Teaching

This page focuses on teaching positions and smaller teaching-centered colleges and community colleges. The Chronicle of Higher Education's First Time on the Market section has several articles devoted specifically to applying and interviewing at smaller teaching-centered colleges and community colleges. You can find a list of community colleges in every state HERE and a guide to the community college job search HERE. If you aren't sure whether teaching is for you or what kind of school you would like to work at check out the Interviews Section.

Your Teaching Portfolio

As you prepare to apply for teaching jobs you will want to assemble the following materials:

• Cover letter
  • Advice on cover letters
  • Advice on all kinds of job search letters
• CV or resume
  • General advice on resumes
  • Advice on teaching CVs
• Contact info for your references
• Statement of research interests
• Statement of teaching philosophy
  • Questions to get you started
  • Advice on how to organize your statement
  • Advice on tailoring your statement for your job hunt
  • Example 1, Example 2
• Sample publications
• Sample syllabi
• Sample lessons you think are especially successful or innovative
• Student evaluations
  

Carleton College has a fantastic page with links to information about all aspects of an academic application.

Research

Smaller teaching-centered colleges still want you to be active in research so be prepared to talk about your research interests. A postdoc may or may not be expected depending on the school. Two things hiring committees keep in mind are how much it would cost to get your research up and running at their school and how well could you involve undergraduates in your research. The smaller the former and the larger the latter the better.

Teaching Experience

One of the best things you can do to enhance your resume is to get some experience running your own class. Being an Assistant Instructor for Physical Science is a good start but even better is teaching a summer course at Austin Community College or Huston-Tillotson.

• Teaching at either ACC or HT requires as master’s degree so talk to you advisor about wanting to write a master’s thesis early in your graduate career.
• Apply as an adjunct at ACC or at HT. ACC keeps applications on file for up to a year so you don’t have to wait to see an opening to apply. I don't know how long HT keeps applications on file.
• Teaching a single, 3 hour summer course at ACC will pay somewhere around $2500. HT pays a little bit less than ACC but the classes are smaller.
• Teaching will involve writing your own lecture notes. Be prepared to devote a significant amount of time outside the classroom to your teaching. Remember, you’re doing this to build your experience and enhance your resume. No one said it was a quick or easy summer job.
  
  

Teaching a prep course for the MCAT physics section at the Princeton Review is another good way to get experience running a class. Princeton Review classes meet approximately once a week for 2.5 hours for a total of 9 weeks. Teaching at PR involves preparing lectures and lecture notes and helping students with practice problems. PR pays hourly depending on your education level, experience etc.

An easy way to get a little bit more teaching experience is through Tutor.com. Tutor.com pays hourly, you set your own schedule and you can tutor from anywhere you have access to a computer (on which you've downloaded their software). Tutor.com is nowhere near the experience and resume booster of running your own class but you can try to sell it as you being technologically savvy and having experience with distance learning.