Posted: 6/8/2013 12:38:37 PM EDT
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I know we have a few college professors around but has anyone taught in an adjunct community college position? I have never taught in any aspect before other than a 1-2 hour class either in the Army or at work. I'm thinking about applying for an adjunct Computer Information Systems Instructor position. It doesn't require a bachelors degree but I do have one and over 10 years of experience in the IT field. I'm also not entirely sure what the course covers as I don't find a course matching that title in the course catalog. It may cover multiple courses depending on need but I'm not sure.
Any advice? I'm not sure on the hiring process or if it would require some type of "sample lecture" or something. I'm also having a little trouble writing a cover letter since I've never had to write one before. |
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Adjuncts are fill in. Pay not great, hours are not great. But it is a step in right direction, depending on what you are looking for. If you are looking for a tenured position, an adjunct is not typically the right way to go. Lab lecturer, or other faculty but not tenure track, then it is a good way to find out about the institution, and for them to find out about you. For a Community College, at least around here, you might be adjunct for years and years until someone dies off and leaves an opening. |
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Quoted:
Adjuncts are fill in. Pay not great, hours are not great. But it is a step in right direction, depending on what you are looking for. If you are looking for a tenured position, an adjunct is not typically the right way to go. Lab lecturer, or other faculty but not tenure track, then it is a good way to find out about the institution, and for them to find out about you. For a Community College, at least around here, you might be adjunct for years and years until someone dies off and leaves an opening. I'm not looking for a full-time teaching position. That would probably require me to work daytime hours and I don't think it would come close to matching my current salary. At this point I'm just looking to teach part-time for a little extra money and to see if I would like it. |
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Quoted: Then it is perfect. You get to get your feet wet with no more commitment than one term.Quoted: Adjuncts are fill in. Pay not great, hours are not great. But it is a step in right direction, depending on what you are looking for. If you are looking for a tenured position, an adjunct is not typically the right way to go. Lab lecturer, or other faculty but not tenure track, then it is a good way to find out about the institution, and for them to find out about you. For a Community College, at least around here, you might be adjunct for years and years until someone dies off and leaves an opening. I'm not looking for a full-time teaching position. That would probably require me to work daytime hours and I don't think it would come close to matching my current salary. At this point I'm just looking to teach part-time for a little extra money and to see if I would like it. As far as sample lecture, yes, often they will ask you to prepare and teach a class where you will be evaluated to see how you do. Don't be a power point commando, just flipping up power point slide and droning on in a monotone voice, be prepared to ask students questions and get them engaged. |
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I did it for a year back in 2009-2010, and I loved it. Now that I have permanent residence here in Canada I want to hit up the local college and university to see if I can get back into teaching again.
(I came up here from the US on a closed work permit, and could not perform any other job function outside of the one listed on the permit, otherwise I would have been teaching). It's a lot of work for one class per semester, but not excessively so. And it paid me $5500 for the academic year, which helped out with some bills. But I would do it for free just to get the experience of teaching in. And there's no better way to learn your subject than to teach it. |
| I taught adjunct at 3 different institutions, teaching at 2 simultaneously at any given time. It does not pay much. I typically taught 4 days per week at 2 different schools, all day each day, and never made more than about $20K a year. It's academic indentured servitude, one very small step above a graduate teaching assistant. No benefits, no retirement plan, no health insurance. It's sort of a required rite of passage to get into a full-time, tenure track position though. |
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On the cover letter, emphasize your previous teaching experience, even if it's not entirely related to be being a CC. Something I always look for when I'm on a search committee is the ability to handle a classroom environment and effectively communicate information. If what you taught in workshops or the Army is computing related, even better.
One thing you might want to do if the ad is vague is to find the contact info for the department chair, and ask them what they're looking for, just to see if your skill set and their needs match up. That way you'll be better able to write a cover letter that addresses their needs AND highlights your skills. If the department chair won't answer your questions (it being summer and all), then talk to the department's staff assistant. They usually know more about what's going than the whole faculty put together. I will tell you, from observation, don't be too pushy with the staff assistant. They can (and do) make or break adjuncts and if you're rude or overly demanding they will make sure you wind up in the circular file. |
| This might add up to $3000 a semester per class if my math is right. I could probably do two classes a week for night school. I wouldn't be available at all during the day. It's just something I've been considering and they have the position listed online so I thought I might give it a shot. |
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I am the guy at a small college who trains the faculty and adjuncts in using the learning management system. I also assist in course design and content creation. My area is mainly focused on distance learning development but I do work with the on campus adjuncts as well.
