The Surprising Benefits of Online College Teaching Jobs

Many people with earned graduate degrees, a Ph.D. or a master’s degree, are starting to become interested in the employment prospects offered by distance education, and once these individuals engage in a little exploration they are discovering the surprising benefits of online college teaching jobs. For many prospective online adjunct instructors with online bachelor degree programs and online masters degree programs the most pleasant aspect of teaching online is the absence of any need to operate a personal motor vehicle to arrive at work. Interestingly, this is the same benefit enjoyed by new and returning college students enrolled in online degree programs that allow them to earn a library science degree online, online elementary teaching degrees and an electrical engineering bachelor degree online. In both cases, online student and online adjunct instructor, access to the online college courses is completely available on the Internet.

In both cases, an inexpensive laptop computer capable of accessing the online degree program through a wireless network completely replaces the car or truck that was mandatory in the past to actually arrive on a physical college campus. The fact that physical travel is no longer necessary for a college teacher managing the academic duties of multiple online college courses represents a significant savings in terms of time and money. Another pleasantly surprising aspect of teaching for accredited online college degree programs is the scalability of the teaching schedule.

A person with a graduate degree who teaches online is more of an academic entrepreneur than an academic employee. An online college teacher markets an academic and technical skills set to over five thousand technical schools, community colleges, state colleges, four-year universities and for-profit post-secondary institutions that confer the bachelors degree online and online masters degree. The online teacher has control of this or her teaching schedule because online college classes can be accepted or declined without economic penalty.

In other words, an online adjunct who wants to make more money from online teaching can simply apply to more online degree programs and accept additional online college courses to teach. If an online instructor wants more free time, it is just as simple to decline offered online courses from a college or university. The schools are satisfied with this arrangement because it is to their economic benefit to have an academic labor force that is responsible for themselves, rather than the schools having to provide a place to work and salary commitments.

Granted, there are some people who teach college courses for traditional academic institutions who want to retain the disappear tenure-track system that has for so long been an economic model for faculty labor, but the landscape, so to speak, has changed irreversibly due to budget cuts and the tenure system will continue to fade into history. However, as one academic labor system fades out another is taking its place, and the deployment of distance education technology is creating a new post-secondary career path for those with a graduate degree or those willing to enroll in and complete an accredited online masters degree program. Simply put, college instructors who can master the academic and technical requirements inherent in online teaching will be very surprised at the many benefits of online college teaching jobs.

Online Faculty Openings are the New Academic Watering Holes

It can be a long, dry walk across the academic labor market for college instructors teaching on an adjunct basis for traditional post-secondary institutions these days, but for the alert person with an earned graduate degree, it may come as a welcome relief to find out that online faculty openings are the new academic watering holes. Online bachelor degree programs and online masters degree programs are swiftly becoming the choice of new and returning college students. Student populations are higher than they have been in the last fifty years, and there does not seem to be any decrease on the horizon. This concerted movement to online degree programs is beneficial for college adjuncts now being forced to retreat from traditional college campuses because of massive budgets cuts is that every online college course in every online college degree program must have an academically qualified online instructor directing the college students as they matriculate toward a law degree online or a psychology degree online.

While many college adjunct instructors desire a full-time faculty position with benefits, the reality of the academic labor market is that college administrators are quite happy with a professoriate that is composed of seventy to eighty percent adjunct instructors working part-time, and that academic employment circumstance is not changing anytime soon. The best approach for a person with a graduate degree, a master’s degree or Ph.D., is to recognize that the situation will not change and work to accommodate the new economic paradigm. The new academic labor model will require a person who wishes to earn a decent living by teaching online college courses to become an academic entrepreneur.

An academic entrepreneur is not simply a faculty member of a college or university. Online adjunct instructors, who must become entrepreneurial in their behavior and thinking to be successful, literally sell an educational and technical skill set to thousands of post-secondary academic institutions offering online college degree programs to their students. All online teaching tasks and duties are conducted from a personal computer accessing the Internet. This is a very positive aspect of teaching online courses because it allows a great deal of personal and professional freedom.

It is possible for an online adjunct instructor to earn forty to fifty thousand dollars a year teaching six to eight online college classes if the online college teacher is alert to the selection process inherent in the entrepreneurial approach to the post-secondary academic industry. In many instances, and this especially true for for-profit schools that confer the bachelors degree online, the class lengths are as short as six weeks long, and they run back to back. This means that one set of online classes ends on the same day the next set of online college courses begins. Further, many for profit online college degree programs run almost the entire year around, so it is no longer necessary to suffer through a summer without classes to teach. All in all, online faculty openings represent a very refreshing oasis on the desert of adjunct teaching.

Satisfy Your Curiosity About Online University Teaching Jobs

There is a lot of information circulating about the online university teaching jobs generated by distance education technology, but many people with graduate degrees have a lot of questions about the prospects of earning a living by teaching online for online bachelor degree programs and online master’s degree programs. The answers to those questions, at least is part, are that there is a living in online teaching for the online degree programs offered by post-secondary academic institutions, and that living can grow in proportion to the number of online college classes one teaches every day. Traditional college and universities are under increasing economic pressure to find ways to meet the educational demands of new and returning college students. The methods used in the past have simply become financially unsupportable because the college campus, a huge physical plant requiring constant maintenance by a small army of people armed with paint brushes, mops and small hand tools, is no longer viable given what may be the largest student population since the middle of the last century.

These circumstances work in the favor of people with graduate degrees because online college degree programs are the vehicle that will allow traditional academic institutions to avoid a complete collapse and will create a career path composed of online adjunct jobs. Today, many of those enrolled in college are non-traditional students, which means they are older and have tightly packed schedules filled with family and employment obligations. Further, many of them are in school because they are unemployed today and want to improve their chances of a better life once the economy comes back from the grave. The appreciate the convenience and efficiency of taking online college courses from their home computers as they earn an online nursing degree, an online accounting degree or an online mathematics degree.

