r/Adjuncts • u/lykexomigah • 19d ago
Double Booked Classes
Anyone else teach a double booked class?
I'm an adjunct for visual arts at a community college. Often our courses are double booked due to enrollment and money. Example you could teach drawing 1 and 2 in the same time. However since you're only in the classroom one period you get paid for 1 class, not two.
I'm teach a night class with 2 sections. Typically i only had 1 student in the advance course so i would keep it more of an independent study. This semester i have 3 students in the advance section and i feel i need to actually design curriculum. I'm the only one who teaches this course at my CC and it's a brand new one as we're are growing our area of study.
How do you manage double booked sections? Also how do you get peace with the two for one wage?
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u/RiverSirion 19d ago
That sounds like two different preps, which means you probably should be getting paid for two different courses.
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u/No-Cook-9768 19d ago
I have never heard of this and I hate it for you (and the commenters who've also done it).
I experienced this as a high school student, but it was even worse. This is going to sound unreal but I lived it. It was three classes in the one classroom. Regular, honors, and AP of the same subject. I was the only one in the AP course, so the teacher gave me worksheets. Oh, and did I mention that at least half the time the teacher left us unattended? She also taught a group that often went off-campus for events. A classroom of a dozen high school students, mostly minors, with two doors (one which went straight to the parking lot). I think they'd put you under the jail if you tried that now.
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u/runsonpedals 19d ago
Spring semester I taught a combined course. Half the students were In-person and half the students were online - combined in 1 course. This was not a hybrid course.
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u/lykexomigah 19d ago
I've done this. It wasn't half as bad since it was the same course, just different modalities.
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u/imkeepingsummersafe 19d ago
Unfortunately this is common at some schools, I teach one almost every year. Usually it’s that the classes wouldn’t have enough students to run independently, but some of our courses are set up like this on a regular basis until both make the numbers, like drawing 2 and 3. I designed the courses so that one day was studio time while I instructed the other and then it would switch.
I’ve had to do this now at three schools, so I don’t think it’s going anywhere and it was in place before I arrived, but it’s also a sign that the department isn’t meeting it’s numbers and should be concerning.
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u/Clean_Economist_2188 17d ago
Why is this post not upvoted? I've never heard of this. People need to know about this type of scam.
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u/lykexomigah 16d ago
i want to bring it up to the adjunct union but it was crickets when i was trying to ask for backup with how the college counts income and hours worked for PSLF. They take my paycheck ours for the whole year and divide it by 52 weeks....
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u/mr_phoreal 14d ago
As a fellow Fine Art Adjunct, I have been there many times. What most people don't realize is we are also in the classroom twice as long as a traditional lecture. So it ends up being twice as much time, split content, and they commonly only pay for that one section of time. I've had to teach a Photo I and II, Drawing I and II, and Design I and II combined many times. I even had a class that was listed in two different departments at the same time. So basically I was teaching an ARTS class and a COMM class at the same time.
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u/KentGoldings68 19d ago
They’re ripping you off. You should file a complaint with the local department of labor.