Amy Hale: Academic Mercenary

Here I am with Fall term and a whole bunch of online courses rapidly approaching.  Of course I’m taking stock of the things which worked well, the things which worked badly, and trying to figure out how I’m going to change all of the freshly updated course shells that I have been handed.  The fact that I just had one of the most successful courses ever during my summer term has given me some pause for thought about how I’m going to handle assignments.  In an earlier post on this blog I discussed the strategy of using portfolio assignments instead of having a number of smaller writing assignments throughout the term, and I want to follow up on this.

My Cultural Anthropology courses have a significant discussion board requirement.  You must post an original response to a discussion question, a response to a classmate, and you must post your personal responses to the material.  Two requirements have done a remarkable job in boosting and maintaining classroom cohesion:  the mandatory responses to the classmate, and posting your own feelings about the material.  In this way, students reveal something of themselves and get to know each other better, which helps to genuinely build a learning community.  I taught two sections of this Anthropology course this summer, but one of them was an intensive writing version of this course. This was a great opportunity to compare the course structure.  The intensive course had two additional writing assignments over the course of the term, and a final paper that was to have been written in two stages.  Overwhelmingly the students which did *not* take the intensive writing version did much better on their final projects, almost all of which exceeded the word count requirement by 1000 words.  essentially, the all wrote the same amount during the term as those in the intensive course!  The content of the papers was better, the research was better, they followed the directions, and the formatting and citations were fantastic on every single one.  In other words, they thought it was an important project, and they took their time to do it properly.  I’ve seen this outcome in other courses, and I want to think about why this might be the case for a minute.

Most online students, many of them anyway, are working adults.  A discussion board post is a writing assignment.  If you give students several of these per week, they end up being treated like busy work.  In one of my Humanities courses over the course of several terms I had experimented with small journal assignments in addition to discussion board posts, without assigning a significant final portfolio project.  Time and again my students did poorly on these assignments, did not follow directions even when I gave them continuous feedback about what they needed to be doing.  However, when I took the same questions and clumped them into two assignments rather than six or seven, the quality and attention paid to them increased significantly.  Their overall grades got much better, and their course satisfaction improved as well.

Frequently in online courses we are concerned with demonstrating quality instruction, and keeping our students engaged.  I think there is a tendency, perhaps, to overload students with writing assignments on top of the discussion board.  I really think that if we’re going to create learning communities, that we have to allow the interactive portions of the course to really do their job, and enforce that.  Every time I’ve had a significant discussion board requirement, attention and grades got better.  I have no hard data on this so far, but I would love to hear feedback from other instructors.

Because they are like this, right here.

http://www.cracked.com/article_18660_why-you-should-beware-schools-from-late-night-tv-ads.html

Mention online learning and people frequently think University of Phoenix.  This is yet another one of those image problems online specialists face.  I very briefly worked for one of those places and it was one of the worst working experiences of my life.  No quality, no oversight, no academic freedom, very low pay for far too many hours, and quality control goons who would phone me to make sure I was on task. The saddest thing was, most of my students were in a very desperate place and it is clear that they had been preyed upon.  I know there are one or two for profit places out there which do offer some good programs, but for people wanting to build a career teaching online, please be careful.  there are plenty of 4 years and Community Colleges with fine distance learning programs. Look there first.

Here is an announcement of what I have been up to of late, beautifully laid out on the Francis Boutle Publishing website. I will be heading to Cornwall’s Tremough Campus to give a lecture on Ithell Colquhoun on July 14 as part of the Mysticism, Myth and Nationalism conference co-sponsored by the University of Exeter’s Institute of Cornish Studies and their department of English.

Additionally, I have written a short piece on Ithell’s magical studies of the hermaphrodite for the Francis Boutle newsletter.  This gives only a hint of how groundbreaking she was.

Again it has been awhile since I have posted here. It’s been a busy term, I’ve been teaching a lot of classes, writing and researching. In the not too distant future this blog is going to shift a bit in topic to reflect more of my research and writing as well as my teaching.  I wanted to have a more integrated approach, and show people more of what my version of the “academic mercenary” life is about. So, watch this space.

In the meantime, here is a question that surely vexes many teachers and professors today: how do we cope with the rising tide of bad and incorrect information about American and world history that is carrying away our students?  Many of them are genuinely misinformed about the way the country operates and what the history of the country is.  I don’t even know how to start correcting this, it’s like a wave.  I am trying to keep politics out of the classroom, I don’t think it’s appropriate, but how can I begin to provide accurate information without being accused of having a political agenda?  I feel as though students are constantly trying to hijack the discussion boards for political purposes,  and it’s just getting worse.  Do any of you have similar stories?

