Teaching Time: Distance Education Versus Classroom Instruction

This study presents time-and-task records of faculty and teaching assistants' time for comparable computer-aided design courses at two state universities in the midwestern United States. One course was taught at a distance and the other course was a conventional face-to-face course. Results indicate a distance course takes less time to teach than a traditional classroom course, if student enrollment and assessment procedures are not included in analysis. When analyzed on a per-student basis, both faculty and teaching assistant time was higher for the distance course.