I am teaching my first course, for the Axia side, and I am finding the workload to be absolutely insane. There are too many requirements to keep track of, and the amount of feedback required is ridiculous. I'm supposed to grade 20 papers, 20 checkpoints, and respond thoughtfully to 40 discussion questions, plus weekly feedback, not to mention put up all the stupid required posts for each week... My file of templates is growing so maybe next time that will cut down on time. Does it get easier? Start to make some sense at some point? Will I get faster at marking papers and giving feedback? I just can't fathom how people do this while working full time and manage to sleep or have a single minute to themselves. Any tips would be appreciated.
I have not worked for UOP/Axia. However, I have done quite a bit of teaching, both on site and online. In my experience, new teachers spend WAY too much time marking papers. I was no exception. We overmark them when we are new. The fact is that most students won't read the majority of what you put on the paper. They normally look at the grade, and anything you might have written near the grade (on site classes), or at the grade in the gradebook and perhaps any comments you make in the textbox of the gradebook (online, depending upon what course shell you are using). Many students never download corrected papers to look at WHY they received the grade they did. In fact, it is common for a student to email and say "why did you take 12 points off of my paper?" when if they had looked at the attached document, there would be extensive feedback, including a grading rubric, clearly showing where the points came from. Anyway, all of that to say, that yes, you will probably get faster at marking papers, because you won't do so much of it. Not that you dont' still give good feedback and make corrections, but you won't "overdo" it so much. That has been my experience.
Yes, it gets much easier. Save everything you post. Once you get your second set of courses, organize them and take advantage of the automatic responses. You'll find that the same issues come up just about every course. Save your more insightful posts and you'll be able to cut and paste them where they fit - and they will. Sure, you'll have to create new posts each week - but not all of them will have to be developed afresh each time.
To make you feel better, it is not just Axia. I have been in the online teaching business for the last 10 years and requirements have increased considerably lately but salaries have stayed the same and sometimes even have gone even lower. Devry is going though the same process of increasing requirements for the same salary. Now you are required to attend meetings, post about 40 messages a week, grade 50 students in two days, grade 50 final exams during the weekend, give your home number and make yourself available for phone calls during the week, etc, etc and all this for the wonderful sum of 2 thousand dollars for a 2 credit course (salary has been the same since 2003). They score you based on this list of insane requirements and need to keep an average of 3 out 4 otherwise will take you off the list. I calculated the hourly rate based on this crazy requirements and comes to about 12 dlls an hour that is about the same money that I pay to a teaching assistant, I'm seriously thinking of stopping teaching with them. Devry was about the only decent schools to work as you have other that pay peanuts as TUI. It looks like as more PhDs are granted by online schools, more "cheap" teachers become available and this drive the salaries down and demands up. May be time to do something else.
Hey Streetsmart, I've taught a few classes at UoP and the time commitment for each class gets less and less. I'm not sure how Axia works, but UoP has 5 week classes with a mix of individual and team assignments. I have two individual papers and two team papers assignments each course. I have to make 2 substantive posts 5 days a week along with the things you listed, so I'm not sure why you have to respond to 40 discussion posts. The feedback and grading goes much quicker after a couple of classes because you know what you are looking for. I just follow along with the rubric I post and have text files of common feedback I can paste for each week's feedback and paper. Since its your first class it will seem like too much, I probably spent over 30 hours a week devoted to my first class... Now I average anywhere from 7 - 12 hours a week depending on the assignments that are due. So stick with it... it will be easier and not as time consuming in a couple more classes.
Not that I am not grateful for the response to my application to teach online at Axia but WOW!!!!! They conducted an on line interview and you would have thought that I was applying to teach at Harvard. I teach at the Art institute and I LOVE it and the interview there was much less rigorous than the online one for Axia. I still want the job though and it will help my resume. Any idea as to how long it takes for them to make decisions at Axia and UoP?
All, The amount of grading depends on the subject area taught and your familiarity with the material. I began teaching MGT 350--Critical Thining online. There were a number of papers and the enrollment was always high (20-22 students). I learned some tricks from other faculty (ie. save your rubrics) that have helped decrease the amount of time spent per class. I also teach in the operations/supply chain area and my assignments are more "computation" based with less emphasis on papers. I spend 1/2 time I did grading Critical Thinking papers. The key is to grade your threads throughout the week and commit to grading a few assignments each night. This prevents you from giving away all of your weekend grading papers. Thanks,
