Embry-Riddle Online experiences

Hi folks,

Nearly 3 years ago, I applied at Embry-Riddle for an online teaching job. We did some back and forth, sending resumes, etc. Then nothing for over two years. Today, I got an email saying that they wanted to have me teach a Humanities class for them.

Anyone have experience with them? How long are terms? pay?

Anything would be appreciated.

 

Most undergraduate courses are 12 weeks long.

 

Wow - that is responsive Sorry, I had to say it.

 

Heh, yeah. I had totally given up/forgotten about them. I have not heard from them since Aug/Sep of 2008.

But heck, if they want to send a nice paycheck, then I am up for it.

I am really curious about how much they pay for the apparent 12 week courses. That is a bit longer than most of the other online schools I teach for.

 

Had a phone interview yesterday. It seemed to go well. They do have 12 week courses (at least these courses are - apparently, some grad courses are 9 weeks). They pay by the student, but I didn't ask how much. Pay schedule is every two weeks.

As I understand it, they have a faculty training/development that I will need to go through, but am not sure how long it takes. They use Blackboard 9.1, but have modified it in some way or another.

I did this interview as a lark, as I don't really NEED another course. But I now think I might follow it through and see how it goes.

 

With the exception of the MBA foundation courses (six weeks long), all of the graduate classes have transistioned to a nine week format.

I was considering going back for a MAS but the condensed format is a bit of a turnoff.

 

I just got hired by ERAU last fall, (It took about a year from contact to hire) I went through training and my first class is in March - I am excited, but I can't get a straight answer on what they pay. Their current pay chart has a few fuzzy classification of courses, so the course I am teaching is either $45 dollars a head or $135 a head... $45 is probably not worth doing this experiment twice. However, there was also a notice that went out last week saying starting in March, all pay scales were going to be increased. Of course since it looks like my bread and butter institution is cycling out older adjuncts, I may need this one pretty bad. Beggars can't be choosers after all.

ERAU's training is thorough but much slower and longer (3 courses 2 - 3 months) than Phoenix or some of the others I have gone through. Blackboard to me is not as intuitive as eCollege or UoP platform so it was a good practice. I think my class will require at least twice as much time per week than a UoP course... but then again, these are better students...

 

Well, I am now enrolled in the "training courses" so we shall see. I have also not received a real answer on the pay, but I haven't pushed it, either. I just figure I will try one course out, see how it works and then go from there. If the pay is substantial, then I will continue. If not, then I won't. I have found that the vast majority of my time is spent grading. Good students take much less time to grade than poor ones, so hopefully that will be a plus.

 

I was recently contacted by ERAU and will be starting the Blackboard and Eagle Vision faculty training programs next month. I am fortunate to work in a building that houses an ERAU education center and struck up an informal conversation with the Director of Academics in the hallway of our building back in January. That initial conversation led to a tour of the ERAU center and when I asked whether there was a current need for adjunct instructors I was told to submit my resume for consideration. I hadn't heard anything for a couple months and just received a call on Monday asking for official copies of my transcripts and was told I am tentatively being scheduled to teach a course on Global Crime and Criminal Justice Systems later this year. I believe the course will be a live, online course taught via ERAU's Eagle Vision platform.

I am hoping this initial class will lead to additional in-seat instructor opportunities with ERAU as well as future online teaching positions with other schools as well. I was recently hired as an Adjunct Instructor for Trine University and will begin teaching in-seat courses at their Indianapolis location starting this upcoming fall term and am currently completing their online faculty development course as well. If anyone has any suggestions or pointers regarding ERAU's faculty training courses and/or experiences with ERAU in general from an adjunct faculty perspective I'd sincerely appreciate the advice.

abnrgr275

 

I am just finishing the 8 weeks worth of training right now. I didn't find anything very difficult. If you can navigate Blackboard, then you won't have any trouble. In the first 4 weeks, there were two separate training courses. Once those finished, we had 4 more weeks in another one. The first two had facilitators that kept everyone informed and on top of things. The second 4 weeks were a little more "hands off." Overall, I didn't put very much time into the training, and it was pretty easy to do. I think 8 weeks is a bit much, but it is their school. If they want to have that much preparation, then I can either do it or look elsewhere.

I did nothing with Eagle Vision. I know nothing about that. Our training was strictly for online instruction via blackboard.

 

I have been teaching a course for them since March now, and I will say that I have noticed that the work is not particularly harder. I dislike Blackboard, but that is a personal preference. It took me three months out of training to get offered a course. Two other people that I keep in contact with from the training have been waiting over six months to be offered a course, and are not holding their breath. Their new pay scale makes them competitive with brick and mortal community colleges, depending on if you get a full class or not.

