The last blog post was on adjunct instructors returning to school for another or higher degree. Even if you decide not to return to school at the moment or have advanced as high as you want to with your degrees, it's important for faculty to be active yearly in other forms of academic development and growth for several reasons.

Research indicates that adjunct faculty often feel isolated and marginalized in higher education (Dolan, 2011; Mueller, Mandernach, & Sanderson, 2013; Webb, Wong, & Hubball, 2013). Adjuncts' sense of affiliation and loyalty can improve with connecting to the community of the college they work for, often through professional development, including face-to-face development (Dolan, 2011; Mueller, Mandernach, & Sanderson, 2013).

In addition, adjunct faculty-especially online faculty-often lack strategies for teaching and grading and therefore can benefit from professional development (Mueller, Mandernach, & Sanderson, 2013). Many times, in-person instructors rely on traditional pedagogies instead of adapting their practice to the online environment (Lane, 2013), or faculty may be expert practitioners in their fields but not expert teachers (Webb, Wong, & Hubball, 2013). Professional development can allow for instructors to "be their own action researchers, creating pedagogies that help students learn, drawing conclusions, and sharing with each other" (Lane, 2013, p. 10). Development meant to meet the specific needs of adjunct faculty can enhance scholarly approaches to teaching (Webb, Wong, & Hubball, 2013).

Ideas for faculty development can include but isn't limited to:

• Workshops (college-led, organizational-sponsored, online webinars, etc…)
• Research and scholarship (journal writing, empirical research, conference presenting, SoTL development, etc…)
• Subject Matter Expert, curriculum development, etc…
• Non-credit courses/classes
• Learning from other disciplines (taking classes, research circles, project development, etc…)
• Journal reading and reflection/writing

For a long time I felt I had already finished college and therefore didn't need to do anything else, but I've learned that is not true. For the past several years I've been involved in various forms of development, and I've seen my teaching improve, students have responded positively, and it's allowed me to stay on top of current methods/trends in English and higher education. It is so important for us as adjunct instructors to continually be developing our teaching skills and growing in the knowledge of our discipline, not only for our vitae's sake, but for our students and ourselves as well.

References

Dolan, V. (2011). The isolation of online adjunct faculty and its impact on their performance. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 12(2), 62-77.

Lane, L. M. (2013). An open, online class to prepare faculty to teach online. Journal of Educators Online, 10(1), 1-32.

Mueller, B., Mandernach, B., & Sanderson, K. (2013). Adjunct versus full-time faculty: Comparison of student outcomes in the online classroom. Journal of Online Learning & Teaching, 9(3), 341-352.

Webb, A. S., Wong, T. J., & Hubball, H. T. (2013). Professional development for adjunct teaching faculty in a research-intensive university: Engagement in scholarly approaches to teaching and learning. International Journal of Teaching & Learning in Higher Education, 25(2), 231-238.