A reading list is a tricky thing. You want to assign enough for students to get a better understanding of the topic, but how much is too much? Checkout the Course Workload Estimator at Rice University. In this Teaching in Higher Ed podcast, co-creator Dr. Betsy Barre explains why she created the estimator and how it is used. Interestingly, they found the key to reading time depends on the reader’s experience with the topic. For example, a strong physics students, known as a “strong reader,” may be a novice reader in a humanities course covering a topic new to them. So a crucial component of the estimator is the number of new concepts for the student.