While the rest of my family enjoys a leisurely snow day today due to record cold temperatures and quite a bit of snow, I find myself slaving away at the computer. Yet another disadvantage that online instructors have over their brick and mortar counterparts – there are no snow days in online education!
That said, even without the snow day that my brick and mortar counterparts are enjoying today, I am still happy with my choice to become an online educator. In general, faculty who teach online are as satisfied or more satisfied then those who teach in a face-to-face environment. There are numerous reasons that online faculty are generally more satisfied in their positions:
1. Enjoy Technology
Most online instructors who truly enjoy what they do tend to be early adopters of technology and appreciate the variety of ways that technology can be utilized within the classroom. These instructors find and develop innovative ways to adapt the online classroom to a variety of learning types and to integrate technology to help increase student engagement.
2. Teaching Style
Some instructors have teaching styles that adapt well to the online environment. For some, that means taking more of a facilitative role in instruction by helping students with questions and prompting through critical thinking questions and the Socratic method within discussion boards. For others, they find they are better able to communicate and convey the information they are trying to teach through the online environment. At this point, most online classrooms mostly rely on text, but as videos and other types of technology become easier to develop, I think there will be more differentiation in teaching styles within the online environment.
3. Flexibility
The most important aspect of my overall satisfaction is the flexibility that teaching online provides. Most faculty (especially in adjunct positions) enjoy the same convenience and flexibility that attracts students to online courses in the first place. In my life, this job fits well because it allows me the flexibility to be present for my children. For others, the flexibility allows them to travel, work in a more traditional corporate or other field and still be able to teach, etc.
4. Ability to Help Others
There is no doubt that most teachers, even those in online education, went into education because they have an innate desire to help others learn. While I will admit that I felt and experience more in-depth connections with my students in a traditional setting, there are still many positive “light bulb” moments in online teaching that make the career worthwhile. There is not much that is more rewarding than helping others.
5. Financial
Entering the field of education with a goal of making a lot of money is not a rationale decision. However, in the field of online education, many adjuncts can piece together numerous jobs to make the profit worthwhile. In this career, it is definitely about how hard (and how much) one is willing to work. The more classes one teaches, the more they will earn. This can be a positive or a negative depending on the individual, but for me this has proved to be a very strong positive of choosing this career path.
Overall, the satisfaction of online faculty is very high – even despite the lack of holidays and snow days. 🙂
About the Author
Jamie Weitl is a WAHM teaching for several online universities and raising three precocious little ones. In her spare time she enjoys writing, baking, and running. For more info, see my Google Plus Profile.
