Teaching allocations go down - workloads go up
In late August and without fanfare, a new version of the Workloads Management System (WMS) was released by the project steering committee. [1] The previous draft was released in December 2010 and this new version contains some significant changes that may have negative impacts on your workload. [2]
NTEU does not agree with these changes and is seeking an urgent meeting with the Chair of the project steering committee.
The notable changes are the renaming of “Core Teaching” to “Extended Preparation Teaching” and “Support Teaching” to “Standard Preparation Teaching”. Since it is the Head of School who ultimately decides into which category a teaching activity falls, it is likely that many activities formerly defined as “Core teaching” will be redefined as “Standard Preparation Teaching” resulting in a reduction in the number of allocated hours associated with typical lecture delivery. [3] NTEU believes this is the obvious purpose of the nomenclature change and we reject this cynical attempt to devalue the teaching efforts of staff.
NTEU was closely involved in the design of the original WMS draft in 2009 and a great deal of discussion centred on how much extra time should be associated with the delivery of a typical lecture. There was broad agreement within the design team that this extra time should be 2 hours for each hour of delivery time which was realised in the draft WMS as “Core Teaching - Mode B”. This meant that an academic delivering three typical lectures per week in a subject could expect an allocation of 9 hours to prepare, deliver, reflect on and revise these lectures. Under the current revision this allocation would be reduced to 6 hours.
The effect of this change will be greatest in subjects with small enrolments. For example, under the previous “Core teaching - Mode B” criteria, a subject with 25 students enrolled, delivered via 3 typical lectures and 1 tutorial, would have a full semester allocation of 223.5 hours when subject coordination, student consultation, assessment and feedback are included. Under the new “Standard Teaching Mode A” criteria, it would receive an allocation of 172.5 hours – a 23% reduction in workload allocation.
Over 50% of all subjects offered in semester one 2011 at La Trobe had enrolments of 25 or less so this revision of the WMS will have a large negative impact on the teaching allocations of many staff. [4] It is unlikely that the “time savings” will be allocated to research or administration so the most probable outcome is that already high teaching loads will now be considered the norm and in many cases extra teaching duties may be allocated to those staff teaching subjects with relatively small enrolments.
The NTEU will vigorously oppose this attack on working conditions.
Notes
[1] Available at https://intranet.latrobe.edu.au/strategy-management/wms
[2] Side by side comparision of the draft WMS documents available here.
[3] Typical here refers to lectures given by a reasonably experienced academic who has previously taught the subject in it current form.
[4] Figures from Unit Attempt Statistics database at http://www.latrobe.edu.au/sro/
Comments
[ 0 ] Paul, preparing new lectures on new topics falls into the "special projects" category.
Like • Dislike •[ 0 ] I don't know what was behind the nomenclature change but the new designations (standard preparation and extended preparation) would appear not to have anything to do with the concept of "core" or otherwise. My hope is that "Extended preparation" would include, for example, the additional time taken when preparing new lectures on new topics compared to updating and revising previously prepared lectures. Completely new lectures take, in my view, between 10 and 20 hours per lecture to research and prepare. I would hope new lectures will count as "extended preparation".
Like • Dislike •[ 0 ] You are right on the money with your very important point, Sandra.
Like • Dislike •[ +1 ] is teaching a core part of the university business or just something we do on the side
Like • Dislike •Should we tell student teaching is no longer core part of our workload ?