Sunday, 20 January 2013

How to Secure Adjunct Teaching Positions Online

There are definite steps to securing adjunct teaching positions online. One must have a clear idea of why a teacher in a traditional adjunct position wants to teach online as an adjunct. Moreover, one must know how to execute the search for an online job.

There are many advantages to teaching on line, the economic advantage leading the way. The traditional semester lasts for sixteen weeks, but the online semester lasts just seven and a half weeks. So, per unit time, the online curriculum organization enables the instructor to double her income. There is no time lost between semesters in the online system; when the first semester ends, the next begins the following day.

Further economic advantages are provided by the online set up. Since one need not commute from point A to points B, C and D, even more money is saved along with eliminating a lot of wear and tear on one's nerves. Since adjuncts are rarely given more than two courses, they must make up a full load by adding courses from other schools. But this presents a logistical problem. They must adjust their schedule so that they can travel from school A to schools B, C and D in a timely manner. They face a race against the clock, getting from one school to another. Or, contrariwise, they face a lot of dead time if some of their classes are in the morning and others are night classes. They also face progressively rising gasoline cost, red lights, traffic jams, poor visibility in fog, wrecks, toll bridges, repair work on their car, car notes and car insurance. They must also dress professionally, which means higher cleaning bills. Add to this list the fact that they get no benefits or retirement package and the cost nullifies a large percent of the money they make after taxes are deducted.

The online curriculum organization not only eliminates the problems cited above; it speeds up one's work time, performing much of the work electronically. For example, one does not have to take attendance in the online system. Attendance is taken as the student signs in. The time signed in is recorded and the student is automatically marked present, absent or tardy. This saves the instructor time, the labor of record keeping, and the wear and tear on one's emotions.

The online system is asynchronous and located in cyberspace, while the traditional system is located in real time and space. In the online curriculum organization, one can live in Athens, Georgia and teach students who live in Los Angeles and New York. There is no commuting necessary. Also, as an instructor, one can post grades from a beach in the Bahamas. Or, one could take breakfast in bed and check for class messages before departing for New York.

Another way the process is sped up is through built in tutorials. Assume an instructor notes that a student has difficulty following the APA style manual. All the instructor need do is to refer the student to a tutorial on this very topic. The student will follow a program of instruction until she demonstrates mastery of the APA style manual. If the student has problems with subject- verb agreement, he will be assigned a tutorial on this grammatical concept. The same would hold for instruction in how to use the various websites that catch attempts at academic plagiarism. This relieves the instructor from having to invent a tutorial on the spot.

Another feature which accelerates the teaching process for the instructor is the fact that the instructor has a ready-made curriculum to follow; one does not have to design a curriculum and one does not have to design weekly lesson plans. They are designed automatically by the system. Also, multiple modes of evaluation are also designed by the system. Among these types of evaluation are objective tests, critical essays, group research and reporting, project work and class demonstration and discussion. The criteria of acceptable performance are presented as a rubric with specific point value given for each competency.

To obtain work in such a system, apply to online schools of choice. Write to departments of human resources to secure lists of colleges offering online courses. Once secured, one can pick and choose which colleges to which they would like to apply. Look for policies, standards and values desired. Do not worry about the technical aspects; the applicant will be trained at company expense. Look forward to a telephone interview, training and being assigned a mentor. After teaching a few classes, most adjuncts feel comfortable. They feel even better when they pick up their check.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6272545

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