The decision to start teaching online for a living requires a definite level of intellectual and professional courage, but given the dynamic growth in distance education at the post-secondary level of the academic there can be no doubt that online teaching favors the academic brave. The online adjunct instructor is responsible for managing the online teaching schedule in a way that is unfamiliar to the teacher in the physical classroom. For example, since there are over five thousand community colleges, four-year state universities, for-profit colleges, technical schools and state colleges that offer their enrolled students a chance to earn an academic degree from their personal computers at home or at work the online adjunct must decide which online degree programs offer more online adjunct income and make a conscious decision to apply to them. While this responsibility is consistent to teaching independently as a part-time adjunct instructor for two colleges at one time, but the difference created by coordinating up to ten or twelve online adjunct professor jobs is that the pressure to make well informed decisions is much higher than in a physical academic setting. Still, the academic that is brave enough to transition out of the physical classroom on the physical campus and into a variety of online college courses will find that there is more stability to be had by taking responsibility for creating a sustainable online teaching schedule than waiting around for the next series of budget cuts.
The teacher layoffs resulting from deep budget cuts to public education are taking a toll on the spirit of traditional educators working on the physical campus. This is hardly surprising since teaching for a public educational institution has long been considered a career path that could be pursued without much concern for budgetary funds needed to support the faculty salaries. However, that truism is no longer valid as many teachers working in the physical classroom discover they can become unemployed as soon as the budgetary funds are sharply decreased each academic year. Fortunately, the adoption of distance education technology by academic administrators at the post-secondary level of the academy offer educators with earned graduate degrees, a master degree or doctorate, can offer academics a teaching life rich with meaning provided they acquire an online teaching schedule filled with online adjunct faculty jobs. The primary benefit of six to eight online adjunct professor jobs is that the educators can still interact with college and university students enrolled in online bachelor degree programs and online master degree programs will earn an online adjunct income equal to the traditional faculty salary lost to downsizing and layoffs, and the chance to recapture the pride of being an educator is one that will go a long way to restoring the rich meaning of being a professional teacher.
Teachers are a generally disinclined to take risks with their career plans and this has been an intelligent approach until recently when the severe budget cuts to public education resulted in massive teacher layoffs. Since traditional academic employment is now quite risky in terms of its sustainability it may be time for teachers with earned graduate degrees, a doctorate or master degree, working in a physical classroom on a physical campus to take a look at the calculated risk of teaching online for a living. First, distance education technology is now the engine selected to pull post-secondary education instruction into the twenty first century, and the reason for this relocation of the actual classroom to the Internet is that the operational costs of maintaining the physical campuses and the physical classrooms on them since the budgetary reductions continue to reduce available funds each academic year. Obviously, the creation of online bachelor degree programs and online master degree programs also generates many new online faculty jobs that must be filled by academically qualified and technically agile online adjunct college professors willing to learn how to teach college and university students from a personal computer. Granted, it is nothing short of a calculated risk for an academic to build an online teaching schedule in order to transition out of the physical classroom and into a variety of online college courses, but the risk will prove worth the effort since distance learning is the real future of post-secondary instruction. The academic that makes the decision to build an online teaching schedule should not be content with just a few online faculty positions. It is important for any prospective online adjunct instructor to realize that the emerging nature of distance education technology it will continue to be vitally important to continue acquiring more online faculty teaching positions each academic semester. For example, a particular online bachelor degree program many provide two or three online college classes, but the state college for four-year university offering the online degree program to its post-secondary students can reduce the online instructor pay for each individual online class without notice because there is no shared standard for what a college or university pays for an online instructor to teach an online course from a personal computer. This means that an online college professor must be able to replace lower paying online teaching positions with higher paying online adjunct jobs on a moment's notice. The only way to do this is to have as many online faculty positions as possible in the teaching schedule at all times. While it will take considerable determination to continually submit applications to additional post-secondary academic institutions, the effort will pay off handsomely when it comes time to decline low paying online teaching jobs.
The most important strategic element any prospective online adjunct instructor can have is a goal of acquiring multiple online adjunct jobs. The reason this particular element of online teaching requires particular attention is that the individual community colleges, four-year state colleges, state universities, technical schools and for-profit colleges that currently offer distance education to their enrolled students are not held to any standard for paying their online college professors. That means it is up to the individual post-secondary academic institution to decide independently how little or how much to pay an online instructor to teach an individual online college course. Of course, this also means that a college or university can instantly lower the amount for online adjunct professor jobs available at that educational institution. Far too often that is exactly what happens since there is a growing pool of academically qualified educators willing to teach for less online adjunct income simply because they can no longer teach in the physical classroom on the traditional campus. This increasing completion for available online adjunct jobs should spur the academic now building a sustainable online teaching schedule to constantly make new applications in the faculty application sections for the thousands of colleges and universities because it is the online instructor dedicated to keeping abreast of the changing dynamics of online teaching as an academic career choice.
The adoption of distance education by academic administrators and new and returning college and university students means academics can find the threshold of unparalleled success with online teaching. Undoubtedly, the career opportunities on physical campuses are diminishing quickly as the budget reductions to public education make the operation of the traditional college and university campuses unsupportable since they require very expensive maintenance. As a result, the location of the educational instruction at the post-secondary level of the academy is being moved at a rapid clip to the Internet in the form of online college degree programs containing innumerable online college courses. Of course, the more online courses there are for students to enroll in each semester the more online adjunct professor jobs that must be filled by educators with earned graduate degrees, a doctorate or master degree, and the technical agility to teach from a personal computer. The online adjunct instructor that masters the requirements of successful online teaching can expect to experience an unheard of level of personal and professional freedom as a result of being able to teach the online courses from practically any geographic location on the globe and the ability to scale the number of individual online faculty positions in the online teaching schedule up or down at will.
The dramatic developments in the academic landscape are certainly of interest to traditional educators since one of the most active features of the new educational reality is the rise in teacher layoffs as budget cuts bite deeply into the funds needed to pay academics on the traditional campus. The end result of these reductions in budgets is that the location of instructional delivery has moved to the Internet in the form of online college classes. The rise in the number of online bachelor degree programs and online master degree programs clearly indicates that for educators faculty online positions are the result of the changes in academia. In other words, any academic wanting to continue teaching for a living should learn how to teach online college classes for a variety of online college degree programs. Fortunately for the prospective online adjunct instructor, the accreditation boards for community colleges, state universities, for-profit schools and four-year state colleges insist that each online college course be taught by an academic with a master degree or doctorate. Of course, as academic administrators deploy more online degree programs each academic semester, the need for academically quailed and technically proficient online adjuncts increases at a rapid rate. The best search strategy for taking advantage of the growing number of available online faculty positions that can be coordinated from a personal computer is to learn how to locate the faculty application sections of the thousands of post-secondary academic websites.
