Dr. Gina, You may want to do a search, but just in case: www.Monster.com lists some online adjunct positions, use "online adjunct" as your search term. Adjunct Nation has listings that you can view after you set up your account. http://www.adjunctnation.com/ All schools with DL programs have links to employment and you can find this information on the website. Good luck with your applications, Kevin
Who is the most desperate school? I have applied to several schools and never had any luck. I applied to UMUC and had an interview. It went well but I was told their IT program is not doing well so they do not need adjuncts at this point. I have applied to DeVry also. I applied to South University and completed the online training and I am just waiting to get a class to teach. Does anyone have any suggestions? I really want to teach at DeVry. I was a student at the DeVry in NJ in 1987 and have a great deal of respect for the school. Besides, I dropped out of DeVry and swore I would never go back to school. It would be nice to return as a teacher (ironic twist). Please help!!
I also completed the faculty training from South University in Feb but haven't been offered a contract yet. Have you tried Grand Canyon University? The problem with GCU is that I received 2 contracts but none for the last several semesters. They say they want to give the new faculty a chance.
Dr. Gina reply Dr. Gina- I'm new to online teaching, but here is what I know. 18 grad hours in the teaching field(s) and college-level teaching experience, preferably online- but not usually necessary, is what is required. With those credentials you should be able to get online work, but it takes a while to obtain it and build to a more full-time load. Spend some time on the web looking at as many of the DL schools you can think of and finding those that offer degrees and/or many courses in your teaching field(s). Then send your info, if possible, to the deans (again, this takes some time searching on websites!). As a second choice, send them to the HR/recruiting folks. Also, some schools have an online fill in the blank application that can be filled out. Finally, sign up for as many as the job notifications that you can. The major ones have already been listed here. You could also join the Online Adjunct Group thru Yahoo for additional ideas and peer support. Good luck and I hope this helps.
Randell- Not that any school wants to be known as desperate (LOL!), I do have one thing to add here. Hopefully no one will be offended who teaches for them. I was recruited by CTU (Colorado Technical University) last year. It was a good experience (the recruiting process) and they seem like an okay bunch of folks. The turn off for me is that they have a synchronous element to all of their courses. The required "chat office hours" didn't bother me, but I was not in favor of having to hold live lectures each week. They were mandatory for instructors, but not students. So you could have no one show up, but still have to talk for an hour, because they record them for an archive in case students want to go back later and listen. And if students do participate they aren't on a telephone call with you.... they can hear you because you talk into a microphone, but the only interaction you have such as questions/comments from them is via the keyboard. This seems like a fairly odd set-up and would take some getting used to I suppose (but not impossible for some folks to be successful at, perhaps even enjoy). Call me a DL, asynchronous "traditionalist" (LOL!), but this kind of went against the whole idea of DL, IMHO. So I passed on the opportunity. However, they run ads CONSTANTLY it seems so they must be either growing like weeds or having a hard time getting/keeping instructors-- maybe I wasn't alone in my feelings on this one. I even emailed the dean a short while back and asked if they still required the live lectures and he said that they do and that it works well for them. Go figure. Anyway, if this type of requirement wouldn't bother you, then I would check out their website and apply. Oh, and I remember folks on the Yahoo board saying that they micro manage their instructors a bit, but perhaps that isn't terribly unusual. I've heard that about other DL schools. Here is what I had written down from my notes: 5 1/2 week terms, 30-35 students, courses are fully developed, undergrad courses pay $1200 and grad $1500. If one was trying to break into online teaching or get additional work this might be a place to check into if it sounds like a place you might enjoy. For me, and other instructors I'm friends with, it wasn't a good fit. But it could be for others. PM me and I'll provide you with the contact info if you want. Good luck! Jill
One other thing, Randell. When I went to my new faculty training in Chicago last year I met the dean for the online technology programs. What a nice guy! PM me and remind me to give you his info as well as the CTU, if you are interested. Jill
Obtaining an online position I work for two online schools. I got my job with Walden because I answered an ad in the back of a teacher's magazine. My colleagues were all jealous and asked how I learned about this position. When I told them, most said they throw those NEA magazines directly in the trash. I am a curiosity seeker and I don't throw much in the trash without at least glancing through first! Well, this made the applicant pool a little smaller and their loss is my gain! I also work for Empire State College. I graduated from ESC myself, and I suppose this offered a slight advantage. If you have a Masters, though, I would try ESC. They are growing so fast they are having a hard time keeping up in areas like math, anyway. They might just be hiring! As far as pay, I don't really want to discuss it in depth but I can tell you that I make almost twice as much working for these two universities than I made as full time high school teacher. I have to work very hard for it though and it is certainly more than 40 hours a week (between the two) and I get no vacations. The overlap of the two schools' semesters can sometimes be gruelling but it is still worth it to me. I love the flexible hours and even though I don't get real vacations, I can take days off whenever I want as long as I make up the work another time. By the way, you get full (State of NY) benefits from ESC if you teach two classes per semester. I have a very good deal going between these two schools!