My terms are starting in the next few weeks and since I’m off to the UK in a week’s time, I want to get everything in order before heading off. I did a lot of tweaking and course editing at the beginning of last term, and it has left me pretty well placed, only having to make a few changes before launching everything.  I can’t say enough about the value of taking time to manage courses and fix errors upfront. It will save you so much time during the term itself.

This term I’m thinking about shifting assignments.  I teach courses of different lengths, some 8 week, some 12 week and some 16 week.  Normally I just cram the same assessments into a shorter time frame, but I am not sure that is the best strategy.  Yes, they all need to be the same amount of challenge and the assessments need to pack the same punch, but the students in my 8 week courses are very different from the students in my 16 week courses.  They are frequently working adults and they have different needs, and I notice that frequently an assignment gets missed which hits their overall grades pretty hard. when I have taught with weekly assessments they also get missed or, worse, they are rushed and shoddy. I am thinking of playing with a couple of larger projects that will combine elements of smaller projects normally spread through the term that will be less likely to be forgotten in the rush of the life of a busy working person.  A solid midterm and final seem to provide natural points for people to work around. What do you all do? I am also going to continue working with youtube and suggesting  itunes lectures for students to listen to this term. Getting media accessibility is always a challenge, but things are getting better.

Additionally, I am really feeling for a number of colleagues who are trying to go the traditional academic route right now.  It’s always tough out there, but this is a helluva time to be looking for tenure track positions.  I am grateful for abundance in my work and for being able to life the unusual life I have created for myself doing this.

I know I’ve been a very bad cyber prof and have seriously neglected this space.  I suppose I have a good reason, or two.  first, my Dad had been suffering from poor health for about 6 months, and passed away on Thanksgiving.  Also, this has been one of my busiest terms ever.  The bad economy has kept business booming and I have had a lot of work.  So yes, I’ve been slammed, but honestly, I’m grateful for the bounty. All of this has meant that I have kept a rather low profile, but I hope that will change in 2010.

Wow, it’s been busy here. Given that we’ve basically moved twice in 6 months, it shouldn’t be too surprising that I’ve had little time for blogging, or anything else, really.

I just wanted to make a quick note and state once again that design is everything. This term I have takes a couple of my course shells and worked to make them modular. In fact, I’m trying to go this way with all my classes. In short, organize the content not by weeks, but by topic. Put the due dates in the syllabus, not in the course content. This way, you can easily adapt the course shell to different length terms.

That’s all for now folks.

Being an Academic Mercenary isn’t just about teaching, it’s about life.  When I chose this career path, I made a very conscious decision to create the life that I wanted to have. This was no accident! I did not want to have a traditional academic job in a traditional academic department. I prefer working from home, and I wanted the freedom to live where I want and work from where I want. I have created that life, and it is a wonderful thing, but there are a few drawbacks, and it’s worth addressing them here.

For instance, I don’t remember the last time I had two days in a row where I had no teaching duties whatsoever. If I am away on vacation, or doing research, I am teaching and grading. I taught when I got married, I taught on my honeymoon, I teach when I go skiing, I teach all the time. Yes I have freedom of location, but the truth of the matter is, I really need a break! I don’t ever take a few days off, go camping, go somewhere where I am without my work. This is a big problem, and it’s one that I need to address, because if I’m not well rested if I don’t get away from the job, I’m not giving my students what they need from me. I feel grumpy and overburdened, and I think this is very common.

The other thing about working from home is that it’s very easy for work to intrude on my home life. I can always just answer one more e-mail, do another discussion post, or grade a couple more papers. Sometimes I’ll find myself doing that at midnight, just because I’m a bit bored. This is not healthy.

I know that to remedy this I need to work more on setting boundaries, and sticking to them. I need to have designated times where do my work, and then I need to stop. I need to set performance targets, and then feel okay about stepping away from the computer once I have set them, even if there is more work to be done. The fact of the matter is, there is always more work to be done, and that applies to me and everybody else. Students tend to be very demanding in an online environment, they expect you to respond to their e-mail 30 seconds after they send it. That isn’t fair, and just because I want to please them doesn’t mean that I should be cheating myself on the time that I need to recharge.

Been enjoying reading the work of Jonathan Fields at www.jonathanfields.com and www.careerrenegade.com. Both those sites have useful tips about how to stay sane and how to stay directed when working from home, and while carving your own niche in the world. It’s important to remember that if you choose to build a career as a Cyber Prof, that you may have less in common on a day-to-day basis with your fellow academics, and more in common with entrepreneurial types. I’m hoping to learn more from others who have chosen the roads less traveled to help me manage my work/life balance so that I can get the most from everything I do. One thing I’m going to do with the reduced workload this summer is make rest and recreation a priority.

