Online tools can reduce teacher time spent on admin
A 2014 study by Boise State University in Idaho found that 30% of education professionals’ weekly workload is consumed by administrative tasks. However, eCampus News reports that those utilising new teacher-focussed online tools can significantly streamline their admin task lists. The report states that client management tools can help faculty manage hundreds of students, giving them an easy way to track prior interactions and take notes about each student; counsellors can use them in the same way, to prepare for future sessions. Scheduling tools can be used to set meeting dates efficiently, enabling users to find mutually functional timeframes and make last-minute changes, all online.

Student meetings, course requests and more can be streamlined with online tools to reduce time wastes for faculty and admin.

Thanksgiving has just ended and faculty and academic staff will soon dive into a full spring course load post holiday season. Professionals in the education industry know that meetings, paperwork, and other administrative tasks can be just as important to ensure a successful school year. However, they can often take up too much of an educator’s time. A study conducted at Boise St University in 2014 estimated these administrative tasks are taking up 30 percent of an education professional’s weekly workload, taking away from their abilities to properly serve their students.

While it is not practical to eliminate these tasks, there are some great ways that professionals within the education sector can reduce the time it takes to complete them. From large universities such as Texas A&M University or Morehouse College, to smaller institutions, by utilizing simple online tools, education professionals can eliminate the burdens of time-consuming administrative tasks.

Here are two simple tips and one great example of how utilizing these tools and related strategies can help improve administrative processes for professionals in the education year-round:

Look to simple marketing technology and practices as examples. While most marketers are using online client management tools to capture more clients, for education professionals they have other great benefits. Online client management solutions can be a tremendous help for faculty with hundreds of students. Also, with the ability to track communication history, past activity and private notes, tracking student interactions can be very helpful to document past interactions in order to be as prepared as possible for the next meeting.

For counselors it can be even more helpful to review notes from previous interactions when prepping for an upcoming meeting with a student. This functionality is also critical when a new quarter rolls around and the need to reference past course load preferences for a particular student arises. Many of these client management platforms also come with mobile capabilities for the on-the-go teacher. New student requests and scheduling changes will immediately pop on the teacher’s phone. These tools can also be utilized for collecting information from new students in order to record all the important information for new enrollees.

(Next page: Scheduling and a powerful example)