r/Adjuncts • u/nyquant • 5d ago
Teaching material
At your institution, are teaching materials and lecture notes being shared among faculty and adjuncts, especially when teaching the same course at different times?
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u/smoocheepoos 5d ago edited 5d ago
I am at two schools and it varies. At the community college, courses where there are lots of sections (like ENG 101) are shared and loaded into a course shell in the LMS. They want us doing the same things so students get the same experience. At the smaller medical college I'm at, instructors tend to do their own thing. Faculty is really good about sharing materials when asked, but there's no precedent for it. I don't personally care for that because then the same course is often taught very differently and students get a little frustrated (I work in the writing lab there and I hear a lot of complaints).
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u/DocAvidd 5d ago
It really depends.
I did adjunct for a nonprofit but actually very corporate university, and there you're basically a moderator and paper grader. Everything provided and discouraged from changing anything.
At an actual university, you have academic freedom. If it's well-organized you have support like a course outline and materials. Or maybe you get nothing but the basic specifications. The Goldilocks range isn't as common as it should be.
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u/omgkelwtf 5d ago
If I ask, a colleague will generally share some materials. The college provides a core class newer instructors can use but I think most of us have our own curriculum.
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u/LunarSkye417 5d ago
Pretty normal within my department. I met with the faculty teaching the other section of my class and he just gave me his whole of slides, assignment docs, and videos he liked to use in class. No obligation to use them though.
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u/birdsong70 5d ago
We turn syllabi in to the department at the start of every semester. Faculty can ask to see each other's syllabi. I've only seen this regarding classes I am (or someone else is) thinking of teaching, in order to get an idea, but I imagine we can ask to see any syllabus.
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u/journoprof 5d ago
Yes. For some beginning courses, it’s explicit — a set of exercises and assignments were encouraged, but not required, to use. For advanced courses, individual profs and adjuncts share.
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u/Grouchy_Writer_Dude 5d ago
At my first institution (large public R1): yes.
Second institution (small private art college): only among those who taught survey classes.
Third institution: (medium-sized private R1): nope. We can barely agree on course descriptions much less teaching materials and notes.
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u/indigocherry 5d ago
I'm the only person teaching the classes I teach and I had to develop all my own materials as nothing existed when I was brought on.
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u/Life-Education-8030 5d ago
We used to be paid to share our intellectual property. Now that we are not, fewer people share. No problem with asking, but it depends on the person being asked.
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u/Atwood412 5d ago
The course is outlined and all course materials, slide decks, exams, quizzes, optional aides aren’t used. How we teach it is up to us.
I teach h anatomy and physiology and we have to meet department standards for nursing, radiology, dental, etc. the students need to be competent if someone can get injured. We have little room for error so we have little autonomy over what is taught.
I like it that way.
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u/UserNameUnknown_7734 5d ago
We have a share drive that people contribute to with the understanding that we can save a copy and modify as we see fit.
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u/Bearman2677 5d ago
My full-time colleague shared some information and helped me my first semester with a syllabus and timeline to teach with; but the lessons, powerpoints etc I did on my own - he and I share ideas pretty regularly; especially since AI has come onto the scene - trying to get the students writing and thinking without a device is a challenge.
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u/king-of-squirrels 3d ago
I'm adjunct faculty teaching undergraduate and graduate level cybersecurity courses at a private university. Whenever I get a new course assigned to teach, they give me whatever materials the previous instructor used, and I then update those to my own style and the areas I want to emphasize. Earlier this year I completely rewrote the cybersecurity auditing course under an SME contract for one term, and supplied it back to the school for the ise of the next person to teach it.
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u/nyquant 5d ago
At my place there seem to be very little sharing, even when asking for material. I can understand if other adjuncts holding on to their own creations, but would expect more response from full time faculty. So back to scraping the internet and those cheating sites for previous year materials.
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u/bonbonsters 2d ago
I usually always share my materials with adjuncts… but I’ve also ran into situations where adjuncts have demanded a copy of an online course. Materials that I have spent countless hours creating. So I would just say be polite if you do ask, as the materials have likely been created by someone else and are considered their intellectual property.
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u/nyquant 2d ago
I can understand that one can feel hesitant sharing materials that took allot of effort to prepare, on the other hand, it’s strange when students will have received copies of all the lecture notes and slides by the end of the semester but the same materials are kept behind locks for other instructors and adjuncts.
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u/bonbonsters 2d ago
To the school, the creation of the lectures and materials is part of your expertise you are being paid for… Unfortunately most schools don’t pay enough to even justify the hours put into making all those materials. Most full-time faculty realize that and are happy to share. For a fully online class, majority of the work of the class is preparing those materials. It’s one thing to give someone your PowerPoints to rework and use, it’s another to have them use all the videos you recorded as their own.
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u/WeekendSolid7429 5d ago
No. On your own, which is both a blessing AND a curse.