How to teach (step two)

So, you’ve built a relationship with a university lecturer and have given a guest lecture (see How to teach step one). Then what?

You may learn of opportunities for more regular – and paid – teaching. Universities are relying on more hourly-paid staff to front classes, given the constraints on recruitment and the demands on the time of permanent staff members (who have management roles as well as teaching timetables and research profiles). Sometimes these roles are advertised and formalised as ‘associate lecturer’ contracts. Often, they arise at short notice as members of the team are given other priorities, or fall sick, or take periods of study leave.

Hourly-paid teaching is unlikely to be lucrative, but it can be enjoyable. You get to teach students and avoid the course management and admin work. You’ll only be paid for your timetabled classroom hours: universities have standard pay rates and it’s usually in the £30-£40/hour range. This is a multiple of the minimum wage, but it includes preparation time, responding to student emails outside class and grading of assignments. Also, you can only earn these hours during the teaching period, which is only half of the year and you won’t receive travel expenses.

Some universities may be able to offer you a block of teaching on one day (so you can earn more hours and reduce the travel time and expense) – but on smaller courses the teaching commitment may be spread across the week making it harder to fit around your other work. But the advantage of an hourly-paid contract is that you are free to take on work if and when it suits you. I’d advise you not to chase hours at first: six hours of undergraduate teaching may sound more worthwhile, and three sessions repeating the same material to different groups may require less preparation.

But repetitive blocks of teaching can be boring and exhausting – an unfortunate combination for the lecturer and for the students.

Often, you’ll be part of a teaching team, delivering other people’s teaching content, and this will usually involve leading tutorials or seminars rather than delivering lectures. Yet there’s always flexibility in class for you to talk about the day’s news agenda, to use your own professional experience and for you to develop your teaching skills.

Teaching can be fun and it can be rewarding (like public relations, education is a relationship business). Hourly-paid work can be a good way to add something extra to your work portfolio.

In the final post, I’ll say what’s involved in gaining a permanent lecturer’s contract.