An Online Economics Professor Reveals All

By Stephen J. Dubner

Online education is seriously on the rise, garnering praise from congressmen and even gaining share among elementary school students. In the realm of higher education, more and more schools are offering online degree programs as an alternative to in-class courses, with some schools creating online-only engineering and law degrees as well as bachelors’.

But have you ever wondered who’s on the other side of the computer, teaching these online students?

Jamie Gladfelter is an online economics teacher for schools across the country, including Midstate College in Peoria, Ill.; Lake Tahoe Community College in South Lake Tahoe, Calif.;Forsyth Technical Community College in Winston-Salem, N.C.; Southeastern Illinois College in Harrisburg, Ill.; and North Dakota State College of Science in Wahpeton, N.D. After getting his B.S. and M.S. in economics at Illinois State University, Gladfelter took a job at Midstate as an institutional researcher, and started teaching online courses. He lives in Chicago, but that is pretty much irrelevant. Here’s a look at his current sphere of influence:

Gladfelter agreed to answer some questions about his online teaching.

Q: How do you put together your various teaching positions and your curriculum?

A: I taught an online class or two at Midstate College, where I was hired as an institutional researcher out of graduate school. I found out that I had to move from the area and began asking myself questions such as: “Why couldn’t I still teach my classes from Chicago?” This led to the question, “Why couldn’t I teach classes at any school in the nation from Chicago?” Almost every higher-education institution in the country offers an introductory micro or macroeconomics class. Community colleges and smaller private colleges are experiencing a lot of growth from their online course offerings. Community colleges also rely heavily on adjunct instructors. I decided I was going to specialize in online introductory economics classes and target community colleges. Talk about division of labor.

I found a great resource that would help me in this goal. I sent my resume and cover letter out to several hundred institutions from coast to coast, and was denied by 99 percent of the schools. I was, however, able to make contact with a few deans and department chairs who were looking to hire adjunct faculty for economics. Some of the schools already used remote employees, but others I had to convince. In a field as new as online education, experience is a trump card. As I added courses, I became more appealing to other colleges. I also invested in top-of-the-line software and hardware with which to market myself. I am now at the point where I turn down classes because I don’t want to overextend myself.

Q: Who are your competitors?

A: Personally, I am competing for course assignments with anyone who traditionally teaches at a community college: the middle manager M.B.A. at a local corporation who wants some extra money and wants to take on a class or two to boost his resume; or the full-time faculty member at the college who has no incentive to take on extra courses because it doesn’t affect his salary. I don’t know of anyone else who specializes to the degree that I do, so competition with like-minded individuals is negligible.

Read more at: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/15/an-online-economics-professor-reveals-all/ 

By all means, do read the replies on the freakonomics blog link - particularly what the other online professors have to say! 

More and more, college professors are going online - at their own school and elsewhere.  In some instances, it's an existing course  going hyrid and supplementing the existing course with some online forums and content, but others are strictly online and parallel the traditional courses with zero seat-time; and just about every point in between has been implimented.  

It's all very encouraging!  The technology is just sitting on the shelf waiting to be put to use; all the socio-economic trends are pointing toward distance learning more out of necessity than anything else; and even the smallest community college probably already has the expertise on staff to make it happen. So those who make the effort should optimize the return on their investment and follow this example.  Some may want to teach online exclusively, but I really expect that most of them will continue to teach face-to-face - I know I certainly do in my corporate training.

There are a couple of news that expand on this theme: Danielle Babb & Jim Mirabella's  'Make Money Teaching Online' and Rebecca Brown's "How to Teach Online' both published this spring and each about US$25. [I didn't get much out of either one because I do corporate training, but they undoubtedly will be very useful for college adjuncts, which was the intended audience after all.]