If you are wanting some use case guidance for Google Wave, Jay Yarow has a few suggestions (Jay defines Google Wave as “advanced email software”…accurate?) Here is Jay’s article:Six Google Wave Use Cases

Is anyone planning to use Google Wave within your online course experience? If so, we’d love to hear from you on how you plan to use it. Submit your comments below.

A post-secondary career school were traditionally known as “vocational” schools. These were the automotive and HVAC schools. But they’ve since grown, especially with the growth of elearning (of which they were huge supporters of) to include many healthcare, criminal justice, IT, graphics, and management programs online. Some requirements are tangible while others are best practices.

1. A terminal degree in the area of study and at least 12 credits in a relevant field.
   If you know what school you’d like to apply to, try visiting their website and looking for the “about us” link somewhere on the page. Here the school will detail the accreditation agency that reviews their programs and offerings. If the association is ACICS or ACCSCT, you can be pretty sure that the above requirement is true.

   For gen-ed classes like math and social studies, the school will want to see a Master’s degree in a mathematics or political science field. For non-traditional courses like Criminal Justice, the school will want to see a combination of at least a Bachelor’s and some field experience and any necessary industry certifications. At the end of the day, they need to show their accrediting bodies that whoever is teaching the class is qualified to do so, so every bit of recent experience and education helps.

2. Time to commit to coursework.
   This may seem like a no-brainer, but whatever time you may think you’d need to dedicate to teaching online, double it! Teaching online is deceivingly time consuming. If you’re teaching a 2 classes of 20 students each, that’s 40 unique and individual responses per homework assignment you’ll must compose, let alone 40 assignments you must review. There are usually 2 assignments per week, so the time needed adds up. Set time aside daily to keep up!
3. Great organizational skills
   With 20+ students per class sending you word docs, videos, or excel sheets a couple times per week, you must be extremely organized in how you save documents. Even if documents are submitted through a learning management system, you must download the document first, then review with feedback and resubmit to the LMS. You may have 3 Courtney’s in your class too (for example), so your file naming and folder structure should be clear enough that anyone can understand it.

   You may also get inquiries from the college or the student about an assignment that was graded weeks ago, so you must be able to locate and refer to these files quickly.

4. Patience with the school and students
   The idea of an “adjunct” professor may actually be new to many career education schools. In the past, the school may have hired hourly, or part-time faculty and since moving to an online format, have adopted new engagement practices. This means their internal processes may not be ironed out yet so questions like “who to contact” and “where’s my paycheck” could go days without being answered. Be patient and the school will return your email. Be persistent in your demands and questions, but understand they may not get back to you immediately. Is it ugly? Yes, but it’s a fact-of-life as an adjunct faculty member.

   While all students are enrolled with the hopes of graduating and starting an in-demand career, many just want it to be over with already so they can start working. School is still school to them. You may see students that post many times in a threaded discussion, or never at all. Either way, it’s your responsibility as a faculty member to help students succeed. Be patient and be clear when providing feedback. You will have students that need more help and attention that perhaps you did as a college student. Respect your students and provide them constant and clear communication, as well as guide them to appropriate school resources as often as you can.

5. Excellent communication skills
   Of all the skills needed to succeed as an online teacher, none provide more benefit than excellent communication skills. Whether you’re communicating to the student and delivering some not-so-great feedback on their last assignment, or finding 35 different ways to say “great job!”, you’ll need to communicate clearly and often.

   The same is true when communicating with the school. Report weekly on student statuses, and report immediately on any concerns you may have about your class. If a student did not post anything all week, contact the school so they may dedicate their resources to putting that student back on track.

What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments section or make your own Five Things at www.ednak.com.

At most online college’s, especially new ones, the DOE is charged with many responsibilities that may not SEEM education related. For example, I was responsible for tying a 24/7 Help Desk into the student experience, as it was a tool to improve retention and overall school functionality. Was it an “education” function? Probably not, but at a small or new school, everyone on staff wears many hats. Resource building projects such as this ate away at my time to locate, train, and monitor faculty, be they adjunct or full-time.

When I was looking for adjunct faculty, the first place I turned to was my personal network. If I already had a few faculty members on staff, I’d ask them if they had any colleagues that could teach XX starting on YY. So, my first approach to finding faculty was word of mouth.

My second approach was to post the opportunity on a site like monster.com or careerbuilder.com. I severely disliked this approach because A) it cost money we didn’t have and B) I would end up with hundreds of general resumes from all over the place, which created an administrative burden to sift through. Occasionally, if the section required some hard-to-find-credentials such as an RHIT certification for a Health Information Technology program, I’d reach out and spend the time training. But most of the time, I would immediately look for applicants with experience in some aspect of online education, whether it be actual experience or membership in a place like ednak.

Once I found qualified faculty to teach a few courses, I wanted to keep them for as long as I could! Unfortunately, I couldn’t offer full-time opportunities often due to enrollments and sparse section offerings, so almost everyone was an adjunct. This was expecially true for general education faculty.

It was imperative that my faculty stayed on board. I just didn’t have the time to keep looking for and training new faculty. If a teacher got great student feedback from their first class, and they communicated well with the school on potential drops, it was almost guaranteed I’d hire them again for the next session. As long as the faculty member maintained these two things, I didn’t need to look any further.

This is why ednak is a great site. ednak focuses on important adjunct issues and best practices. Use ednak to find a job and keep getting hired back!