{"id":36902,"date":"2021-01-11t01:30:41","date_gmt":"2021-01-11t06:30:41","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/?p=36902"},"modified":"2022-11-16t12:40:01","modified_gmt":"2022-11-16t17:40:01","slug":"overcoming-the-busywork-dilemma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/2021\/01\/overcoming-the-busywork-dilemma\/","title":{"rendered":"overcoming the “busywork” dilemma"},"content":{"rendered":"

by julaine fowlin, cft assistant director<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>what is the busywork dilemma?<\/h3>\n

the busywork dilemma is where students perceive that assigned learning activities or assessments are not meaningfully contributing to their learning. instructors put a lot of effort and time into the design and implementation of these activities, which can be very frustrating. sometimes activities are designed for learning accountability, engagement, and assessment of understanding. these activities may be before, during, or after class. students\u2019 misinterpretation of these planned activities as busywork often results in them creating \u2018hacks\u2019 to complete the work. for example, students who perceive that a perusall<\/a> assignment is just to check participation versus to engage critically with an assigned reading may just highlight a few sentences and not put effort into their commentary.<\/p>\n

what makes students perceive intentional learning activities as busywork?<\/h3>\n

the busywork dilemma occurs in both face to face and online classes. however, the dilemma can be magnified in an online course as these activities become more quantifiable in an online space. for example, students may not perceive an in-class discussion as work but may start counting each discussion forum post they have to make.\u00a0 recently a twitter thread<\/a> explored the anecdotal reports that students feel like they are being assigned more work than before the pandemic.\u00a0 some faculty feel that this perception could be due to more accountability and more explicit or transparent expectations. others reported that in an online environment, it is more difficult for students to coast without their instructors knowing it. on the flip side, students who are already distressed by the pandemic and related challenges are now being asked to learn in new ways online, which can be discouraging even to very hard-working students.. beckie supiano also explores this disparity between students and faculty views in her chronicle of higher education article teaching: what students are up against<\/a>.<\/p>\n

before the pandemic, a \u00a0study done by firm faith watson,<\/a>\u00a0 based on 624 open-ended responses of master\u2019s level students, investigated the types of experiences that students perceived as satisfying and dissatisfying in online courses. meaningful coursework was ranked the third-highest factor contributing to students\u2019 satisfaction, with course flexibility\/convenience being the highest, and instructional method raking second. interestingly, the number one dissatisfier was coursework\/learning content itself. comments associated with this dissatisfaction were cases where students could not easily identify the material\u2019s relevance and where the work felt like \u2018busywork.\u2019 thus, eliminating the perception of \u2018busy work\u2019 is vital in ensuring that learners have a satisfactory online learning experience.<\/p>\n

dyment et al. (2020) also advocate that we need to re-evaluate our traditional metric-based tools of engagement in online learning, such as focusing on a certain number of posts and replies. such activities can alienate students as they perceive them as surveillance.\u00a0 when they asked students what it means to be engaged online, they mentioned things like working on authentic tasks, working in study groups, expanding knowledge through watching related ted talks,, etc.\u00a0 i will expand on these ideas below.<\/p>\n

while students\u2019 reasons<\/a> for calling intentional learning activities busywork vary, and some are embedded in misconceptions of learning, there are a couple of common pitfalls to avoid.<\/p>\n

avoiding these will allow learners to see the relevance of learning activities explicitly. the theme that transcends these pitfalls is a lack of connection.<\/b><\/p>\n

making connections to overcome the busywork dilemma<\/h3>\n

making connections with all teaching and learning elements will help learners see the relevance of the assignments and optimize the learning outcomes.<\/i> below i discuss some nodes of connection.<\/p>\n

the first node of connection <\/b>for any assessment\/activity is with the course learning objectives<\/b>. instructors usually have this in mind, but it helps to illustrate this connection to learners explicitly. never assume that learners naturally make connections between the course\u2019s goals and expectations with the assessments and activities. consider including the relevant course objectives in the assessment\/activity description. if the assessment\/activity is for an overarching purpose, consider explicitly stating the learning goal in the assessment\/activity description. also, reinforce the purpose of the activity several times. for example, in the assessment\/activity description on brightspace, in your syllabus, and when explaining the assignment in a video or synchronous session. i refer to this as meaningful redundancy<\/b>. in fact, abby parish, director of education innovation and associate professor of nursing at vanderbilt, shared that she has effectively handled the perception of busywork with communication and course navigation. view the archived recording<\/a> of the conversation on teaching with abby parish and marshall eakin, professor of history: overcoming the \u2018busywork\u2019 dilemma: creating meaningful asynchronous activities for student engagement.<\/p>\n

utilizing the backward design approach<\/a> will ensure that your assessments and activities align with the learning goals.<\/p>\n

drawing on dyment et al. (2020), we want to think about our objectives and think about the most meaningful evidence of achievement. as we continue to reimagine teaching and learning during a pandemic, i would like us to borrow a term from business, minimum valuable outcome (mvo). mvo positions a business to prioritize what it wants to achieve at the very least to be successful. in the context of teaching, consider \u201c if my students leave with nothing else this semester,\u00a0 i would feel i have achieved my goal if they achieved [x].\u201d\u00a0 by focusing on the [x], our attention is called to develop activities around the core understandings and will reduce the number of smaller activities students tend to perceive as busywork.<\/p>\n

self-reflection questions<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n