Occasionally a conversation will come up on this board about how much an online adjunct can make. After teaching online for a year now and recently being hired on by a number of new schools I think that the limiting factor in income is time. The jobs are there for those willing to send out thousands of resumes hoping for a few responses. My question to all is, what methods do you use to speed up the online teaching process? The quality must remain, but there are methods to become more efficient without the student ever feeling ignored. I know that I use emarking assistant and I am going to try Dragon Naturally speaking to see if that helps. What else can I do? How can I speed up discussion boards? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks
I teach the same classes for one school. I get four or Computer Apps and I have "built" a list of links I use most often, responses that seem most common, and remarks that go in the gradebook. The first few times you teach a class there is no shortcut that I have found. You can become efficient but it comes with experience in that class
Agreed. I recently added a course I've not taught before. Painfully slow going. I'd forgotten how much work the first course (or two) takes.
For those of you who teach full time, how many courses can you typically handle at once? I know it depends on how many students you have and how much the school requires, but I'm justing looking for an average. Thanks
Part time and handle about 6 classes per semester. Of course, I have no time for a life but that is another story.
I generally stick with 4 at a time, sometimes with an overlap so that its 6 or 8. Once I got skipped so I tried to do 6 the next section and it about killed me. Of course, I do that in addition to being a full-time PhD student, in full-time clinical practice and as the father of 5 children under 8. If I didn't have "work" and family, I'm sure I could do much more.
I teach full time and serve as director of our campus writing room (tutors, etc.). In addition to that, I teach anywhere from 2-6 courses online at any given time. Normally, I am around 3-4. When I am at that level, it goes fairly smoothly. When I have more, I am pressed for time and spend every "free" minute working on my online classes. All that in addition to my wife and 3 kids (ages 7-13) who like to spend a little time with me, once in awhile.
+ 100%. I also work online a great deal so my wife does not have to work, my kids can go to private school, and I can do things with my family that I would not otherwise be able to with a single income. I have been doing this for a while, so I have become rather efficient at it. Time management is the biggest factor in my experience to being successful at online teaching. I would not be doing it if it got to the extent that it intefered with family life.
Although my postion as Dean does not come with a teaching requirement, I feel that teaching makes me more sensitive to student and faculty needs and, besides, my roots are as faculty and I love to teach. One quarter, I (foolishly) tried teaching three courses (two sections of one course and one section of another) in addition to my "day job," and was unsatisfied with my performance. So, right now, I am only teaching one course per quarter.
I guess Randell is a super natural being. I teach full time and do online courses on the side. My regular teaching load is 3 courses on campus and I accomodate 2 or 3 online. I have to leave some time for research so 5 to 6 classes is hectic enough for me.
