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Black Hawk College
Best Practices for Exemplary Online Instruction


PRINCIPLE 5:  GOOD PRACTICE EMPHASIZES TIME ON TASK.
"Time plus energy equals learning.  There is no substitute for time on task.  Learning to use one’s time well is critical for students and professionals alike.  Students need help in learning effective time management.  Allocating realistic amounts of time means effective learning for students and effective teaching for faculty.  How an institution defines time expectations for students, faculty, administrators, and other professional staff can establish the basis of high performance for all." (Chickering & Gamson, 1987)

The following best practices from the literature on online teaching and learning may provide you with specific ideas for what this principle might look like in an online course.


  1. Ensure that course assignments and expected time spent on them reflect the priorities specified in the course’s learning outcomes.

  2. Maintain a calendar or assignment listing with definitive deadlines and specific instructions for submitting each one. 

  3. Utilize progressive deadlines for various stages of larger projects or assignments.

  4. Provide samples of well-done assignments or ones with common problems or errors highlighted to illustrate the instructor’s expectations.

  5. Provide resources and guidance for completion of assignments, such as detailed tips, instructions, templates, rubrics (grading criteria), and other relevant resources.

  6. Organize all resources associated with an assignment in one place on the course web site for faster downloading and reduced confusion.

  7. Judge appropriateness and adequacy of materials and technology used in the course for a given audience and make materials and technology adjustments due to shifting audience needs and abilities.

  8. Make sure instructions and FAQs for technology used in the course are well-written and easy to find on the web site.

  9. Refer technical or academic problems that you cannot handle to appropriate sources and follow up to ensure resolution.

  10. Design feedback tools such that individualized feedback on student work can be prompt and specific enough to allow learners to progress. See Principle #2 for more information.
Other ideas:
 
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