Considering Student Workload

Overview

The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges provides the federal definition of the credit hour as the equivalent to one hour of in-person instruction and at least two hours of out-of-class work per week in a 15 week semester [1]. The same amount of work distributed over a different time period can also qualify as a credit hour.

In a traditional face-to-face course, students typically attend three 50-minute lecture periods during the week. As we move toward a model of active in-class learning, and as we develop online courses, students may be watching fewer minutes of lecture per week, but that time should be spent on other academic work. Students should still spend about three hours on the class every week for each credit hour of the course.

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Best Practices

Workload expectations per credit should not vary with the method of delivery (face-to-face vs. online) or the length of the academic term. Create assignments or projects that will allow students to go into further depth if you will be recording shorter lectures for online or flipped delivery.
Expect that students will take two–three times longer than you would to complete an assignment/exam, and set time limits and/or deadlines accordingly. [2]
Recognize that workload is an important consideration in the rigor of a course, but it is not the only one. For students to be challenged and assessed on their intellect (and not simply their time management skills or memory), they should be interacting with the material and applying higher-order thinking skills to the assignments. [3]
Consider the ways in which you are asking your students to interact with the materials and how that will impact the time they spend on the work. For instance, closely reading a text with a lot of new vocabulary and information will take longer than skimming the same number of pages for main ideas. [2]
In general, the expected workload of graduate students will exceed three hours per week per credit.

Examples

A political science professor teaches a three-credit course in person. This is his estimation of his students’ workload.

Work for in-person class	Hours/ Week
Three lectures per week	3
20 pages per week of challenging reading	1.5
Two challenging exams	1
Two research papers (8-12 pages)	4
Total	9.5

Next semester, it will be a hybrid course. He wants to move to a more active learning style as he revises the class. This is his new plan for how much work he anticipates from each student.

Work for new hybrid class	Hours/ Week
Several small lectures and videos each week	1.5
20 pages per week of challenging reading	1.5
One challenging exam	.5
Two research papers (8-12 pages)	4
End of semester reflection (4-6 pages)	>.5
Student-led discussion each week	1
Four group role-play activities about hypothetical world events (filmed)	1
Total	9.5-10

A professor is developing a new online class on entomology. It will be worth two-credit hours. This is how she plans her students’ workload.

Work for online class	Hours/ Week
Weekly lectures	.5
15 pages per week of moderate reading	1
Short exam every two weeks	.5-1
Portfolio and reflections on field work	1
Weekly discussion board	1
Field work	2
Total	6-6.5