New Book Conveys the Flavor of What Online Teaching Is Like, How to Succeed in the Field

Teaching online seems to be a profession with considerable appeal. Though many schools require online faculty to hold a doctorate, many others will hire those with a master’s degree that includes 18 credit hours in the subject to be taught.

You likely won’t get rich as an online adjunct instructor, and many who teach online must teach at multiple schools to make a good living. But the field offers considerable rewards, most significantly, the ability to be location-independent. Online instructors work at home and often travel as they teach. To some extent, they can set their own hours.

I belong to a Facebook group called Making a Living Teaching Online that picks up new members every day, folks eager to dip their feet into online teaching. They always want to know how to get started in the field and what it’s like. A new book launched this week helps give a flavor of what online teaching is like and offers a plethora of tips for getting started and building a successful practice as an online teacher.

I’m proud to have contributed two chapters to the book, Modern Instructor: Success Strategies for the Online Professor, which launches in Kindle format today. (You can read Kindle books without a Kindle device—with the free Kindle app for smartphones, tablets and computers.)

As the Amazon description notes, the book “provides a game plan for the steps that online instructors should consider taking to improve classroom management and maximize their teaching potential. As a practical guide to topics instructors may not have previously considered, this book covers topics such as social media management and provides both a primer the basics of online teaching and ideas to improve classroom engagement. After getting your first online teaching job, Modern Instructor: Success Strategies for the Online Professor is a valuable guide written by experienced online instructors.”

Contents include:

Creating an online teaching portfolio, setting up an effective work space, traveling while teaching, managing time, and maximizing the training course that faculty must undergo at most of the schools that hire them. Chapters on teaching methods address understanding the online student, preparing and setting up an online course, creating dynamic discussion forums, providing quality feedback, using storytelling in online teaching, managing student issues, handling observations and evaluations, and long-term goals.

The book is accessibly priced at $3.99.

More resources

An accompany blog, moderninstructor.com, is running posts related to the book’s content. The book was born when a group of instructors in a private Facebook group called Exclusive EDU decided to share their perspectives. Both Facebook groups are operated by The Babb Group, whose founder, Dani Babb, is a guru for helping folks get online teaching gigs. The Babb Group offers a number of paid services to give would-be online instructors a boost getting into the field.

Authored by Dr. Katharine Hansen