The arrival of distance education in a mature technological form has created unprecedented online teaching employment opportunities for those who have an earned masters degree, especially in one of the core academic areas such as English, history or math, and the future looks quite bright for people who are willing to learn how to use a computer to navigate online college classes at the many accredited online degree programs offered by community colleges, colleges and universities.
There are many academic employment web sites that publish online instructor job openings for various online bachelor degree programs and online masters degree programs, but by far the best approach to actually increasing the chances of landing several online adjunct jobs is to apply directly to the many post secondary schools. In every case, each college has an application link on the front page of its web site. It may take a moment or two to find the application link, but once it is located the next step is to load your academic qualifications into the interface used by the post secondary school. Keep in mind that each college or university can choose the interface they want for their application process. It could be as simple as sending an e-mail with your cover letter and resume in the body, or it could be as difficult as having to register at the web site and placing your academic credentials into individual text fields.
Regardless, the important element is to continually submit your application for adjunct online faculty positions until you receive a positive response inviting you into the training program. Keep in mind that in almost every case you will be required to successfully complete a training program before being placed in an online classroom containing college students earning a distance education degree. Further, it is important to develop a disciplined application strategy that is not limited to several successful applications. It is vital to evaluate each online college degree program in terms of how much teaching is required in terms of the number of weeks the online college classes run, which can be a full sixteen week traditional semester, an eleven week Quarter or a very short five week online course. Each of the online programs will have different requirements in terms of grading and student interaction. For example, a law degree online will have different demands than a psychology degree online, and these differences will need an assessment from the teacher side in order to determine which one pays the online adjunct the most money for the educational effort.
It is quite important to keep in mind that the pursuit of online teaching employment opportunities isn’t just seeking a job; it is changing one’s mindset to view college teaching as an entrepreneurial activity. The adjunct teaching for the online masters program, online mba or online counseling degree is no different than the corporate employee who sifts through the various elements of different corporations with a find hand in order to find the ones that offer the most reward for hard work. So it is with adjunct positions, and so it be in the future as more and more college students enroll in online college courses.
