Okay, I finally figured it out after reading about 42 gillion posts. The essence of a teaching job at the different college levels (having never tough anyone anything..): Community College = Teach Students For Profit = Grade Papers University = Publish Research
I like your synopsis... Unfortunately, I have to agree with your synposis. It seems that indeed, some of my best learning experiences were in junior/community college. I haven't taught at a full college or university yet, but I had some pretty good teaching experiences in community college as well. Even though WGU is not considered a research college, some of my best research (undergrad - into public policy implications of distance learning, graduate - practical research on closing the specific cash cycle of a specific company) was done at a WGU. Finally, I attended Ashworth College to actually earn my AS degree. That's all the system was about...grading papers and exams. Now that's not to say I didn't learn something or that I didn't enjoy my time, I'm just reaching to understand this last rubric point. I guess if I was to be honest, my community college teaching experience was for a for-profit. Unfortunately, based on the amount of work I gave out in a semester, all I had time to do was lecture and grade papers. Good one! Jacob
I can't say I agree with you. I work as an adjunct for 2 for profit schools and it is not about grading papers. I took classes at a community college that did seem like it was all about grading papers. I took classes at DeVry in the late 80's and it was about teaching students. It all depends on the teacher. I think you are trying to paint with very broad strokes and it is not a fair picture. It is like saying B&M schools = easy online schools = hard
It is sad to say, but some for profits actually pay you for this only. I'm not going to say names, but I actually worked for a school that basically required you to only grade papers. Not all the for profit online schools are like this, Devry for example requires you to keep a close contact with the students by conducting online discussions and phone contact when required. The main problem with the for profits is that they already have canned copies of their courses designed by someone else so the instructor has little to say when preparing the course material.
I may be painting too broadly, I don’t know why, but this was a moment of clarity for me yesterday. As a student, this has been my experience over the past 20 years or so. I don’t think it is bad, or good, just what I have run into. The way my mind works, I’m always trying to get the essence of things. I’ve read so many different opinions and what not about good / bad for profit, not for profit, NA, RA, what ever, this seemed like the simplest summary. BTW, I do agree B&M = easy, online = hard; but I know that that was a joke in one of the responses. I also am not an expert here in any way, other than, well, maybe I am if I think about it, from a student standpoint, I have over ~230 credit hours total and am working on more…
Broadbased opinion yes...but sadly very true, for me the "Teach Students" actually only seems to apply to small schools even large Community Colleges have adminstrations that push towards the profit approach.
