I have news about online teaching and reading workload, friends.

I have experimented with REDUCING the number of readings I assign for a class. This is hard in overview courses because you always feel like they should have "the lay of the land" and master all that there is.

HOWEVER...

My students have performed BETTER with reduced reading workloads.

Undergrads focus on ONE reading per week, while having 3 more available "if they so happen to have the time to read them" (they often do try to read these extra readings).

Masters' level students have appreciated taking a "let's just take things more slowly" approach.

Doctoral level students felt somewhat weirded out that I wasn't assigning three books a week. Though they appreciated it.

What I have drawn from my experiences:
- Workshops work.

Having a section of the class that is "hands-on, let's get writing/analyzing/thinking/reading" as a workshop fulfills two goals, for me:

1) Cements my students' understanding of the method.

2) Helps them have actual time to think and read and write rather than rush through.

Depth and breadth are issues we need to compromise on.

- Do I want them to read more broadly or more deeply?
- Do I want them to become more expert in a few things or become more generalist-type people?

These choices are malleable, as is our context.

What is NOT malleable:

THREAD: On the full-fledged process of responding to a Revise-And-Resubmit (R&R).

I have written pieces of the process, but I hadn't actually written a thread or a blog post showcasing how all my blog posts fit with one another. I teach this process when I give workshops.

So here's what I do (now), and let me share a lesson from my past lives:

DO NOT SIT ON R&Rs.

I know, they're painful and scary and sometimes we don't know if our paper will get rejected in the end.

But remember, an R&R means an OPPORTUNITY to get your paper published.

Sitting on R&Rs, leaving them for later, and not prioritizing them has gotten me fewer publications. I know this for a fact. I am not ashamed of admitting that I have sometimes felt that I will not be capable of responding to multiple (often conflicting) comments.

HOWEVER...

Sustained, frequent advice from professors who are senior to me (though I am senior myself now too) is always the same and on-point:

The goal is the R&R.

You're not getting a desk rejection.

You are getting your work read, reviewed carefully, thought about, responded to.

What do I do now (and have been doing for the past few years, with success)

When I get the R&R (the "decision letter"), I make sure to calm down, because I am always afraid I'm going to get nasty comments. These have been (luckily) very rarely present in my latest submissions.