1st up if you intend it to be a job to support yourself with, forget it. Right now is the worst time to rely on AF pay for a livelihood due to Obamacare. The AHCA has gutted adjunct hours. Most schools pay contact hours. not for time answering emails, designing a course or grading. They pay for the time in front of the class/or online time. For supplemental cash it's a pretty good gig. There is a need for tech trained people in the job market and your experience is valuable. Some schools have a lead, full time instructor that designs curriculum and you can get a copy of their course materials. If the school you are at has a lot of online courses you may be able to get a copy of a FT guy's course for you to tweak to upload into the LMS. Our campus requires a minimal use of the LMS. Grades, attendance, email and a posted syllabus. It's pretty easy to set up quizzes and a grade book and you can copy the content semester to semester so you don't have to rebuild everything every term. For an IT course I would expect you to have a computer lab to use but the age of the OS could be anything from XP to Windows 8. 8 is a huge hassle because many campuses are still trying to get everything working with their networks, LMS, student information systems and any course design software that they may use. Our digital literacy courses use an outside service called SAMs that has a buch of coursework all designed already. It saves the instructor design time. If it doesn't work properly in a lab it's a huge headache. I'd say do it. It's OK money and you will become a much much better public speaker. It helps a ton if you do not come across as confident in front of a group When I took my job as a trainer I never had to present or instruct before. I was a graphic designer who did everything as a visual submission. At first it was pretty terrifying to speak publicly on topics I didn't know enough about. I found that the secret to public speaking is to know what the fuck your talking about and to be prepared. If you don't just remember that even if you don't know the score, you are still one step ahead of the class. To the student, you are the expert and they will treat you accordingly. You have something they want. Be prepared and don't wing it until you do figure out your presentation. I have an hour drive to work and on the way I used to practice my lectures. Now that I know the course material I do ad-lib to some extent. I make an outline and go from there. If I am weak on a section of something I can enlist fellow faculty and have a guest speaker for that class. On a good campus no one wants anyone to fail. You will get support from your peers as long as you are trying to do well A good lecture/discussion in class is a high like banging supermodels on the hood of a speeding Lamborghini. A bad lecture feels like you just called your mother in law a fat lesbian in front of a church congregation. The best part is when it goes poorly you have the next class session to make it better. Sorry for the stream-of-thought post. This was just my thoughts off the top of my head |
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Appreciate the info ToledoXJ. Quoted:
I've been putting in apps at at least a dozen schools in the last year and haven't heard back from any. Pickings are slim right now. Can I ask what area of Texas? I've applied all over- Hill, Grayson, Victoria, Lone Star, NCTC, CTC, even some private |
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Adjunct is basically not a full time position. You usually start out that way unless you have a Doctorate. If the college offers a 2 year Associate degree or a 4 year degree can also make a difference.
Your 10 year experience in the IT field is a huge plus and most positions would require a degree of some sort. Many faculty positions require a terminal degree. This should not. Google writing a Cover Letter and when you apply find out the criteria of the position and the interview. They will probable give several interviews before a faculty group before they decide on a candidate. Look sharp, act smart, don't B.S. Good luck. |
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If you get the job just remember your military training on how to instruct peoplle.
1) Tell them what you are going to tell them 2) Tell them 3) Tell them what you told them. Its that easy. Rehearse your first class a couple of times in front of a wife or other and have them critique you. I taught a lot of earth science courses as a GA and the first few classes were rough until I remembered rules 1-3. |
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If you get the job just remember your military training on how to instruct peoplle. 1) Tell them what you are going to tell them 2) Tell them 3) Tell them what you told them. Its that easy. Rehearse your first class a couple of times in front of a wife or other and have them critique you. I taught a lot of earth science courses as a GA and the first few classes were rough until I remembered rules 1-3. ^this In higher ed it's Tell them what they will learn (learning objectives) Deliver the information Assess their understanding. Recap Tell them what they will learn (learning objectives) Deliver the information Assess their understanding. etc |
| I teach cj courses as an adjunct at a private university. It's a side job to make extra money. It seems like they are always desperate for people that will actually prepare for class, follow their rules (like keeping students for the full class period), and actually try to teach instead of sitting back and telling stories. Most of the work is done up front building the class; once the class is built, it's ready to go for the following semesters. The program in which I'm teaching is switching to online formats, which is even easier, as you can load up the course and it can run itself; no more 3 hour lectures to memorize.... |
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Give it a shot. Sounds like you're interested, and it's a way to satisfy your curiosity without any undue pressure of trying to completely change jobs. I wouldn't be changing jobs even if I liked it. This is just for a little extra cash and to have something to do really. |
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I would advise to get trained in the online course management system to be prepared to offer an online class if that is what is available.
If training is not available, maybe take an online course so you have some familiarity with the system. That's my $.02. I taught part time for many years before I got my full time CC position. I am a true believer in distance ed, though, so this is my viewpoint. Good luck to you. There is always room for a good, dependable part time instructor in any department. Also, when I was hired part time I rarely had to do a teaching demo. I was basically hired by the department secretary after a cursory chat with the chair; sometimes just from walking in off the street with my resume. The key to keeping the position is having a solid evaluation, so be sure to prepare for that. |