Dear Chapman Instructors,

We hope that you are well and that you are enjoying these last few weeks of summer.

As you are finalizing your syllabi and preparing your Canvas courses for Fall 2021, you may be grappling with the difficult question of how much work is the right amount to expect your students to do outside of class.  Maybe you created instructional videos during emergency remote teaching that are still beneficial, or maybe you have started incorporating podcasts recently, or maybe you want to continue using Canvas discussions with your students this fall, but you are wondering how to balance these new asynchronous activities with other reading/writing assignments and exams.  We wanted to share the following Course Workload Estimator tool from Rice University’s Center for Teaching Excellence with you in the hopes that it can help you find that balance:

 

Course Workload Estimator button

 

If you are interested in reading more about the research behind this estimator, we highly recommend this blog post: How Much Should We Assign? Estimating Out of Class Workload