I've tried to search this in the ridiculously bad search links you have, but no luck.I've been reading College Misery for about a month, and while I enjoy it, it feels like a bit of a secret club that maybe I won't be welcome in.
Could you make a thirsty where you ask everyone how much they teach? How many classes, how many students, that sort of thing. I'm not asking about research at all.
Thanks,
Flanagan.
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Q: How many classes do you teach in a typical semester? How many students total per semester? How many hours per week do you work on those classes during the semester?
A: You can email responses here for tabulation and collection,
or comment below anecdotally.
I teach five labs per semester (fall and spring). Labs are three hours long, meet once a week, and have 20-24 students each. So I have 15 contact hours per week with about 110 students.
ReplyDeleteGenerally, I put in nine hour days at work (Monday through Friday) prepping, grading, and/or making myself available to my students. I still have to spend a good portion of my Sunday working but I do it at home.
I teach three 4 credit classes per semester. Classes are 100 minutes, so I end up in the classroom 10 hours each week (Monday-Thursday). I average about 75 students a semester (we're a very small school). I probably put in between 20-30 hours more a week grading, prepping, and communicating with students. I definitely do more work at home than on campus. Then there are meetings, but you didn't ask about that... ;)
ReplyDeleteI teach 2 classes this semester and have 35 students in each. Both meet once a week for 2.5 hours. With prep, grading, and communication, I put in about 25 hours a week between the two.
ReplyDeleteI have a 3/3 load. I currently have 50 students total. Hours per week for "just" teaching and grading is about 20.
ReplyDeleteAs I said in another post, I teach 3/3. My current student count is 35. I spend about 15 hours a week in class and with prep and grading.
ReplyDeleteGordo, we need a poll!
ReplyDeleteMy usual load is 5/5, but I have a one-course release this year for a special project and a prohibition against overloads because of the same project. Next year I'll probably be back to 6/6 (regular load plus overload class) unless I get a grant or another special project. My classes are maxed at 30, but by the date of recording, I usually have them down in the lower 20s since some don't show and others don't put in any effort. I generally spend about 20-25 hours per week on teaching, prepping, answering student emails, and grading. I have to hold 10 office hours per week for student advising also. The rest of my time is meetings, meetings, and more meetings, as well as all the work that comes from them, and the work on the special project. I'd say that this year, I'm working about 50-60 hours per week most weeks with some going past that, depending on whatever my committees are doing.
ReplyDelete2/2. One large class of 50 and one small class of 8. I spend about 12 hours a week on teaching duties.
ReplyDeletePlease email your data to me; share your particulars and fun insights in the comments. I'll put the info together in a hard to read chart tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteGordo
Two classes per semester, maxing out at 32 students. About 12 hours a week.
ReplyDelete2/2. 30 students. 15 hours max.
ReplyDeleteI teach 3/1 or 2/2 each year. (There's a tiny bit of administration I occasionally do.) My classes are all upper division, so max out at a total of about 10 students per class. Generally less than 40 students a year. If I were talking to a Dean, I'd say I work 20 hours a week on teaching, but it's really more like 12 or so.
ReplyDelete3/3. Total of 50 or so students a term. About 18 hours a week of teaching, grading, and prep.
ReplyDeleteFab
2/2. 60 students per semester. 10 hours per week probably as I don't do any grading.
ReplyDeleteOnline adjunct. 2 courses of 25 students each, eight-week terms running year-round. I put in about 20 hours per week on the classes.
ReplyDeleteI also teach high school full time. From September to June, my nights and weekends are rarely my own. I mostly comment here in terms of my work as a college instructor, but there is often overlap between that and my high school work, so I occasionally wear that hat to the CM party.
Such small class sizes! Your students dont know how lucky they are! I have a tt position at a R-1 school outside the US. I have 2 large (n=350) and 1 small graduate (n=30) classes a year. And we cant give them multiple choice questions either.
ReplyDelete2-2: One grad seminar, three undergrad classes. I can either teach two lectures and a seminar for my undergrad teaching, or flip that around and teach one lecture and two seminars. In a typical year I teach two lectures, capped at 60 each (I get two graduate assistants for each course) one undergrad seminar capped at 15 and one grad seminar, which usually has 6-10 students, depending. I typically teach the lectures together in one semester and the two seminars in the other. Either way, it is 5 classroom hours per week, and probably another 2-6 of prep/post mortem depending on how much new material I'm teaching and how much I have to ride herd on the assistants. So call it 8 hours a week on average.
ReplyDeleteI teach 2-1 each year, one undergrad class of 20 and two grad seminars of 5-10. My teaching time per week is only about 6 hours, but I have a good deal of research to deal with. It's not fair to compare trad college profs to teaching profs at jucos and the like. They're choosing to teach, and so it's no wonder they have a large number of sections and students.
ReplyDeleteI should mention that my lecture caps are atypical for my institution. Most of my colleagues cap their lectures at 40. I do 60 and sometimes higher because I'm a fairly popular lecturer with the flakes, and because the asses I put in the cheap seats boost the departmental stats. But if I wanted to teach even fewer flakes I could.
