Weekly Chapter Readings

[HigherEd7]

How many chapters a week is best practice for an online course? I have been jusy assigning one chapter a week.

[backatit]

However many it makes sense for them to read, depending on the text/task. I have them read in order to do something, so for the first module's work, they have to read 5 chapters (the module is more than one week's work) and apply that reading to a specific task. But the chapters are REALLY short and practical (it's a book about visual design) and easy to read. It's kind of a "chunk" of reading that all deals with one topic so it made sense to assign it that way, even if it is a little long. They have the book to refer to as they do the task anyway.

[dr_codex]

However many it makes sense for them to read, depending on the text/task. I have them read in order to do something, so for the first module's work, they have to read 5 chapters (the module is more than one week's work) and apply that reading to a specific task. But the chapters are REALLY short and practical (it's a book about visual design) and easy to read. It's kind of a "chunk" of reading that all deals with one topic so it made sense to assign it that way, even if it is a little long. They have the book to refer to as they do the task anyway.

^ This.

Also, you should think about credit hours more than number of chapters. In general, 1 Credit hour = 3 hours or work. This is usually converted, in face-to-face courses, to 1 Lecture + 2 hours or a 3-hour lab. So, a 3-credit course should require 9 hours/week. Obviously, students work at different paces, so it can take some time to gauge.

In theory, you can better track homework hours in an online course, but using the "time-tracking functions" assumes both that students are working the whole time that they are logged in, and that they are not downloading assignments/readings to finish offline.

Equally questionable are student survey results about "How much time did you put into this course?" More likely to be accurate are student responses that the workload was way too much, if they are consistent.

It can help to have a trusted student that you think will give credible feedback about the workload. You should think holistically, as does backlit, about how long the entire module will take to complete.

[HigherEd7]

I have my course set up by weeks and the course is online. I have been thinking about assigning two chapters a week so I that I can cover the content in the textbook. Thoughts?

[polly_mer]

How do those 2 chapters compare to the 9 hours/week (or relevant other estimates) for student work for 3 credits?  Having far too little work is a problem if the accreditors check.  That's how Adams State University ended up on probation with the HLC.

The 9 hours/week is for a semester.  Having an accelerated course generally means more student work is expected per week than during a semester because the same content is to be covered in less time. 

[Caracal]

How do those 2 chapters compare to the 9 hours/week (or relevant other estimates) for student work for 3 credits?  Having far too little work is a problem if the accreditors check.  That's how Adams State University ended up on probation with the HLC.

The 9 hours/week is for a semester.  Having an accelerated course generally means more student work is expected per week than during a semester because the same content is to be covered in less time.

Does your department have anything in terms of suggested reading amounts per week? If the department doesn't have anything, I'd see if you could find guidelines for a similar department at a similar school.

I'm assuming that 6 hours spent outside of class for a three credit course is supposed to include everything the student does over the course of the entire semester? If you add in studying for exams, whatever other big assignments are due and then time spent on reading responses, quizzes or whatever we are talking about substantially less reading than 6 hours a week.

Regardless, I would find it pretty hard to actually try to calculate this, I just roughly follow the guidelines my department has for reading per week (in your case you'd need to adjust that for a shortened semester) and then modify that if I'm asking students to do substantially more work outside of class for other things besides reading.

[HigherEd7]

Great point. They will have a weekly quiz and discussion question, and two assignments. From my understanding we do not have a reading requirement. Thoughts? I have been trying to find other guidelines online.

If a course meets twice a week does it seem reasonable to cover two chapters per week?

How do those 2 chapters compare to the 9 hours/week (or relevant other estimates) for student work for 3 credits?  Having far too little work is a problem if the accreditors check.  That's how Adams State University ended up on probation with the HLC.

The 9 hours/week is for a semester.  Having an accelerated course generally means more student work is expected per week than during a semester because the same content is to be covered in less time.

