How Online Teachers Can Manage Time To Boost Productivity?

If COVID-19 has proven anything, it’s that we can do a lot more from home than we ever imagined. For teachers, particularly, this has been an enormous shift.

Rather than teaching in person, many teachers now have to engage their students via online video conference software. While this is one of the most striking differences, any teacher will tell you that the actual teaching is only one part of the job.

As a teacher, you spend a lot of your time keeping on top of admin, dealing with student correspondence, and marking assignments. The shift to online teaching has, likewise, changed the way teachers approach these daily tasks.

It can be difficult to stay productive when working from home. You’re removed from the usual work environment, so you have to create your own routines. It can be a difficult transition, but it is a necessary one.

To help the transition to this new norm, here are a few helpful tips on how teachers can manage their time to boost productivity.

1. Get Organized

This one might sound obvious, but when working from home, it can be easy to stop and start several different things that need attention. If you carry on like this for long, things will quickly get on top of you. So, to improve your productivity, create (and stick to) a daily schedule.

Designate specific times throughout the day for different tasks, like grading assignments, replying to students, and miscellaneous other work. You may have to lecture at different times every day, but try to schedule other tasks at similar times to settle into a routine.

This way, you won’t waste time thinking about what you should be doing next; you can just check your diary and know. Better yet, try using project scheduling software that can be updated and edited with ease. It’ll give you notifications about what you should be doing and when.

2. Be Realistic With Your Schedule

With regard to the previous point, this one is essential. It’s all well and good saying you’re going to mark thirty assignments in a half-hour window, but don’t kid yourself. When creating your schedule, set aside a realistic amount of time to complete each task.

It’s a tricky balance. Giving yourself a deadline is a great way to be productive, but running over that deadline can throw you out of sync and cause you to clash with the rest of the day’s obligations.

You’ll know better than anyone how long it takes for you to complete certain tasks. Giving yourself realistic time frames is one of many essential time management skills that will boost your productivity.

3. The Same Goes for Students

You should also give your students a realistic time frame of when they can expect feedback from their assignments. However, even the best-laid plans can go awry. Maybe you need a little longer than you thought to finish marking. That’s fine, as long as you give your students as much notice as possible when this is the case. You don’t want them to be waiting around anxiously when they could be off doing more “academic” things in the meantime.

Doing this will also prevent you from being bombarded with emails regarding said assignments. Emails you’ll have to waste more time replying to individually. Keeping everyone on the same page is a great way to save everybody time.

4. Have the right tools for the job

We’ve been teaching in person for a long time… forever, actually. And the shift to online can seem daunting. However, utilizing the right technology can help boost your productivity.

In addition to it, you should always maintain your content’s high quality and avoid any grammatical or lexical errors. For this purpose using proofreading online tools like Grammarly or Fresh Essays is highly recommended.

Software

A lot of what we’ve previously discussed in this article is predicated on having the best online course platforms at your disposal. There are a multitude of great options out there with different features and levels of complexity. Some will be more useful to you than others, depending on your needs. Finding the perfect one can save loads of time in the long run.

Hardware

So, you’ve got the best platform, but don’t neglect your physical tools – your PC and/or laptop. Generally speaking, you’ll want to keep your computer fit and healthy for the job at hand. Perform regular virus scans and software updates to prevent any future problems that will end up costing a lot of time to sort.

More specifically, test your microphone and camera before each class or lecture. This doesn’t have to be anything too rigorous. Just log on 5-10 mins early and check you can be seen and heard clearly, and you’re not having any network issues.

This may sound trivial, but it’ll make a huge difference. It’s far better than the alternative; logging on as class starts only to realize your dollar store headphones have finally died.

There are a few things to consider before buying learning tech. If you do the research and maintain your equipment, this can be a huge asset to help increase your productivity.

It’s well worth utilizing IT team collaboration tools too, so that when any technical issues do arise (and they will) you’ll have a direct line to somebody who can help get you back up and running as soon as possible.

5. Help Students Help Themselves

No matter how well organized you are, you won’t be able to say the same for your students. Whether they’re inquisitive young intellectuals, looking for additional reading material, or daydreamers who’ve forgotten the assignment date, replying to students is going to eat up a lot of your time.

There are, however, a few easy ways to help your students and save time for more productive things.

Cover All The Basics

If you’ve been teaching for any significant amount of time, chances are you’ll hear the same questions come up every semester.

To prevent wasting time answering these questions, build a course page with all the vital information your students will need: important dates, assessment rubrics, reading schedules, and anything else that keeps cropping up.

Encourage students to check the course page for their queries first, rather than asking you directly.

Have Regular Office Hours

Of course, there are questions that only you will be able to answer – that’s why they pay you the big bucks. Even so, you’ll want to answer your students as efficiently as possible.

Have regular office hours and encourage students to book appointments ahead of time. This means you’ll know exactly who’s coming, and when, so you can better plan the rest of your day.

This last part can be difficult but do try and discourage unannounced drop-ins. It may seem harsh, but it’ll be better for both you and your students overall.

Create a Discussion Forum for Students

With a community forum, students can openly communicate with one another about the course. This is not only a great place for them to share ideas and sources, but some of the more organized students will be able to answer basic questions that other students have.

You can easily set up groups of any size with software like Zoom or Skype, but there are plenty of Skype alternatives out there that might better suit your needs.

Make sure you set aside some time to check through this forum page, just in case your students are steering themselves in the wrong direction. Let them know you’ll check out the forum at the end of the day, and spend about 10 minutes making sure they’re sharing the right information.

It may be tempting, but try to avoid getting too involved in this discussion. Just keep a watchful eye over what’s being shared. This is a space for them to engage as an independent academic community, not a personal gateway to you. They already have office hours for that very purpose. Also, you don’t want to end up spending more time engaging with students on this forum than you were trying to save in the first place.

6. Keep a Work/Life Balance

The handy thing about having a set schedule at work is that it lets you know when you can take a break. If you’ve only got 10 minutes between lectures to grab a quick coffee, you’re going to make sure you have that coffee.

It shouldn’t be any different at home. While it can be tempting to just power on through, especially when you’re on a roll, you should make sure to schedule yourself regular breaks, so you don’t burn yourself out halfway through the workday.

Allowing yourself a ten-minute break every hour will actually increase your productivity in the long run and prevent your overworked brain from making simple mistakes that will require more time to fix later.

Conclusion

We’ve all had to change up our routines recently. This has inevitably brought new challenges regarding how we approach the workday.

What remains the same is that teachers want the best for their students. And, while there are a variety of ways to make online learning work for students, one of the most effective things you can do is to manage your own time efficiently.

So, keep yourself as productive as possible with these helpful tips, and you’ll already be halfway there.

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How Online Teachers Can Manage Time To Boost Productivity? | Bookafy

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