While planning an undergraduate course for the first time in several years, I was perplexed by the question of how much reading and writing to assign. I turned to Google and, after a few blind alleys, found a helpful article at a blog maintained by the Center for Teaching Excellence at Rice University. The blog post is "How Much Should We Assign? Estimating Out of Class Workload" and the author is Elizabeth (Betsy) Barre. The nifty thing about this article is that it includes a calculator for estimating the time required to complete reading and writing assignments. The following screenshots give you an idea of how it works.