Of course, every online class offered by an accredited online master degree program or bachelors degree online requires a qualified online adjunct instructor to the class. As more and more accredited online degrees are offered by traditional college and universities, more and more online adjunct faculty positions will be created for college teachers who have mastered the technical skills required to interact successfully with the digital interfaces that will be the online college campuses.

An aggressive online adjunct instructor can manage seven to twelve online college classes at one time if he or she intently applies time management skills to the teaching and administrative tasks required by the online degree programs. If an online college instructor can coordinate as many as eight online courses every day it is possible to earn multiple income streams from any place on the globe that offers wireless Internet access. Further, since all the teaching tasks associated with online college classes can be accomplished from and inexpensive laptop, it is entirely up to the online college teacher where and when to work. Plus, just as the unemployed college student taking online college classes in order to earn a bachelors degree online or an online master’s degree does not have to spend what little money they have on a personal vehicle to travel to a remote location, the online adjunct instructor is not required to spend a dime on a car or a truck to arrive at the digital college campus. Overall, teaching online can be an extraordinary way to making a very good living.

Patience is Key When Seeking Online Adjunct Jobs

College instructors currently teaching in a traditional academic setting are interested in distance education technology and how they can secure online adjunct jobs with online bachelor degree programs and online masters degree programs. However, the search for online adjunct faculty positions can be frustrating because it requires a good deal of old fashioned patience to find them. Basically, the best search strategy is, as always, the direct one. Once the academic credentials, unofficial graduate transcripts, resume, cover letter and three letters of reference, have been gathered and scanned into a document format that can be read on any computer, it is necessary to organize a disciplined, rotational application process. There are over five thousand technical schools, community colleges, state colleges, four-year universities and for profit schools that confer a post-secondary academic degree.

Every one of the schools has a website now. On each school’s website is a link that will take the prospective online adjunct instructor to the section of the website that permits the submission of academic credentials. It is important to know that the link on the front page of each school’s website that takes the visitor to the faculty employment section may have different names. In some instances it may be named faculty employment, academic careers or human resources. Regardless of the name of the link, it will always wind up in the same place. Another important thing to know is that the faculty employment portal is not always designed the same for each college or university. In some cases, applying to teach online may be as easy and quick as sending an e-mail to the Human Resources department. In other cases, the prospective online teacher is required to sign up for a data base that permits editing of the applications materials.

Obviously, it will take some time to acclimate oneself to this process and to develop an application rhythm, so to speak, that will yield the desired result in terms of multiple online adjunct faculty positions. Further, as any intellectual know from prior and current intellectual exercises, it takes time to develop an instinct about what is important to respond to and what can be left for another time. In that regard, it is vitally important to keep clear records of when an application to teach students earning a health administration degree online, an online pharmacy degree or an online project management degree is made to an individual online degree program. The reason this is important is that many traditional colleges and universities are only now deploying online college courses for their students in any meaningful amount. The hesitation these academic institutions deciding to implement online college degree programs causes them to have a less than efficient application acceptance process.

The best method is to note the date of the application to an online degree program in a spreadsheet, and if a response has not been received in thirty day, repeat the application process. There really is no danger of applying too many times to a particular college or university. Many times prospective online adjunct instructors ask how many times they should apply to a particular school, and the answer is as many times as it takes to receive an invitation to teach online college classes.

Get a New Lease on Your College Teaching Life with Online Faculty Jobs

It goes without saying that most teachers today are having a pretty hard time of it due to the faculty budget cuts implemented on the state level. If an individual has an earned graduate degree and is experienced at navigating digital interfaces on the Internet it is possible to get a new lease on your college teaching life with online faculty jobs. Online bachelor degree programs and online masters degree programs are popping up at traditional post-secondary academic institutions as college and university administrators try frantically to address the growing demands for education by new and returning college students with distance education technology. This implementation of online degree programs is revealing a lack of qualified online adjunct instructors because one need both the graduate degree and the computer skills to successful address the online teaching issues inherent in leading an online class full of new and returning students earning a health administration degree online, an online accounting degree or an online psychology degree, to name but a few area of academic effort.

However, the person who can master both the academic and the technical side of college teaching as it is emerging online can certainly have eight to twelve online college courses to teach at one time. Without question, teaching that many online college classes every day will require serious commitment to detail, and it will require many hours at the computer, but the income from that many online college degree programs will be very nice. Further, after some experience is gained and the different pay scales and scheduled are evaluated thoroughly it will be possible to arrange to receive paychecks practically every week of the calendar year.

In many ways teaching online can be the salvation of traditional college teachers and any other teachers who have a graduate degree because colleges and universities are finally understand that the physical college campus is entirely too expensive to operate when compared to what it cost to distribute the online courses for accredited online degree programs. Of course, the for-profit schools that confer a bachelors degree online and the online masters degree have understood this economic paradigm for some time, so they are much further ahead of the distance education curve. In that respect, it is certainly smart for a prospective online adjunct instructor to apply frequently to for-profit online degree programs.

At the same time, it should be understood that the traditional college and universities are intent on catching up with the for-profit schools in an effort to capture the ballooning online college degree market. The most productive search strategy is to visit the websites of the thousands of technical schools, community colleges, state-colleges, four year universities and for profit schools and apply on a rotational basis to everyone of them. At some point the sheer numbers of applications will reach a sort of critical mass and you will start receiving invitations to teach online college classes one or more online degree programs. Eventually, with enough experience teaching online an aggressive online adjunct instructor will be able to pick and choose between the online university degree programs that offer better pay and shorter class sessions.