Need to return to teaching for the income after an unsuccessful attempt at full time. How can I do so?

I'm (31M) a 5th year PhD student in Experimental Psychology who should be graduated on August 7th after I make the final revisions my advisor wants in this case. My advisor is looking over my latest draft, but he told me that all sections other than the Results and Discussion are complete so that's good.

I'm posting now because I'm going to be teaching an online 8 week asynchronous Research Methods class this coming Fall semester. I should note that I taught two sections of Research Methods (one per semester) during my last GAship my 3rd year of the program (my funding ran out early since my program is on the ropes to the point they just now stopped admitting new students). I'm allowed to import my old course shell from a pre existing template my university gives GAs. However, I did slightly adjust my old one to reflect the updated APA edition and layout of various databases and SPSS. I also don't need to make my own lectures at all since students have publisher slide decks uploaded online as well as s bunch of reading materials they can use in this case alongside universal deadlines at the end of each week (Friday at 11:59 PM if I recall correctly).

The pay will be a meager $3800 since it's only an adjunct course. Better than nothing, but it'll also fulfill service requirements to keep fellowship money I got after I graduate officially. I bombed teaching Research Methods online the first time since I was learning how everything worked on the fly, but my scored dramatically improved the following semester fortunately. I did teach as a visiting full time instructor for in person classes at a small liberal arts college my 4th year, but that was more of a bomb than my first time teaching Research Methods online the first time and I had a downwards trend in ratings. This is not imposter's syndrome speaking either since I had 2.8-2.9s on most categories out of 5 my first semester to 1.4-1.8s on the same scale my last semester teaching. Most of it came down to me having difficulty replying to all student emails and since it was often a month or more before I grades everything. I never read the feedback in full my last semester there and sent it to my neurodivergent coach to get the main points for me since most of it was mean and some points weren't true (e.g., some on my evaluations said I canceled office hours, which isn't true. I made them remote when I had to go the lab on campus of my PhD program). I should note that I had an offer in hand to be a full time instructor at a regional campus of a flagship university in June 2024, but I declined since in person teaching went that poorly for me and they also wanted me to defend my dissertation before my start date. I said I was on track to defend "soon" during my interview, but that wasn't the case since I had no date set in stone. I also didn't defend until this past April, so it was a good call to not take it since I probably couldn't make that deadline anyway.

At this point, how can I improve knowing that I'm going back into teaching this online 8 week asynchronous course after I bombed the first time and grew to dislike teaching? I'd like to know how I can do so.

Posted Jun 30, 2025, 3:11 AM UTC

05
Loading comments…