Educational Designers often take on the role of the accidental counsellor. We work with academics who have little time, an immense amount of pressure, and compounding responsibilities. Over the years I’ve found that small ideas can have a profound effect on a person’s workload. Here is some of the advice I’ve given over the years for working efficiently and effectively, whilst maintaining work-life boundaries.
Working iteratively
Working iteratively is the safest way to manage your time well, and achieve something with confidence. It allows you to make small changes and be flexible with new ideas or circumstances. Each iteration allows the ability to improve based on feedback, and learn from previous mistakes.
Make iterative improvements
Making multiple changes to a course for one offering means that you won’t be able to accurately measure whether the changes were beneficial. Pick one aspect that you want to improve each semester, and work predominantly on that issue. For example, if the student feedback shows that they are confused by the assessments, then work on refining and clarifying the details and information presented in the assessment task description. That semester, ask students for feedback regarding the assessment clarity so you can refine this in the next offering, but also move your focus to another issue for the next offering. Choosing related aspects can help you to improve a range of issues that are linked. So if you improve the clarity of the assessment information in one semester, you could improve the rubric in the next.
Upskilling iteratively
I run a workshop series of six workshops each semester. Each time I run the series I see a handful of academics who try to come to every session. Often they get overwhelmed, forget information, and end up making little changes to their courses, despite their enthusiasm. I recommend picking one or two related areas and upskilling on those things for at least one semester. If you have a new LMS, focus on that until you’re comfortable. If you have a new assessment task, get support on creating the task and the rubric until you’re confident in it. If you’re concerned about Gen AI being used in your assessments, watch some webinars and test it out yourself. There will always be areas to learn about, so by focusing on one aspect you can be confident in your knowledge and skills before tackling something else.
Be efficient with course information
The convenience of the technologies around us has changed the way students communicate. A constant issue I hear from academics is that students prefer to ask questions than read the information that is provided. This issue can be eased by setting up communication expectations for your students, and providing all the information students require in one place.
Set communication expectations
Let the students know upfront that it’s their responsibility to read the syllabus/course information. Set aside a time in the first tutorial/workshop to discuss any questions students have about the information. Then set expectations around communication:
- If the answer to the question is provided in the course information, the educators won’t reply to that question.
- If the question is communicated by email, is valid, and is relevant to all students, the educators will deidentify the question and communicate the information to all students through the LMS forum.
Pushing all student communication through the LMS forums opens the information channel up to all students, saving time on duplicate questions. It also protects your inbox for students with unique or personal questions that need to be addressed.
Create an FAQ
Copy and paste the de-identified questions and answers from previous semesters, and add them to a course FAQ. This process will also allow you to review the content in your course information to see if anything needs to be revised to be made clearer.
Filter your emails
Filter any newsletters or subscriptions so you can go through them at a scheduled time. Receiving notifications about emails can momentarily distract you from something that you need to focus on, and by filtering these emails you won’t receive notifications for them. Just ensure you set some time aside in the day to check them, particularly if they may have time-sensitive PD invites. This can help keep your inbox clean and maintain your focus.
Likewise, your LMS email notifications can clutter your inbox, particularly during the semester when students are responding on forums. This information will be time-sensitive, so ensure you’re checking the filtered emails, but at a scheduled time of your choosing.
Establish ‘focus mode’ for working
There are several ways to carve out a chunk of time in a day for focusing on specific projects. Some teams establish a ‘calm’ inbox, and state in their signatures that they only check and respond to emails twice per day. You can also turn off notifications so that you don’t get distracted during ‘focus mode’. If this is not possible for longer periods, then try the Pomodoro method and turn off notifications for 25 minutes at a time. Consider your team’s expectations around your work chat function: often people expect chat messages to be responded to far quicker than emails. Make sure everyone is on the same age with the strategy.
Maintain working boundaries
Expectations around communication are set by how you work. So, if a student emails you on a weekend and you reply on the weekend, you have set the expectation that you will respond on weekends. Everyone’s life and work situation are bound by different responsibilities, and some people may need to work on the weekend. However, there are ways of still maintaining this boundary.
Schedule send your replies on the weekend
If you must respond to emails on the weekend or after hours, schedule them to be sent at 8am on Monday. That way you can get through the work you need, maintain the communication expectations and you won’t receive a response until you are back in work hours.
Schedule send your Friday afternoon replies
If you receive emails on a Friday afternoon, and the issue is not urgent, schedule the response to be sent at 5pm. This way you won’t be engaging in back-and-forth replies on a Friday, when you are likely trying to get through a backlog of work before the weekend. If the person responds to the email, it will be there for you to respond to on Monday.
Turn off email notifications on your phone after hours
Even if you do need to respond to emails on the weekend, this should be done at a time of your choosing. Notifications dictate when you are in ‘work mode’, so turning off the notifications means you get to choose when you go in and out of work mode.