Distance Education: Getting Started

by Jo Gibson Adjunct faculty have a wide comfort zone: they prepare lectures, monitor classroom discussion, devise tests, assign grades–no problem! However, even for faculty with wide-ranging professional skills and experience, on-line teaching can be a hard sell. Consider Dr. David Dutton [pseud.], professor and department chair. Aggressively pursuing additional work to supplement his income, he is now an on-line adjunct faculty member at seven institutions of higher education. “The coursework on-line is just as rigorous,” he says, “and I’ve found ways to establish my professorial presence in the on-line classroom. The students need that, and they love on-line learning.” […]