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[hopeandfaith]

There is a public university that is offering an Online Teaching Graduate Certificate.  It is a 10 month program that costs around $6,000., and is geared specifically for online instructors.

I am considering enrolling in the certificate program in lieu of starting a PhD program next year.  "Pressure to Publish" does not interest me and has me rethinking a PhD program entirely.

My question is:  Would this graduate certificate in online teaching give me an edge over other applicants in obtaining an adjunct position?

[daniel_von_flanagan]

Not in a legitimate, regionally-accredited institution. - DvF

[hopeandfaith]

The graduate certificate has an internship of sorts that would provide me with teaching experience.  The program is with a regionally-accredited institution and their School of Education is accredited by NCATE.

So I guess I'm left wondering if I would be hired as an adjunct without prior teaching experience?  Or would I be better off taking on a first job at high-turnover-slum-U just to get teaching experience?

[daniel_von_flanagan]

Maybe I am misunderstanding the original question.  If you want to get hired as a college-level teacher at a respectable school before you get your advanced degree in an academic subject, then this will be difficult under any conditions because the advanced academic degree is the college-level teaching credential in most areas, and by most accreditors. If you are asking whether such a certificate will give you an edge over someone who doesn't have one, on top of normal graduate work, then it is possible, especially if a college is trying to expand their online teaching effort.

Note however that most graduate teaching certificates are for K-12 teaching, not for college teaching.  For example, a high school teacher might get one in business or math so that they can teach these courses at the HS level for a higher salary.  I've never heard of someone using such a degree as their primary credential to teach at the college level. - DvF

[glowdart]

So I guess I'm left wondering if I would be hired as an adjunct without prior teaching experience? 

We wouldn't hire anyone to adjunct (online or on the ground) who had never taught before.  This certificate that you're describing wouldn't make any difference from the sounds of it; we want evidence that you have experience running your own classrooms/online classes that you have designed and taught alone.  (If anything, then this certificate might raise some eyebrows.  Usually, people learn how to teach online by taking workshops on the campus where they're teaching and by just doing it.) You'd also need at least an MA to get hired as an adjunct.   

So, that's one voice from the anonymous wilderness.

[tee_bee]

(If anything, then this certificate might raise some eyebrows.  Usually, people learn how to teach online by taking workshops on the campus where they're teaching and by just doing it.)

Chime. These workshops on all sorts of things are often unimpressive and perceived, at least in my world, as shortcuts to avoid doing more serious training or scholarly work. This program sounds like a profit center for its sponsor, which is fine--but I don't see how that would improve one's chances to teach at a college or university. At my school, our distance ed people recruit the best classroom teachers to be excellent on-line teachers. I've seen their stuff demo'd, and it's amazing. But they started as solid teachers, with those troublesome PhDs.

OP, "pressure to publish" may not appeal to you, but in most colleges, you'll feel some pressure to publish--far more so in a big PhD-granting research school than at a community college.  It comes with the territory.

[zharkov]

If you have a master's, the big box online schools will train you for free to teach in their school.  Then if you teach a handful of courses over a year or two, you can declare competence as an online instructor.