Does your department have anything in terms of suggested reading amounts per week? If the department doesn't have anything, I'd see if you could find guidelines for a similar department at a similar school.

I'm assuming that 6 hours spent outside of class for a three credit course is supposed to include everything the student does over the course of the entire semester? If you add in studying for exams, whatever other big assignments are due and then time spent on reading responses, quizzes or whatever we are talking about substantially less reading than 6 hours a week.

Regardless, I would find it pretty hard to actually try to calculate this, I just roughly follow the guidelines my department has for reading per week (in your case you'd need to adjust that for a shortened semester) and then modify that if I'm asking students to do substantially more work outside of class for other things besides reading.

[spork]

You're going about this backward. What is it that students absolutely need to learn in the course, and what is going to help them learn it?

[HigherEd7]

Great point so what your suggestions? I have talked to few people about this and I do not think anyone knows really what to assign. I guess if you have good student evaluations you found it................:(

[polly_mer]

How do those 2 chapters compare to the 9 hours/week (or relevant other estimates) for student work for 3 credits?  Having far too little work is a problem if the accreditors check.  That's how Adams State University ended up on probation with the HLC.

The 9 hours/week is for a semester.  Having an accelerated course generally means more student work is expected per week than during a semester because the same content is to be covered in less time.

Does your department have anything in terms of suggested reading amounts per week? If the department doesn't have anything, I'd see if you could find guidelines for a similar department at a similar school.

I'm assuming that 6 hours spent outside of class for a three credit course is supposed to include everything the student does over the course of the entire semester? If you add in studying for exams, whatever other big assignments are due and then time spent on reading responses, quizzes or whatever we are talking about substantially less reading than 6 hours a week.

Yes, the 9 hours includes everything related to the class.  While 9 hours may be hard to estimate to get within half an hour for every student, it's usually pretty easy as a reviewer for the HLC to determine which courses have a reasonable amount of work for students who are trying and which courses can be done in under an hour every week.

Compare:

Case A:
~20 pages of reading per week with two substantive posts* discussing the reading and how this week's reading relates to other parts of the course, a 5+ paper due every three weeks that brings together multiple readings along with outside sources, and three essay exams.

Case B:
~3 pages of reading per week or one 10-minute video, a 5 question M/C quiz every week that is only factual recall that can be easily completed by a web search, and a weekly discussion board that is dominated by three-sentence posts along the lines of "Like Sarah, I really liked this week's reading.  It was informative".  Three M/C exams occur during the term and are dominated by factual recall.  The final paper is 500 words with 3 references required and no one in the course ever fails the final paper with any grade below C very rare.

Case C:
Several 15-minute videos expanding on the ~20 pages of reading per week.  Weekly quizzes that include a mix of M/C, short answer, matching, and other question types that require engagement with the material beyond factual recall.  A discussion board for each topic on which students make an initial post of about 500 words by <day> and then respond to three other students' posts by <day> with a few paragraphs.  The discussions really are discussions in which students interact with each other, although few responses will be more than 250 words after the first post.  A final 10+ page paper is due near the end of the term and three exams during the term that require much more than factual recall.

Perhaps Case A is a little light for an accelerated course, but Case B is definitely too light for any course.

* Graded by a rubric that indicates what substantive means and where students fell short as well as did exceedingly well.

[polly_mer]

Great point so what your suggestions?

Start with the course objectives.

Figure out what activities in your field are typical to help students meet those objectives.

Draw on research and/or experience on how long those activities take students at this level to complete the activities satisfactorily.

Ensure that that you include sufficient reinforcing activities of different types so that students who take more than one go to master the content/skill (i.e., nearly everyone) get sufficient practice to learn the material.

Review everything with a critical eye and think through what the strictest and most lenient professors in your field would say about the amount of work required and then strive to disappoint both of them.

[Caracal]

Yes, the 9 hours includes everything related to the class.  While 9 hours may be hard to estimate to get within half an hour for every student, it's usually pretty easy as a reviewer for the HLC to determine which courses have a reasonable amount of work for students who are trying and which courses can be done in under an hour every week.