 

I am finished with training. It ended this past week. I passed all the training courses. I did get an email saying that I would hear from them in the next few months. Like others, I am not holding my breath. If I get a course and it works out, then great. If not, I won't lose sleep.

 

cdhale & Princeofska,

Thanks for providing the details regarding ERAU's faculty training process. I turned in some additional paperwork earlier this week and should be starting the Blackboard and EagleVision training soon. I'm scheduled to teach a class in August so hopefully the training will go smoothly and I'll be ready to go by then.

abnrgr275

 

Well, it took about a month to get a course offer from ERAU. I am slated to teach a course starting in July. I will post my experiences in the online classroom at ERAU once I get started.

 

After finishing my first course there, two observations:

1) the mentor / faculty manager really does not have much input throughout the course. In fact, I was called once at the beginning of the course but only heard from them again after I had a question mid-semester. Which is fine if you are used to teaching online classes, I assume they were checking in on me during the term, but I do have a lot of experience doing this already. If you are a first time online professor, you may want to keep on your faculty manager just to get some feedback. Everyone in their administration is really friendly (at least that I talked to) so it has been a pleasure to work there so far.

2)Find your colleague ID and pin number early... This is not the ID you log into ERNIE with, but 7 numbers and a pin. It took me a couple hours to finally track it down at the end of the class (and of course I waited until the last day to turn in grades just in case I received a student complaint about the final grade I had given them a week ago). They never actually send you anything about this, other than there is mention of such a number existing in one of the welcome letters. You can actually find it pretty easy when you go to the login screen to ERNIE there is a "forgot Colleague ID link) ... however, all of the information about "web based grading" (what you need these numbers for) states that it is on webpages that it is not. Since I was already logged into the system, I only found the link the next day when I logged in to try again. Sounds trivial, but it was a real headache since the numbers were not posted where they said they would be. If I can save anyone that trouble, this post was worth it.

If i think of anything else I will post it... just my first few thoughts after finishing my first class with ERAU.

 

Thank you for the heads up! My first class starts in July, so I will have more input then, I am sure.

 

More input, please

Those of you who are teaching at Embry (CDHale), please provide more input...

How is your experience going???

How much do they pay???

How were you treated in the recruitment process???

 

My first class doesn't start until the 15th, so I have no real input on that end.

Regarding pay, it depends on the size of the class. They started a new payment plan this Spring, but overall, the pay is fairly good. It has a wide range. For 15 students or so, I think it is about $2500 per class (that is off the top of my head). If you have over 20, it is closer to $3000. I don't have the exact numbers with me. If I recall from my interview process, they pay every 2 weeks after the term starts, but since I haven't received a check yet, I wouldn't swear to that.

The recruitment process was fine. They do have an extended training time. I had to complete two 4-week training courses at the same time, then another 4-week course after the first two ended. So 12 weeks worth of training (though done in 8 weeks).

We were told that our faculty contact person would call us about 2 weeks before the course began, but I have only had email contact with her to this point.

I will have more to add in a few weeks, I am sure.

 

OK, I just finished my first 12 week term at ERAU. I really enjoyed it. Here are my observations, based upon the questions asked above:

1. I am used to 5.5 - 8 week courses, so 12 was nice and slow. I enjoyed the slower pace. In addition, the majority of assignments were pretty easy to handle, grading-wise. There were not major papers to grade every week, like in other more accelerated formats. So the work load was nice.

2. Contact with faculty mentors was kept to a minimum, and I mean that in a good way. She was available any time I needed her, and she was great at answering questions, but she didn't pester me or anything. Whether that was just because I am so freakin' awesome, or simply because she is pretty cool... I can't say. But it was good. At one point about week 9 or 10, I was reviewed (I didn't know about it until after the fact), and the review was good.

3. Pay is dependent upon number of students in your class by the census date. It is very competitive, at least compared to other schools where I have taught, and I have taught for quite a few. They do pay every two weeks.

4. The students were pretty good, overall. They are a pretty smart bunch, but since my field is English (Humanities at ERAU), and I was teaching a literature class, you can imagine that it was not the subject matter that was near and dear to their hearts (since they are all science, etc. folks). The first essay is able to be revised for a higher grade, if the student wants, but most of them took it, if the grade was 80 or higher. I only had about 4 or 5 rewrites out of 17 or 18 students.

Anyway, I just wanted to share that my experience was positive, and I would recommend Embry-Riddle as a place to work, if it were to open up for you.

 

Good to hear, I had a very similar experience. However, my mentor told me she was going to review me and never did... It was kind of weird. I must have passed because I got offered another class (which did not make)... But I would have liked to see the review. Actually, I never heard from her again after the middle of the term ::shrug::