First-year college students are sometimes surprised by how much of their learning in college takes place outside of the classroom. If students don’t allocate enough time for homework, projects, reading, and other out-of-class learning activities, their academic success and school/life balance will suffer.
High School Learning Time
In high school, most of the learning takes place through guided learning activities that take place in class. This emphasis on guided learning under the supervision of a teacher is partly a result of the significantly longer school calendar most high schools use – usually just about 180 days per school year. Some schools schedule each class daily, others schedule them every other day). But most year-long high school classes consist of 120-144 hours of teacher-led learning activities.
Classes Daily – 50 minutes x 5 classes per week = 4.1 hours of in-class learning/week x 36 weeks =
144 hours of in-class learning per year
Every other day – 80 minutes x 5 classes per two weeks = 6.6 hours of in-class learning/week x 18 weeks =
120 hours of in-class learning per year
College Learning Time
Whereas in high school, most classes run 36 weeks over the course of a school year, the vast majority of college classes run 15 weeks over the course of a semester. That means, that in order to achieve the same amount of learning as in high school, students will need to experience 120-144 hours of learning time in just 15 weeks.
144 hours/15 weeks = 9.6 hours of learning a week
120 hours/15 weeks = 8 hours of learning a week
Since most 3-credit college courses offer just 150-160 minutes (2.5 – 2.75 hours) of instructional time per week, students must complete about 6 hours of out-of-class learning time per week for each class they take.
Additionally, The US Department of Education sets workload expectations for students attending college in the United States. For each college credit hour to meet federal standards, a college course must offer at the equivalent of one hour of instructional time per week and no less than two hours of out-of-class student work per week throughout the semester.
A typical 3-credit hour class meeting federal standards, therefore, will include 3 hours of instructional time and 6 or more hours of out-of-class student work per week. In a 3-credit hour course, students must spend a minimum of 9-learning hours per week to meet the standard. Spread out over the 15 weeks of a typical college semester, that’s 135 hours of learning per course per semester.
Takeaway
No matter how you slice it, beginning college students need to be prepared for significant out-of-class learning time to be successful in their classes. And if they hope to have a sustainable school/life balance, they’ll need to schedule that time wisely.
