the lecture, review your notes and prepare yourself psychologically (about 10 to 15 minutes). At this point, you will have spent about two hours on the lecture, and you should be ready to teach the class. Arrive five minutes early to prepare the classroom and chat with the students. Relax and enjoy the interaction with the students. If you make a mistake, make a joke and correct it. Control your urge to cover "just one more point" and stop on time or a minute early. Then stay a few minutes after class to chat with students.
The subtitle of Boice's book, nihil nimbus, translates as "everything in moderation"--good advice for teaching. Reducing preparation time focuses your attention on key items and gives you more time to develop and use active learning exercises that involve the students. Less detail and a more flexible set of notes will help you, and therefore the students, to relax. Need one more benefit? With your preparation process under control, you'll finish your lectures on time--earning you the students' lasting gratitude.
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