The Course Workload Estimator is a research-based tool that helps faculty evaluate how many hours of work are in a given syllabus so they can align the amount of course work with the Carnegie credit model used for accreditation. Including class meetings, reading, videos, writing, projects, discussion forums and other activities, the Carnegie credit model says:
a 3-quarter-credit course should be 90 hours of work
a 3-semester-credit course should be 135 hours of work
The CWE is just an approximation, so if a is 10% over or under, you may not need to make significant changes. If your estimate is more than 10% over or under, we recommend that the faculty and/or program chair take a look at the syllabus to decrease or increase the workload. One thing we commonly find in syllabi that have too many hours is that they often include an over-abundance of reading. And with courses that have too few hours of work tend not to have enough other course activities.
According to the US Department of Ed and the Higher Learning Commission require that course be comprised of 33% direct instruction and 67% indirect instruction. Direct instruction typically includes synchronous class time and, faculty teaching, feedback and assessment, whereas indirect instruction includes activities students do on their own like reading, writing, studying, preparing a presentation and things like that. You can learn more on our page about Direct vs. Indirect Instruction.
Our instructional designers are more than happy to collaborate with you or your program to improve the student learning experience.
Email us at AT@antioch.edu to get started.
Want to Learn More about the Author and Research behind the CWE 2.0?
The CWE2 is Wake Forest's updated version of the original CWE that was used by Rice University. It is based on research by Betsy Barre, Allen Brown, and Justin Esarey that was peer-reviewed. And right on the top of the CWE2 page they offer "Click Here for Estimation Details" which explains the research and results. That page gives me increased confidence in the validity of the tool for ESTIMATION purposes. That said, we know it is still just an estimation of how much time each type of activity takes an average student and is only meant to see whether a particular course might be way over or way under.
For example, we have run the CWE on a 1-credit class with 600+ pages of reading, class meeting times, discussion forums, and papers and presentations and found that what should have been 30 hours of work was actually over 60, so we used that information to help the faculty member pare down the required elements or asked the chair to consider increasing the course to 2-credits the next time it runs so that students actually get the appropriate credit for the work they are asked to do. In addition, we regularly find 90-hour courses that contain less than 70 hours of work. This gives the faculty the opportunity to offer more learning experiences and have confidence that they won't be overwhelming students.