It’s hard to write too much about the role of discussion in online pedagogy.  Since I’m in the middle of tweaking my courses for Summer terms, I’ve been looking at the courses from Spring and wondering what worked and what didn’t.  I have found, without a doubt, that if you want lively discussion in your courses you MUST make it mandatory that they have original posts of minimum 100 words and that they respond to a classmate.  You also need to make discussion a huge part of the overall grade.   Last term I was beta testing a group designed course that didn’t have a word minimum on the discussion posts and no matter how hard I begged, e-mailed and cajoled the students I could not get them to beef up the posts.  This term in the same class I upped the word count and the different is like night and day. I am proud, not frustrated.  Hooray!  I see the learning!

When I go to professional meetings and tell colleagues what it is that I do for a living, I sort of get an impression from some of them that they rather feel sorry for me. I did at one point have a traditional academic job, and now I am apparently “reduced” to adjuncting online.  I also hear academic colleagues of mine who are underemployed, or unemployed talk about adjuncting with disdain as they are looking for what they call a “real” job. I have to admit, I take a bit of offense at this. I work hard, and my bank account certainly is real, so go ahead and judge away.

The sad fact is, however, in the hierarchy of the academic world, being an adjunct just does not hold the same sort of gravitas or legitimacy. It is not a traditional “academic” path, and it is certainly not where you go if you want the privileges and perks of the ivory tower. And if you have an ego, making a living this way is really not the best way to get it stroked. In many ways, being an adjunct completely sucks. I am not treated with the same sort of respect as most of my academic colleagues at the institutions for which I teach.  At some of them, only full-time staff are allowed to contribute news of their research to campus publications.  Only recently has one of my schools allowed for adjunct staff to have any representation on the faculty organization. Furthermore, at some schools adjuncts are subject to more teaching scrutiny than their full-time peers.  This is clearly ridiculous. Just because one is an adjunct does not mean that they are in any way less qualified than their full-time peers. Everyone should know in this day and age, that for the most part getting an academic position is a matter of being in the right place at the right time, or having friends higher up the departmental foodchain. It is certainly not any kind of marker of quality or potential. Also, I get no sabbaticals, I do not get any kind of travel grants, only one of my schools has a provision for insurance for adjuncts, and only one school recognizes my research and development record with an academic ranking system.   I have to teach a very high courseload in order to continue living in the style to which I have become accustomed, and I can only do that because I’m teaching online.

But I don’t want a tenure-track position. Honestly, even when I started my life as an academic I have never wanted to be a classroom professor. It’s not that I’m not good at it, I am, it’s just that I honestly prefer research, and I prefer the environment of a research institute.  That’s just my personality. There are lots of other reasons though that I am not interested in that sort of work. First off, I really think that the whole procedure of tenure is corrupt, or certainly can be. I know of people who have been denied for all sorts of reasons, and when you think of all of the years spent blindly scrambling your way through a system only to be told that your time was wasted, I think it’s horrible. It’s not objective, and frequently candidates don’t even know what bar they are aiming at.  But once you get the position, the workload is completely ridiculous. Not only do you have to teach, get grants, and progress your own research, but you have all sorts of committees you have to sit on, projects to initiate, and things to supervise. In my view, the pay just doesn’t match the headache. I know people who have been tenured for years, and they still struggle to make ends meet because academic pay is just really crappy.  Additionally, once you are tenured somewhere you better hope that you like where you’re living, because you’re probably not going anywhere else for the next 20 years.   The idea of moving to the middle of nowhere, for a less than inspiring salary and a really high workload is just not appealing to me.

Honestly, I am happy to be an adjunct by choice. I really, really do not like committee meetings (been there done that), and frankly, I don’t care that I’m not supervising Master’s or Doctorate level work.  I have plenty of ways to make my mark, and my academic circumstances have not barred me from either publishing or receiving grants. I hate the office politics of academia, and I also don’t like the egos and the backbiting that you find in most academic departments. Frankly, academia is just really not that collegial, certainly not in the Humanities, where everybody thinks they are the next superstar, and nobody seems to have any perspective on their own importance. I’m also not sorry that I’m having to deal with faculty hiring procedures either. Since my return to the States in 2001 I have applied for two tenure-track positions, one of which was pulled because the department went under, and I don’t see myself applying for another one anytime soon.  I’m not saying never, because there are some projects that really do appeal to me that would be best served within an institutional environment, if I see an opportunity to foster those, I will certainly take it. So until then, I get paid to teach, nothing else. I have very few administrative duties or obligations, and I have my freedom, which is something I value greatly. This wasn’t luck, my career was entirely by design, and by not being afraid to buck the system. And to my tenured friends who feel sorry for me, I will be crying over my misfortune while teaching from a ski lodge in Tahoe, or poolside at a resort in Costa Rica.