Compare:

Case A:
~20 pages of reading per week with two substantive posts* discussing the reading and how this week's reading relates to other parts of the course, a 5+ paper due every three weeks that brings together multiple readings along with outside sources, and three essay exams.

Case B:
~3 pages of reading per week or one 10-minute video, a 5 question M/C quiz every week that is only factual recall that can be easily completed by a web search, and a weekly discussion board that is dominated by three-sentence posts along the lines of "Like Sarah, I really liked this week's reading.  It was informative".  Three M/C exams occur during the term and are dominated by factual recall.  The final paper is 500 words with 3 references required and no one in the course ever fails the final paper with any grade below C very rare.


Perhaps Case A is a little light for an accelerated course, but Case B is definitely too light for any course.

Broadly that's probably about right, although it depends what students are reading, of course. My students tend to find 10 pages of 17th century English a lot more difficult and time consuming than 40 pages of something contemporary written by a journalist.

[polly_mer]

Yes, the 9 hours includes everything related to the class.  While 9 hours may be hard to estimate to get within half an hour for every student, it's usually pretty easy as a reviewer for the HLC to determine which courses have a reasonable amount of work for students who are trying and which courses can be done in under an hour every week.

Compare:

Case A:
~20 pages of reading per week with two substantive posts* discussing the reading and how this week's reading relates to other parts of the course, a 5+ paper due every three weeks that brings together multiple readings along with outside sources, and three essay exams.

Case B:
~3 pages of reading per week or one 10-minute video, a 5 question M/C quiz every week that is only factual recall that can be easily completed by a web search, and a weekly discussion board that is dominated by three-sentence posts along the lines of "Like Sarah, I really liked this week's reading.  It was informative".  Three M/C exams occur during the term and are dominated by factual recall.  The final paper is 500 words with 3 references required and no one in the course ever fails the final paper with any grade below C very rare.


Perhaps Case A is a little light for an accelerated course, but Case B is definitely too light for any course.

Broadly that's probably about right, although it depends what students are reading, of course. My students tend to find 10 pages of 17th century English a lot more difficult and time consuming than 40 pages of something contemporary written by a journalist.

Yes, pages alone don't indicate difficulty or complexness of material, which is why I'm confused about the repeated questions on how many chapters per week instead of content.  Some courses I taught took multiple weeks to get through one chapter; other courses had multiple chapters every week.  The material determines what is assigned, not an arbitrary division like a chapter.

[Caracal]

Yes, pages alone don't indicate difficulty or complexness of material, which is why I'm confused about the repeated questions on how many chapters per week instead of content.  Some courses I taught took multiple weeks to get through one chapter; other courses had multiple chapters every week.  The material determines what is assigned, not an arbitrary division like a chapter.

Yes, completely agree. If I was the OP I would probably start by requesting some syllabi from the chair/and or people you know who teach at broadly similar sort of places. That should give you a decent sense of what is "normal" and then you can adjust for the particulars of the class and the semester. I'd tend to suggest that with a compressed schedule it is probably a good idea to have a little less reading and a little more of other things to avoid overwhelming the students without watering down the course.

[Parasaurolophus]

For my formal methods classes, I assign no more than one chapter a week, and often just a chunk of a chapter. That's because it takes a full three-hour class period for me to teach them how to do it, and then they need time to practice. For the harder stuff, we spend up to four or five weeks learning it.

For my other classes, I assign between 20-40 pages of reading each week, and expect them to have read it thoroughly and mastered the content. It's very dense reading, so it takes them a while. (They still don't do it, but that's what I judge is an appropriate workload for the course, our progression, and their level.)

Your mileage will absolutely vary. But, as the others said, you should think about it in terms of their take-home workload, and what's appropriate for the course and its level. Expect that most students will not actually do the work you assign.