The question has arisen here, and I am asked privately with some regularity, "How do I get an adjunct faculty job -- whether with an on-line or distance program, or residential?" A website called www.adjunctopia.com gives promise. It seems to work like monster.com -- job-seekers can post resumes for free, and schools pay a fee to search the database. If anyone here has used it, or tries it out, it would be nice to have comments.
I don't think it really been launched yet. Under the keywords of "computer science" and "English," there were no opportunities available. Not all the features have been implemented.
Bill's right, and this is surprising, since the article in this month's University Business magazine (happily resurrected under new ownership; www.universitybusiness.com) refers to 1,500 current adjunct members. Schools pay an average of $3,500 a year to access resumes. The article also says that more than 43% of all US postsecondary faculty are part time, and they teach 25% of all courses.
Finding adjunct online teaching contracts There are nine job search sites that I use weekly to locate online adjunct faculty contracts and another six sites that I check monthly. There are so many f2f and online adjunct teaching positions available that I have sent out as many as 15 CVs in one week at times and never less than at least one -- and that is just online teaching because I am not interested in f2f teaching positions. I have sent many course design contract and full time job listings to colleagues and clients. Job hunting is a numbers game and the more positions that you apply for the more chance of finding what you want. Beginning this spring I will be teaching ten graduate courses online between April and August (not all at the same time!). Plus I have had several course design projects since January. I have had enough offers for teaching that I have been able to turn down several online classes that were self-study, which I do not particularly care to teach. I completed my MSEd just 8 months ago and my degree transcript was not available until September so that's not a bad track record for job hunting in online teaching and design. Not a bad chunk of change either Leslie (who will also be teaching 5 graduate classes during vacation at the beach this summer -- have laptop will travel -- the beauty of online teaching!!)
Re: Finding adjunct online teaching contracts Dear Leslie, This sounds very interesting, but one little question. What are the sites, please.
Re: Re: Finding adjunct online teaching contracts I've been getting emails for 6 months from people wanting to know how I got all those teaching and design jobs in such a short time. I finally put all my strategies together in a Distance Learning Career Strategies program. There's no secret to the search sites -- anyone can find them with a little work so I'll list a few of the best ones here. As to the strategies -- well it would take several pages to explain all that -- that is why I wrote the program which can be found on my website. NOTE: you can set up automatic search agents on many of these and it will take you a few trial and error runs to figure out which key words work best. On those sites I have five different search agents on each. Of course none of this will do any good at all unless you know how to market your experience and talent. You have to have some online teaching experience and design experience to get your first job -- go figure. But there are ways to get that experience so you can get your first job! Worked for me And another tip -- a resume attached to an email is not all that effective -- it's just more of the same old same old that comes across the desk everyday. An online CV is what has gotten me so many contact replies. This is not my website but rather a separate CV that I send as a URL in email inquiries so that I don't have to attach a resume. Once I started doing that the replies came a lot faster. And you need a proper CV not a resume! Here are some of the best sites -- run a search on google and you'll find plenty more -- use all that you can find because most colleges choose a site and never use another so you have to cover all the bases. You have to remember that it's a numbers game -- the more you send out the better chance of getting good contacts. hotjobs flipdog careerbuilder monster (though this isn't such a good one anymore -- don't know why) chronicle adjunctnation ed-ex ucea main virtual university gazette academic360 highered instructional systems technology employment opportunities from Indiana U That's a good start. A lot of contacts came from these. But surprisingly, most of my current jobs (except for 3) came from just up and writing to colleges that never advertise Yeah it's a little gutsy -- but it works. I explain all about how to do that in the Distance Learning Career Strategies guide. Leslie (who is not at all shy about writing to any personnel director anywhere and explaining what I can do for their DL program and online courses!!)
Re: Finding adjunct online teaching contracts If they are three unit courses, you are teaching 30 graduate units in roughly a semester. Given typical on-campus teaching loads, that sounds excessive. Am I understanding you correctly?
Re: Finding adjunct online teaching contracts But you have an MS in online teaching and learning, right? Presumably you obtained online teaching and design experience during the course of completing your program. And I'm assuming that you are teaching courses related to online teaching and learning. What would you suggest for those interested in teaching an unrelated subject? How can prospective on-line faculty who merely intend to use online teaching as a delivery medium obtain the necessary experience that would allow them to initially get their foot in the door?
Re: Re: Finding adjunct online teaching contracts Hi Bill -- yes you understand correctly. However four of those courses are 2 semester unit professional development courses. The rest are masters degree level educational technology courses. Some of these are not listed on my website because I am not at liberty quite yet to discuss the new masters program for which I will be teaching. Some courses I will be teaching run for six weeks, some for eight weeks and some for ten. I think one of the masters level ed tech classes will be semester length and will begin in May and run through the summer -- not sure on that yet. It is not excessive and in fact if I were offered up to two more courses I could easily fit them in my summer schedule. Remember that these will not all be running at the same time although certainly many will overlap at some point or another. I teach exclusively online and therefore I don't have to fit my online teaching around a full time f2f job as so many online profs have to do. Also I do not believe that online teaching takes more time than f2f teaching. That's hogwash actually. An effective and experienced online instructor can design a full semester online course (assuming this is a course one will be personally teaching) in a week and can teach more online courses full time than one could teach f2f full time. This includes 2 and 3 credit grad courses with a maximum of 20 students in each. And some courses only have anywhere from 4-10 students. My online teaching methods are streamlined to maximize time efficiency and to allow me to spend the majority of my online time interacting with students rather than grading assignments and doing paperwork. It also helps that I type 150 wpm and speed read -- and I have quite a bit of experience in CMC and text-based communication not to mention over 20 years of teaching experience that includes everything from Kindergarten through college and adult business communications and computer classes Leslie (who absolutely LOVES online teaching and will probably never set foot in a traditional classroom again!!!!)
Re: Re: Finding adjunct online teaching contracts First I suggest that anyone who wants to teach any subject online learn how to both teach and design online courses effectively as those are both part of the job description of online teaching. It takes time and cannot be done overnight but there are ways to obtain design and online teaching experience. It is volunteer and unpaid experience but it gets you experience and references necessary for a paid teaching position. Becoming trained in online teaching is not mandatory but it is certainly a big advantage. If five people apply to teach an online course in criminal justice or anthropology or theology and ONE of those people can document training and experience in teaching online -- who do you think will get the job? Online training need not be the expensive grad courses that take half a year to complete (although CSUH's program is among the best). One can find short and inexpensive online teaching certificates (via DL of course) and while they are not nearly as good, at least it shows some knowledge of the medium. How you prepare and how you go about getting a job depends a lot on your goals and purpose for teaching online. If it is to make a little extra $$ while in school or as a second job -- one won't find much out there because one will not be motivated to do what it takes to get those jobs. It is very difficult to find jobs without documented successful experience/training and very strong references. And in order to get that experience and those references, one has to take the time (usually several months) to prepare course designs and gain some online teaching experience (volunteer experience and UNPAID) so that one has strong references when applying for a paid position. There's a lot involved in finding online work -- and it takes a while. There will be more and more online teaching jobs out there as time goes on and the sooner one gets that foot in the door, the better Leslie
