During the August 2018 Academic Senate for the Community Colleges of California, a reoccurring theme in General Sessions and Break-Out Sessions was Employment, i.e. how an Adjunct can get a full time job at a Community College. While much of this was repeated, I will organize it the way it makes sense to me. There are four main areas connected with this subject.
- Practice, practice, practice: All hiring committees require demonstration lectures.
- Practice the lesson you intend to give to make sure it flows smoothly and you can fit it into the expected time constraint, usually 10 or 15 minutes
- Have a backup plan. If you are expected to give a Power Point presentation, for example, have it on a flash drive, but also email it to yourself on campus email in case the flash drive does not work. For one interview where the job description said it would be a plus if we had experience in Blackboard, I accessed my Power Point by going into my class’s Blackboard to subtly show I did already use Blackboard.
- Find out in advance which of two methods are used for demonstration lectures:
- The hiring committee wants you to treat them the same way that you would treat a class. To me, this shows off your skills
- The hiring committee will not show any emotion. You might as well be talking to the furniture at home. It is important here to act as if they are interacting with you.
- Be flexible in your environment. The interview and demonstration might be in a classroom, a meeting room or a long narrow conference room with all the furnishings such as board, projector and lectern in the “wrong” places. It is a cliché, but “go with the flow.”