ScotsmanInTexas

So is anyone on these boards doing this already or thought about lecturing. Interested to hear of anyones experiences. I had it suggested to me that I should consider getting into lecturing hmm or was that 'lechering' snigger snigger.

Ah no, but I'm seriously considering this. I've looked at the College level courses in particular subjects going on around here and I'd have no problem with the course material. There is a bunch near here who do Leisure Learning who are always recruiting people with new courses, and a lot of their stuff is also academic, a friend suggested to me I should run a couple of ideas for new courses by them and see if they'll let me teach a class.

So what I'm interested in is information about handling class sizes, I have some experience of little groups but handling anything above 8-10 people is outside my experience. I'm also interested in finding out how I'd go about pricing such a thing? I mean what is a fair price for such courses, which will compensate for time and overheads etc?

My course I'm planning to offer would require the minimum of equipment and prepare students in the Sciences and would be more than enough to cover a couple of CLEP exams (I've examined/compared the content of those courses already and anyone doing my course should adequately ace at least 2 CLEP exams) if anyone planned on trying to get some real life college credits from the experience.

So at this point just looking for any information at all really, insight or whatever to what goes on over here and any problems I might come up against. Maybe you have some experience of the CLEP even as a student?

Franklin

Could try the adjunct professor route, teach part time with a regular "day job" to pay the bills. I am thinking of teaching in one of the local universities and figured the adjunct professor route is probably the easiest way to get one's "foot in the door". But I have no plans to teach full time, just something I would like to do one night or afternoon a week. Also thought about mentoring kids or teaching under-privileged kids basic math and science, there are so many kids in DC who need confidence that they can do math and science.

ScotsmanInTexas

Thanks for the info. Sounds interesting, I'll look into that and see if it would suit me. I'm off to Google it and see if it gives me any ideas. Evening/Saturday morning classes are what I was hoping to do.

Franklin

Your welcome.

dunroving

Generally, adjunct and part-time lecturing does not pay very well, but can be a foot in the door for a full-time position. Generally, you have to have at least a masters level education to teach full-time at the college level (community college is a little different, I think; I don't know about junior colleges). To get a tenured position (I'm looking down the road for you here as you said this might be a foot in the door), you have to have a "terminal degree" (i.e., doctorate for most disciplines).

There are a number of decent textbooks on teaching at the college level. One is "Teaching Tips" by Wilbert McKeachie. I have another at home, I think, so I'll send you the details if I can find it.

Now for my sixpennyworth. Judging that you know the typical content of a course does not mean that teaching that course will be easy. I see some awful teachers at the college level, who are otherwise extremely intelligent and knowledgeable about the subject matter. Have you considered taking a class or two in teaching? Obviously I don't know you and you may be a naturally gifted teacher; I'm just giving you advice that teaching is a difficult skill that requires more than just knowledge of the subject matter (and being a bad teacher can be a painful experience).

snowbunny

There are plenty of people who'll pay you good money if you can prepare their kiddo adequately so s/he'll pass the various college credit tests like the AP (Advanced Placement). You'd need to live in an area where there are enough kids going to college (and wealthy parents to pay you), but if you have a gift.....

Are you interested in only teaching science or do you have other areas of interest? UT offers Informal Courses (google on it) in which instructors propose a course, UT decides whether to offer it, and publicises it for you. So "How To Properly Own A Mini Cooper" could get you some part-time dosh.