February 22, 2012

Pass the Academic Torch with Online Adjunct Faculty Employment

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Many traditional college instructors teaching on an adjunct basis for a physical college or university wonders how distance education technology will affect the college teaching profession, and this is understandable since teaching is inherently about interacting with students and colleagues about such questions. Overall, the evidence now is clear that college instruction will appear more and more on the Internet in the form of online bachelor degree programs and online masters degree programs. For working adjunct college instructors the way to pass the intellectual torch, so to speak, is with online adjunct faculty employment. The advent of inexpensive electronic devices capable of using a wireless signal to access the Internet is making new and returning college students, many of who are nontraditional students with little time or patience to travel to a remote physical college campus and sit in an uncomfortable chair for hours listening to a lecture or taking a test, very appreciative of the opportunity to enroll in an online mba degree program, earn an online bachelor degree in account or an online healthcare degree from their personal computers at work or at home.

A person with a earned graduate degree can take advantage of the transition from physical college campuses to digital college campuses by learning how to apply for online adjunct jobs with online degree programs. The advantages to teaching online are many. For example, online adjunct faculty positions are environmentally friendly since they do not require the college teacher to use a motor vehicle to arrive at the classroom. In addition, the lack of need for a personal car or truck means a lack of need to spend money on fuel, mechanical repairs and insurance for the vehicle. Another benefit derived from teaching online for numerous online degree programs is freedom of movement. Since all the online teaching duties and the associated administrative tasks can be accomplished on a laptop computer with Internet access, it is possible to literally stand up and walk across town to a coffee shop and resume teaching without ever missing a moment of instruction time.

Another great benefit of online teaching is the ability to scale the teaching schedule up or down at will. An online adjunct instructor is much more like an academic entrepreneur than a university employee, so instead of viewing the thousands of college and universities as employers it is much better and more efficient to view them as a large marketplace in which you can sell an academic and technical skill set. By taking this approach to online teaching it will be possible to decide for yourself how many online college classes to teach at one time. Granted, there will be some adjustments necessary to grasp the implications of being in the post-secondary academic marketplace as a free agent instead of an poorly-paid, temporary employee whose office is the trunk of a battered car, but he effort will be worth it in the long run as it becomes clear that the best way to pass the academic torch is to acquire online adjunct faculty employment.