Adjunct teaching staff are second tier teaching staff. A new breed of online teaching staff is beginning to comprise this second tier. They are paid considerably less than tenured instructors and often teach at more than one college, at the same time. Their numbers will continue to grow as the need for online instructors continues further into the 21st Century. Often they will lack the support and training that full-time tenured instructors receive. They may not have an office at the college they are teaching in and must know how to create a virtual office for their online learners.This is not the only new set of skills they must possess. However, it describes one of the many challenges and demands they will face in this new environment.
Maybe the first question you might ask is why do they want to teach under these conditions? My personal opinion is they (we) want to teach online and are passionate about teaching in a virtual environment. They are driven to accept whatever conditions the college imposes on them to obtain the opportunity to do what they are dedicated to doing, facilitate online learners. One requirement that most probably drives these instructors is, they are passionate about teaching online; but more importantly need the teaching experience in order to fine tune the skill sets they bring to the table. Obviously pay is not the primary concern or driving factor. This new way of teaching and facilitating the learning of others is evolving and the challenges are never-ending as technology continues to grow and change in the online environment.
Having said this, there is a movement toward adjunct faculty unions at American University. In an article in the Right Wing Blog , Josh Kaib states, “… I can’t imagine what it is like working part-time at the sweatshop that is American University.” Josh goes on to say, “All of this [voting to unionize] because a few faculty members are stupid enough to think that you can live off of a part-time teaching job. These union wonks ought to stop complaining and find another line of work. They get no sympathy from me, even if the administrators at AU comply to their every demand.” Not being a fan of unions, it seems the operational words here are the idea that part-time adjunct faculty are trying to make a living by teaching as adjunct instructors. While joining a union may solve the problem of receiving better pay, it could open even a bigger can of worms, since it may raise the cost of getting an education for many students in the United States. WIth that in mind, maybe there would be no need to hire adjunct instructors. Most probably all it would do is change the pay scale and force colleges to increase costs. The final scenario might be, high cost adjunct instructors would not be rehired and lower paid instructors most probably would get most of the jobs teaching.
This has uncovered the first challenge an online adjunct instructor faces, how to live on the amount of money the colleges offer for filling these teaching positions. I do not think you can, especially if you have just left the university with a vast amount of student loan debt. That was the number one problem I faced when moving to the state of Washington…how to stay afloat financially on what the colleges were paying in the late ’80s and early ’90s. I was unable to accept these types of positions and did not want to teach in a classroom. I was not yet aware of online learning and virtual classrooms. My plan was to wait until I was retirement age, had a small income from social security and medical coverage, which I knew I would not get if I taught in a college at that point in time. Also, I had the false hope that I would be able to complete my doctoral studies. Of course that was before my loans went into default; because I could not make the exorbitantly high payments to the banks, while struggling to keep from being homeless in Washington state.
At this point in time, I do not see how one could pay for classes to finish a doctorate online if one is working part-time as an adjunct instructor. Having taken the time to learn new skills and how one goes about teaching online, I believe it is important to continue one’s education while teaching at a local college or colleges in general. Everyone is beginning to realize (I hope) that teaching online is very different from classroom teaching. The learners will learn more from the internet and each other than the instructor. The instructor’s role is to help them learn by removing any obstacles they find while working in a virtual classroom. Herein lies the second challenge for online adjunct instructors…how to stay current. They must, it seems, establish a personal learning environment and continuing their education is most probably another good way to accomplish this goal. Meanwhile, they need to stay current on the subject matter they are teaching. As technology changes, so do the positions their students will be hired for.
Predicting the future of the job market is another challenge to be faced. As our world keeps moving toward electronic environments, there is the need to improve one’s knowledge and skills in this area, too. Working with the many online programs, e.g., WordPress, websites, elearning portfolios and You Tube video creation, just to mention a few, will take exploration and time to learn. If there is limited training for adjunct faculty, they will need to accomplish these tasks on their own and they must know what will work in their virtual classrooms. In the first course on ” Tools of the Trade,” at Bellevue College, some of the students were complaining about having to learn these unfamiliar applications and how much time it took to do so. For someone never working with these programs the task can be daunting. Nevertheless, this is another challenge online instructors must face and overcome.
Finally, working with department chairs who do not have the training and education to work in an online environments will most probably be a real challenge. Not everyone is familiar with the issues and challenges adjunct faculty face when designing online courses and applying the pedagogy online instruction requires. Having a good set of people skills, being a good team player and working to educate their peers who are tenured faculty could prove to be another interesting challenge. So far in my internship at Bellevue College, I have found my mentor and the department chair anxious to lean the new technology and pedagogy that online instruction requires. They seem to be on top of the issues this new form of teaching creates. But they may be an exception to the rule. Therefore, it seems new adjunct instructors are in a good position to teach their craft to others in the college. This was one of my stated objectives when I applied for the internship. So far I have learned far more than I could have imagined and I hope those working with me have as well.
The final challenge resides in this video. If you can get past the history and music in the first minute or so, reaching the heart of the message it is worth the effort. It is about five minutes long.
JOYSTECHTOOL 