ReplyDelete1-1. But I also run a program. My classes are always the same, 12 students. I do my own grading though, and that puts my hours per week on the class at about 5.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI teach 3 courses a quarter (which makes for 9 a year). This quarter I have 75 students. The student count depends on whether I teach a general ed heavy load or a major writing course like creative writing (which is capped at 20). I am required to have 10 office hours a week, but tend to be at the office from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. (and teaching in-between). I then go home to grade for 3 hours after that.
ReplyDeleteI also run a program, which provides no additional pay, but provides release time of one class per year.
I'm just a part-timer these days, so one class of 20 students and about 8-10 hours per week total investment. I make a little over minimum wage as it turns out, but the arrangement suits me right now.
ReplyDelete5/5/2--fall, spring, summer
ReplyDeleteabout 30 students each section
service and research responsibilities too but no office!
2-0-2 on the quarter system. 150 students a year, mixed as 2 large (75-120) undergrad lectures, 1 small (15-40) undergrad seminar and 1 (6-15) grad seminar. During the teaching quarters, I spend 20-25 hours/week prepping, teaching, doing office hours, and grading. During my so-called non-teaching quarter along with the others, I spend 2-5 hours a week on graduate students.
ReplyDeleteFor an R1 job, I have a buttload of teaching -- it's the research quarter that saves us, and I'm afraid we aren't going to hang onto that.
4/4/2 (the 2 isn't guaranteed or part of my regular load, but is necessary economically, and I can usually get it as long as I'm willing to teach what my department needs); all writing intensive; 20-25 students per class. 3 hours per week per section (or the online equivalent, which is actually more time-consuming, but less exhausting in other ways). Prep and grading/response (including answering email) seems to fill all the rest of my waking hours (and some when I really should be sleeping), but it isn't really quite that bad (and I do work slower as a I get tireder, which is, of course, a vicious circle). Still, this semester (which has included 2 mostly-new preps and assorted other changes, new iniatives, etc.), a good week has been one when there was one day (out of seven) when the only school-related work I did was to check email and answer the most urgent missives. And in spite of that, I'm behind (and tired, and going slower and slower).
ReplyDelete3/3 in the semesters, 1 or 2 classes in the summers. Onsite classes meet twice weekly for an hour-fifteen each; hybrids meet f2f once weekly an hour-fifteen. Class size in my department is capped at 26, but with normal attrition and the Fear Factor (one of the classes I teach usually scares off 5-10 students by the midterm), let's say that I average 65 students a semester. Depending on what particular classes I'm teaching and where I'm at in the semester, I spend anywhere from 10-30 hours a week grading, updating the course websites, answering emails, and just generally running the class.
ReplyDeleteWow. I teach for 3 universities. My State Uni gives me one class of 71 students. My online Uni gives me about 90 students at a time on a rolling basis. My private uni gives me one class of 25.
ReplyDeleteI work about 50 hours a week on teaching duties and spend 2 5-hour days researching on top of that.
I'm outside the US and I have to do a lot of team-teaching which I HATE with a FIREY HATRED.
ReplyDeleteThat aside, I sat down and worked out the total contact hours etc. once (assuming 1 module in the US system = 3 contact hours a week for one semester) and I teach the rough equivalent of a 3-2 with 4-5 hours of office hours per week (which covers most though not all of my meetings with undergrad project students). I reckon I spend about 25-30 hours a week on teaching in semester 1, 20-25 in semester 2, allowing for grading and emailing and that sort of stuff. And I'm at a good second-tier university, not an R1 more like a good quality state university I think.
It's perhaps worth adding in to the pot that I 'officially' only work 30 hours a week (part time) so by that maths I do all the committee stuff, research stuff and grad student stuff in my own time. I try not to think about that.
3/3, but 2 of the three each term are sections of the same course; 40 in each of those, and 30 in an upper div third course.
ReplyDelete2/1, but all over 100 students. No grading though. About 8 hours a week of work.
ReplyDelete2/2, typically 1 grad and 1 undergrad. Grad usually has 3-8 students, undergrad anywhere from 15 to 40. This semester, 8 and 16.
ReplyDeleteI've been getting a small stream of emails direct to the CM email address. Here's what I have as of 5 PM PST Sunday, and I believe I've excluded a couple of people who posted and emailed:
ReplyDeleteCLASSES, STUDENTS, HRS
3/3, 70 students, 30 hrs/week
2/2, 200, n/a
4/4, 100, 35
5/5, 300, 75
3/2, 300, 33
3/3, 185, n/a
1/1, 20, 8
4/4, 150, 30
2/2, 40, 12
2/1, 30, 10
6/6, 135, 55
2/2, 70, n/a
1/1, 10, 7
1/1, 40, 10
2/1, 200, 5
1/1, 12, n/a
2/2, 30, 10
3/3, 100, 80
2/2, 55, 10
3/3, 200, 60
2/2, 25, n/a
2/2, 50, 10
3/2, 60, 12
4/4, 170, 50
4/4, 80, 40
4/4, 65, n/a
Who ever thought the 4 of you worked so hard.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, does anyone see all these rounded numbers. One guy sat at home on Sunday - he wouldn't dare watch the NFL, the Nancy - and made up all these numbers. I bet you have a hard on for getting this list on the Chronicle, don't you?