I have manged to secure a fairly permanent on campus adjunct job with Okefenokee Technical College. I had a bit of an in with them because I completed my associate degree with them, I work locally in the community, and am well known by most of the faculty and staff. However, I have not been able to break into online teaching. I have submitted several applications and have only heard back from the University of Phoenix who told me that my master's degree was too recent. I have to wait two years to apply with them. In the mean time, I really enjoy my on campus classes and I think that it will make me a better online instructor having had this experience. I have had several students who took an online version of my course (by another instructor) and who came back to take it on campus because they did not like the online environment. Their comments have been invaluable.
Re: Obtaining an online position I just applied to ESC after reading your post. How do you like working for ESC compared to the Walden and teaching at toher schools in general? I saw the salary online for ESC and the chance of getting health benefits is wonderful -- but I am curious how they are to work for. I would be working in the areas of business management, health, and psychology. Thanks, I appreciate any information that you can give me.
For those of us interested in the possibility of going into teaching online, could some of you who are currently teaching online describe a typical day? How much time approximately do you spend on various activities? What type of hardware and software do you use and how does it work?
It depends on the school and the course. Generally I look at email first which with most of the Course Management Systems (CMS) is within the system itself. Then I go into the individual classrooms to the discussion board. Then I read and comment on the postings. Depending on the schedule of the week, I do different chores to keep ahead of the work. Usually you have to have a regular computer with Pentium or fairly recent but no special hardware. You just go to the CMS and sign in. All the tools that you need are within the CMS. Some schools start the new week on Monday but every school is different; some start on Thursday. Since I try to take Sunday off and since most students post on the weekends, Monday is hectic. Also the day that weekly grades are posted is hectic as is when major papers are posted. It is more work than teaching f2f as everything is typed in and students (and schools) expect you to be on-line more than in a f2f class and answer email quickly. One school expects you to be in the discussion board 6 days out of 7 and answer email within 24 hours. This extra work is balanced with the flexibility. Most schools have the curriculum planned: some will allow flexibility to change while others want it followed without change. With a few all you get is the text and develop everything by yourself. Hope this helps.
I agree with Mourningdove's comments. I would add that if was to quantify the time I spend it would look something like this. Answering emails and reading/posting to the threads each day, anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour and a half (per course) depending upon how many questions and activities are going on in the threads. Grading, of course, is more demanding. And my Mondays are the crazy days, too, because our weeks end on Sunday so I jump on grades Monday morning. That usually takes a few hours per course (for threads) because DeVry is big on providing very specific feedback, which is great for the students' retention and my evaluations! Written assignments can take anywhere from 2-4 hours to get through, but some I skim while others I need to read from front to back (e.g. a weekly short assignment vs. final project). Hope this helps too!
Online teaching This is difficult to answer. I guess I like working for Walden better because it is more predictable and and I have higher level, dedicated responsible students (they are all teachers since this is a Master's degree program for teachers). You have to have lots of K-12 experience in addition to the min. of a Masters in your area to teach in this program. The pay is hard to compare. Walden pays by the "section" which is two cohorts of 30 students. I teach two sections when I can but I have not always been able to have more than one section. Esc pays by the course, and increments this pay by numbers of students in the course, so it is far less predictable how much you'll be making from term to term. I have my routine of trying to keep up with all emails and questions on the discussion boards every day and then I do my grading of projects and written assignments throughout the week, but take a day off from major grading whatever day I have something else I want to do, this varies from 1-3 days per week that I "don't work that hard." I am also working on my Doctorate so don't ask when I have time for that! I have a good experience working for both schools. I actually went to a workshop in Saratoga Springs a couple years back and because they had horse races at the time, there were no available hotels, so I stayed at the home of my "boss" who was the one who hired me initially after a phone interiew. I will meet my "bosses" from Walden in July as they are paying for my expenses to travel to Indiana University for their (Walden's) commencement, along with mandatory workshops I must attend for the entire weekend! I'm excited about going, though. I know not everyone thinks these schools are "great" to work for, but compared to my superiors at my former high school, well yes, they are great to work for, in my opinion. I just think that it varies a lot and depends on what you teach and the personalties of those who are in charge of the programs you would teach. I doubt one can really make a blanket statement that it is great to work somewhere when someone else at the same place is going to have a completely different experience (although I know of no one at my former high school that thinks that is a good place to work!)
correction! In the above post, I meant to say that one section is two cohorts with 15 students each for a total of 30 per "section."
Jill, Just curious, when you say the courses are fully developed, what exactly do you mean? Are the lesson plans all prepared? Is that typical? Do a lot of DL schools allow their profs to record lectures on cd rather than the live format? After I finish my DMin in a couple of years I might be interested in doing some teaching. Tom