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You are now at the point in the design process where you can begin to design the learning activities that you’d like to include in your course. As you do so, please keep in mind the following key characteristics of effective learning activities.
Key Characteristic #1: A Time Estimate for All Activities
You should have a time estimate for each learning activity and assessment in your course. Accurate time estimates ensure sufficient rigor and keep you from asking students to do an unreasonable amount of work for the credits they are earning. The total amount of time students that should spend on coursework each week is defined by Boise State University policy #4080. This policy states that for a 15-week course, students should spend three “Clock Hours” per week per credit. For a three-credit course, this would mean 7.5 to 9.0 hours of instruction every week. By making these time estimates for your learning activities, you can be confident that your course meets the requirements of university policy #4080, which in turn will ensure your course is in compliance with the Northwest Commission on College and Universities’ Policy on Credit Hour (which is required for accreditation), Idaho State Board of Education policy, and U.S. Department of Education policy. Consequently, estimating the time it takes a student to complete a learning activity is one of the most important things that you will do as you plan this course!
Besides helping you meet university policy and accreditation requirements, these time estimates provide additional benefits to you. Most importantly, they will reduce the amount of work it takes to design and develop your course. This is because the time estimates make it much easier to write directions for the learning activities. There is something very powerful that happens when you reflect on how much time your students will need to devote to the assigned work. You conduct small, rapid “mind experiments” or mental simulations in which you imagine the students doing the work. This makes it easier for you to see the relationships between the learning activities, and it helps you formulate instructional strategies that will allow the students to carry out the activities. As a result, the course design takes shape much more quickly and there tend to be fewer revisions to the design later on.
Time estimates help students to evaluate the daily and weekly time requirements for completing your course, plan a learning schedule in consideration of other responsibilities, and develop a routine for study and assignment completion.
It’s particularly important to get an accurate estimate of the average reading time to help students plan their study schedules. Faculty often overestimate student reading speed, so you want to put some real effort into calculating this. A good rule of thumb is 3-5 minutes per page. If you want help in conducting a thorough estimate of reading times or creating a strategy to help students deal with lengthy readings