Professional Development for Teachers of Health Professionals/Activities, assignments and assessment/Subject workload

Below are some basic guides for working out student and teacher workload in a subject.

Estimate student workload

1. Determine how many hours per week someone is expected to commit to studying your subject. This is usually determined by the qualifications standard, such as the Australian Qualifications Framework.
2. Determine the actual workload for your subject. You might like to calculate this based on 'readings' + activities + assignments and assessment. As a guide, a 1000 word reading might take 1 hour to study; a 2 hour tutorial might take 4 hours to prepare for and study afterwards; how many hours per week would you expect someone to commit if they were to complete an assignment in your subject?
3. To anticipate the levels of engagement you can expect from people studying your subject, estimate how many hours per week they must work to meet their costs of living. You might consider the likely minimum wage

Estimate teacher and assessor workload

1. Workout how many hours your organisation has budgeted for you to coordinate, teach and assess your subject. This is usually calculated by the income generated from fees and/or subsidy after the organisation takes a levy. Here's an example
2. Estimate how many hours you will spend coordinating the subject, teaching it and assessing each student's learning outcomes.
3. Budgeted hours - coordination/teaching and assessing hours = hours you have to prepare and update your subject outline and educational resources.