University of People Adjunct Jobs pay 600-675 per course

Discussion in 'Online & DL Teaching' started by smartdegree, Sep 8, 2021.

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  1. Vicki

    Vicki Well-Known Member


    It is really interesting to read about your experience. I tried taking classes with them a year or two ago. I just couldn't connect with it at all. I think I started two or three different times and each time I just sorta never finished. The material was just sooooo boring. As a professor, are you allowed to add in your own materials at all, or are you pretty much there as a sort of proctor?
     
  2. Dustin

    Dustin Well-Known Member

    The second one. You have no control over the material, which is doubly frustrating because they still make you set up parts of the course yourself, even though they won't change.

    I love their use of Open Educational Resources, the textbooks are good quality, but I agree the material did not feel engaging to me either.
     
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  3. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Fair enough.
     
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  4. Although we can't change the material in the course itself, I always add supplemental material in my announcements or throughout the discussion boards. This connects the students to more timely material (what's going on in industry today) rather than some of the outdated resources I have seen used. This approach has helped with overall student motivation.
     
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  5. Dustin

    Dustin Well-Known Member

    I'd love if you could share your experiences and how they might compare and contrast to mine. I don't mean to broadly dissuade people from UofP based on a really narrow experience.
     
  6. Vicki

    Vicki Well-Known Member

    That is really good to hear. It sounds very similar to what I am experiencing in my current program. The instructors add their own videos in the announcements, sometimes several a week. So I feel like they are truly instructing. And if they add other content from youtube, that’s great too. The video and audio options really help me stay focused. When my mind starts wandering while reading, I can shift gears for a while until I can focus better on reading.
     
  7. I've been teaching at UoP for two years now (basic accounting, financial accounting, personal finance, and online education strategies). Before the courses begin, I schedule all of the announcements for the nine weeks of the course. I include videos I've made here for areas I noticed students have struggled the most on and also supplement them with articles and youtube videos which are optional. Since doing this, I often see students reference the videos or articles I post in their discussion posts which lets me know they are actually viewing my announcements and using the extra materials.

    My one pain point is grading within Moodle. I also teach at other universities which use Canvas and BrightSpace, and Moodle is by far the worst LMS to use. When grading learning journals, they do not appear in the grading tool and I have to download all of them and open them individually and then go into the grade book and add the feedback manually. UoP has definitely changed over the past two years for the better. They recently sent out an email to Faculty for the inaugural UoP Scholarship Teaching and Learning Poster Session this fall. I submitted a proposal to present so looking forward to how this event goes.
     
  8. JoshD

    JoshD Well-Known Member

    I have thought about teaching at UofP but I was waiting for Dustin to respond with his experience. I am used to have 100% autonomy in regards to the material I teach. In my Personal Finance and Advanced Personal Finance course, I built it from the ground up including textbook decision, homework, exams, discussion posts, etc. I am not sure how I would do with it being already decided for me.

    I appreciate your honesty in your post, Dustin!
     
  9. All of the courses I have taught at the various universities I teach at (both at the undergrad and grad level) have all been prepackaged by the university. The only personalization I get is in the announcements and what I post in my discussions. When I notice errors in the assignments or quizzes, I often have to send emails to the faculty lead or dean to notify them of the issue to fix. This is often a headache as you would think they would have these kinks worked out if the course hasn't really changed in the past few years.

    I am looking to leave industry in the next year as I am wrapping up coursework in my PhD program this fall. Hopefully I can leave public accounting and enter into academia full time in 2023 and develop my own courses.
     
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  10. JoshD

    JoshD Well-Known Member

    Hopefully you are able to snag a FT position in Academia. Being able to build your own course is astronomically better, IMO.
     
  11. chrisjm18

    chrisjm18 Well-Known Member

    It's a pain in the butt too. I like prepackaged courses because they don't pay me enough to do course development for online gigs. I only enjoy the autonomy of my full-time position because I am the real instructor. Online faculty, for the most part, are facilitators. I'm teaching two courses at OPSU this fall, and I developed both courses in their entirety. It was the same at CHC, where I taught White Collar Crime the last two fall semesters. Otherwise, the other schools prepackaged the courses for me.
     
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  12. Nemo

    Nemo Member

    I thought it time to throw an update in this thread. Very shortly after my last post herein I received contact from UoP asking me to move forward. I initially was just going to ignore it, but I have a distinct interest in this ideology of making education accessible, so I went ahead and got on board.

    Once I started, the process was smooth. I ended up assigned to "teach" an introduction class that all students have to take. So far, it's very simple and relatively well laid out for the intended purpose. However, the problem I am having is that nearly all of my students speak English as a second (or, even more impressively, a third!) language, so there are some hiccups as we go.
     
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  13. SweetSecret

    SweetSecret Well-Known Member

    The problem I noticed was challenges with English comprehension more than it being a general ESL issue. That makes it particularly difficult for the grading system when it is not the professor doing the grading...
     
    Last edited: Sep 10, 2022
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  14. Nemo

    Nemo Member

    I am noticing issues on both sides. I have roughly five students who all fail to capitalize I, and those same students use commas and periods after a space (like , this .) Generally not things one would accept in higher education, but they are clearly understanding the prompts and assignments, so I am trying to find a way to facilitate success.
     
  15. Vicki

    Vicki Well-Known Member

    Maybe suggest they get Grammarly. The free version would help with those types of issues. Would it work on their platform? I use it in my class, and it works on the discussion boards and Word. I even used it on this post. :) Although mine is the premium version. So it helps with sentence structure and all sorts of other stuff.
     
  16. Vicki

    Vicki Well-Known Member

    One of the biggest complaints I have seen about this school is the student grading. I wonder if comprehension is part of the problem with peer grading.
     
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  17. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Many of them will only have a mobile phone, so if it works on a phone, then maybe?
     
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  18. SweetSecret

    SweetSecret Well-Known Member

    Exactly my point.
     
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  19. Rachel83az

    Rachel83az Well-Known Member

    I used to have the Grammarly keyboard installed on my phone. It's very useful. I'd write everything out normally, then switch to the Grammarly keyboard for a final check.
     
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  20. Vicki

    Vicki Well-Known Member

    Yes, they have the Grammarly keyboard for iOS and Android. I am on my iPad now with an attached keyboard case. When I select the Grammarly keyboard, it shows me a notice on the bottom of the screen that I can “check my text.” There are so many options with Grammarly. And you can sign in from a variety of platforms. I have it now on my iPad, Macbook, and Windows laptop. I especially like the Premium version because it helps with clarity, wordienss and sentence structure. Of course, there can be times when their suggestion isn’t quite right, so you would want to skip some suggestions. But, the free version should be fine for those that just need spelling, punctuation and capitalization help.
     
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