Wanted to get some knowledge from those who teach online classes on who was the first to hire them for online teaching with no previous online teaching experience. Was it hard for you to get that first online teaching job and for someone like me who is looking now for my first online job, is there any you would suggest? Another question, would any online schools offer volunteer online positions just to get my feet wet and build my resume for furture online teaching positions? TIA.
I was hard to get the first teaching gig - it took about 18 months. I sent about 50 resumes out. I got teaching experience by volunteering for a local tech school and they said, "we don't allow volunteers but our instructor needs a one week vacation...want to work a week at $20 hour?" I took a week vacation and got some experience then stayed on as a sub. I used that as my experience to get promoted to a trainer at my corporate job. Those combined helped me land an online teaching job. On the other hand, maybe none of that mattered and they just needed someone.
I got my first online job due to my adjunct experience in a traditional classroom. I started off as an adjunct in the continuing education department of a local community college. While i was there, I started developing and teaching online courses, which helped me to land my online adjunct job. It was not hard for me to get the online job, they were happy that I had both traditional and online experience, but most importantly that I had worked with nontraditional students before, since I taught night time courses at the community college. I would say about a year and a half after I landed my first traditional adjunct job, I landed my first fully online adjunct position at an online university. I suggest that you get some college teaching under your belt, try a traditional campus and while you are there, inquire about teaching online and see if you can teach and develop courses online. I also suggest that you become familiar with as many online course management systems as you can. This just helped me to land an instructional design consultant position with a university on the west coast.
I'll be starting an online teaching job in the spring- but that's through my regular teaching position. I'll second the suggestion to get an adjunct job teaching face to face. Community colleges are ALL adding bucket-loads of sections online, and I know at least where I work- I'd fall over in shock if they posted an online teaching job to the public- it's all in house, even our adjunct hires are found in house and through word of mouth. (we are a big district) I'd say do WHATEVER it takes to get your foot in the door. Community ed is good too- I have done a lot of that- it is usually a different pay and hire process, but at least you'd be in. In our district, community ed classes are single session, so you'd have to do a few for the "next catalog" and then if your classes sell, you can pitch more for the following catalog. I didn't really care for community ed work, but it's the easiest door into teaching. You'll teach a skill, so you have to be creative about what you can offer. Degrees are not required in community ed. I don't know the process for going into an online college, but I think there is a public yahoo group of online adjuncts you could look for.
