All teachers experience moments when we simply do not have the time to provide the quality of work that we feel we should. None of us like cutting corners, but sometimes we just have no choice. Below are some tips and considerations from colleagues that may help to prioritise quality as much as possible when time is limited.

Maintain your sanity

Acknowledge that sometimes you need to choose the least of two evils, and accept it

Do not beat yourself up about things you are unable to do. Commit to the choices you have made, and give those as much attention as you can.

If you think there are negative consequences for administration, exams, colleagues or other courses, make a note to let people know as soon as you do have time. None of us are strangers to issues of time, and most people will be sympathetic to the situation. Given enough of a heads-up, they may be able to make up for or work without what you were unable to do.

Prioritise you

Before any other considerations, prioritise your own health and that of your family.

The biggest threat to both the quality and the quantity of any work is long-term illness. On the other side of the equation, the biggest boost to your teaching quality and ability to handle workload is your well-being.

In practice, this may mean setting guidelines for when, and where to work and for how long, as well as placing restrictions on your availability through email or work phone. When pressed for time, this may seem paradoxical. However, formulating a concrete set of rules that is sensible for your situation and sticking to them can help maintain your well-being in the long run.

Play to your strengths

What kind of teacher are you?

Hopefully, all of us together provide students with a whole host of different in-class and out-of-class experiences. However, as individual teachers, we have our own strengths and things we enjoy. When forced to make choices due to time restraints, it can be helpful to have a thorough awareness of our teacher identity.

For instance, you might have too little time to prepare for a class, and you are not comfortable improvising on a topic. Knowing that you are a good listener and comfortable leading discussions could offer a solution, in such a situation. You could then challenge the students to find the answers to their own questions and discuss these, instead. No need to prepare slides, jokes, references, or amusing anecdotes. … On the other hand, if you are an easy talker and/or an enthusiastic expert on the topic at hand, then improvising may be the way to go.
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Although what you teach can place limitations on how you teach it, in general, you have a variety of teaching styles and methods at your disposal. Playing to your strengths can save you from over-preparing, while the students still experience the best of what you have to offer.

Consider questions such as…

Do I prefer lecturing or interacting with students?
What motivates students in my classes?
Am I more comfortable with visual or linguistic information-sharing?
What is my number one teaching fear, and how do I prepare for it (or avoid it)?
Do I prefer to address individual students, small groups or the group as a whole?
Do I want to be in charge, or do I like to give students some room to do their own thing and see what they come up with?

etc. etc.

Bend the topic to what you like and know

In addition to our teaching identities, we have professional and personal interests. Linking course content to other information we know can save a lot of preparation time. In addition, it is beneficial for students to experience how courses relate to the real world and to other professional contexts in a meaningful way. In fact, the ability to do so in students is often seen as a higher-level skill that we wish them to acquire (see our assessment theme).

Play in your teaching with current affairs, other course content, examples from your own experience, research you are involved in, or even the odd sports metaphor to help explain and clarify the information students have to learn. This may save you from having to (re)read how the set texts deal with the same information.

Transparancy towards students

Students are (young) adults who tend to appreciate it if you acknowledge this

It can be helpful to share with students a little bit of the magic of teaching, and talk to them about what is going on behind the curtains. Often, they have no idea that we prepare for classes, have meetings, or how long it takes to correct an assignment. Talking about aspects of our job that they do not get to see, or showing quick calculations about how we spend our time is absolutely fine.

Of course, this is emphatically not about playing the sympathy card. Rather, it is about sharing with students some factual insight into the workings of professional day-to-day life – the good, the bad, its consequences and the choices that often need to be made. Armed with this knowledge, they will be better able to share with you what is important to them, and help you prioritise.

In addition, to share this information honestly with students is to take them seriously as adults. It builds a professional student-teacher relation that rises above their secondary-school experiences and prepares them for a real job. It also helps students arrive at a more realistic expectation about what we are able to do within the time we have and that perfection is not always an option. And as a result of this, students tend to feel more comfortable giving honest, balanced feedback about what we ask of them in our courses.