Embarrasing.
Why don't the couple of you who write for each other just get together and have a coffee klatch? Leave the academic blog world for people with serious ideas, like those we exchange at the Chronicle and so on.
Flanagan, Welcome! It's not a secret club. Some people post a lot; many others lurk and occasionally comment. It may take more than a month to get a feel for the personas of the frequent fliers, but feel free to jump right in.
ReplyDeleteIf you post something and get few comments, my sense is that either it was too long, or it just didn't appeal to anyone that day. (Unless I'm missing something.)
We have few rules, posted at the top, right; but one additional guideline is not to feed the trolls, who seem to think we're in a competition.
(I answered your questions in an email to Gordon.)
two classes [3 credits each] every semester. Total number of studentes varies but is near 250 now [for both classes combined] since enrollment has been steadily increasing.
ReplyDeleteI usually teach 1/1 or 2/0, though it can go to 1/0 if that class has 350+ students. When I teach 2, one is usually an undergrad class with 200-450 students, and the other is a grad class with 10-15. When I teach both in one semester, I work 70-80 hours/week on the classes. Lecturing and grading occupy only a small portion of that time; the big jobs are managing the 10+ students who do TAing/grading/labs, writing homeworks/labs/projects and automatic grading software, writing/revising lectures, and answering questions (message boards/email/office hours).
ReplyDeleteforgot: 3 credits in my case [I am teaching lectures only, IS teach recitations/labs] is 2 hours 30 minutes per week. With two classes this results in 5 hours per week [plus office hours, etc].
ReplyDeleteWelcome, Newby! Thanks for jumping in!
ReplyDeleteI got a 2/2 load. Summers for research. I give thanks every single day and I buy lunches and beerz for temporary folks so that the academic gods will not become displeased with me.
4/4/2 - Fall/Spring/Summer
ReplyDelete25 students per class.
I could not even begin to think about how many hours per week. That would be too depressing.
A good amount of admin work too that includes chairing a very active committee. Blech.
This is my first semester full time teaching. I'm teaching 18 credits at a Community College, but it's only three preps, 2 labs and a lecture. I have about 60 lecture students (started with nearly 75) and about 55 lab students (started with about 65), some of those students overlap.
ReplyDeleteNext semester I picked up a 3 credit overload, but still the same courses.
I work constantly. Okay, not quite true, because I'm on here, but it feels like it. I think next semester when I know the classes it will be better. On that note, I should go write today's lecture.
Irregular, take-what-I-can-get, almost exclusively online classes. I teach 5-20 classes per year with 1 to 36 students each. Sometimes (very rarely) I have none going. Sometimes I have up to eight going at once. Most are eight weeks long; some are 16 weeks long. There are no "semesters". The start and end dates of the classes are at regular times, but such that classes often overlap, both within a single institution and of course between the institutions.
ReplyDeleteI cannot really relate to and thus seldom comment on - except to be mean and sarcastic - on the various entries at this blog that focus on the time of year - start of the semester, mid-terms, finals, break, etc. All those things are going on at any given time here in Adjunctland.
At my peak, I taught 2/2 plus one summer and one January class--but I was an adjunct. All were small writing classes, ~15 students each.
ReplyDeleteNow I just teach one January class per year, but still just as an adjunct, and I have a full-time job in Big Evil Industry. My disconnection from academia doesn't stop me from continuing to enjoy this blog, even if only four of us write it.
Hear, hear AdjunctSlave ...
ReplyDeleteI resisted posting because I couldn't believe my own numbers.
In general, as a mostly online adjunct:
6/6/3(2)
That breaks down to a quarter based graduate program, generally 2 classes/qtr but have had three classes the 2 of the past 3 quarters. Class size usually starts in the 20 - 25 range, but settles into 15 - 20 a few weeks in.
A semester based undergraduate program usually 3/3/1 but I have convinced them to add a section of a course I developed and for which I am the sole instructor to the summer term. Course size averages 15 - 25.
And then there is my on campus gig, which had been 2/2, then 1/1, but 0 so far this year. Classes capped at 20.
But as of this moment:
I'm teaching 3 for the grad program and 3 for the undergrad program. (But am being paid for the course development project I completed over the summer, so I'm being paid for 4 classes.)
My roster at present is 101.
Coming in late: I teach on a quarter system. This year, 3/3/3. Two courses each term have a lab component, so total weekly contact time is 13 hours per week. I also have 6 credits release for being dept. chair and running two programs.
ReplyDeleteI've got 90 students on roster this term, which is about average.
I teach a 2/2 to a total of 35 students. Weekly contact, prep, and grading = 25 hours/week.
ReplyDelete