Q&A: Becoming a part-time online lecturer

Thanks for reaching out to me through my blog!
Your question on how to transition from postdoc to online part-time lecturer is quite interesting. There’s a few different routes you can take in that regard.

1) You can teach online classes for a local university. You may still need to have office hours and may need to teach during set class hours. At my university, a number of courses are like this –  my colleagues in the language program typically teach one or more of their courses online (from what I understand) and that is through webconferencing in the evening. I have no experience with this method, though.

2) You can teach modules through an online institution. I teach in an online master’s program. The lectures are prerecorded and students work through the material at their own convenience, but during a preset number of weeks. During that time, I can expect questions from them through the online platform.

3) You can develop your own courses and sell them online – either by building your own platform, or by using an existing platform.

I hope this gives you some ideas on options of online teaching. In terms of how to move from your postdoc to these teaching gigs, I can give you the following ideas:

1) approach local colleges to see if they offer online courses that you could teach

2) let your colleagues near and far know that you are looking for an online teaching gig

3) pitch ideas for modules or courses to universities and teaching institutions internationally to see if they want to host you.