I am being recruited to become an adjunct professor in a MPA program at a public university. I have never taught a college course, only trainings for employees.

I'm looking for some advice on how to step into such a role with no formal experience teaching college students.

You might try contacting the College of Education directly at TAMU and seeing if you can set up a Zoom or in person meeting with someone there. There are lots of nice folks there and I bet you'd get the help you want.

When I was finishing up my Ph.D., I helped teach one class that was in my area. I think I taught two chapters. That was all the formal pedagogical training I received. I helped another professor in the department by leading a couple lectures with one of her courses, too, but that wasn't anything the university did. When I started teaching at UH as a lecturer, they gave me the book and materials that the previous professor and other sections of the class were using. After a couple of years, I picked a different book, but I still use some of the materials.

I would reach out to the department chair or whomever is recruiting you and ask if they have any requirements for the course and can they give you any materials and books. You can also look online for relevant materials. I know that a new fad in K-12 is having ChatGPT to provide you with ideas and materials. You give it details about what information you need to deliver to students, and you can ask it to provide lesson plans or lecture notes, tests, projects, and more. I don't know if that has made it to colleges and universities yet. It isn't anything I've used.

I'll add that in 15 years at UH, I've never had anyone from the department or university sit in my class. They do look at student surveys, and I suppose if those were bad they might dig a little more, but there's a lot of leeway to run your class how you want.

Edit: I went back and looked at my transcripts, and I have a bunch of seminar classes. It's possible one of those was on pedagogy, but I sure don't remember it.

Not much different than what you do for a corporate training class except the format of presentation of material is more spread out and you can get a lot more aggressive at attempting to measure the audience grasp of the subject. If you have been doing contract training you more than likely had to prepare goals and learning objectives tied to the goals for your class and provide them to the client before they let you get in front of their employees. Many university departments don't go to that level but it doesn't hurt to ask the dept head or assoc head what their overall goals and learning objecties are they think the course should target. Work from there with your subject matter knowledge of what needs taught and how to present the material to accomplish the goals and learning objectives tied to those goals.

Find out what book/resources the preceeding instructor used. Evaluate for quality, accuracy/up to date and determine if it is adequate or you need to go find something better that fits your training/teaching style. Look at the course schedule and book/resources and break the lectures down into 50 or 75 minute topic chunks whichever is your assigned slot. Develop a syllabus, re-evaluate once you put all your lecture topics and tests, etc. into the syllabus if you end up short of or long on material for the semester. Then go back and develop the actual homeworks, papers, projects, labs, quizzes, tests and any other measures you want to use as a measure of learning for the students.

I spent most of my career as a consultant doing a lot of on-site training for clients but eventually semi-retired into a part time teaching gig at a university for 10 years. Its kind of comical when the ivory tower college experts told me I was doing it all wrong when I was the one making 10 grand a day plus expenses doing the corporate training gig where you don't get invited back for repeat business if you don't do a good job. If you an relate the book theory to your actual experiences in the workplace of how people screwed up the application of the theory or how they applied it for a big time success the students will generally ask good questions, learn well and give you high reviews. Your training background gives you a huge leg up on what is involved in quality teaching related to the typical fresh off a phd or post-doc thrown into the classroom in many instances.

Former college prof here. I was tenure-track and not adjunct.

Are you being recruited generally or to teach a specific class?

Thing about adjunct positions is they are about the lowest staff on the totem pole at a university. University admins like them because the positions don't pay very much. When you figure up the time spent in class, the time spent preparing for class, and the time spent grading papers and calculate your hourly rate, you very well may conclude it's not worth your time.

Some questions to ask:
What classes will you be teaching? Are they required classes or electives? Undergraduate or graduate level? How many classes PER semester (one, two, more?). How many sections of each class? Will there be an online component? Is there a lab? Will you have a TA or student to grade papers for you? Will the classes be during the day or at night? Will you get to determine the days/time the class is offered?

Will you have an office on campus? Are their requirements that you be in the office for certain hours (to interact with students)?

Adjuncts don't typically have to attend faculty meetings or engage in other administrative duties related to operating the department, buy you should confirm this for your position.

What will the contract length be? One semester? One year? Will you be paid for each class you teach (if you teach more than one) or by a flat fee (regardless of how many classes you teach)? The typical arrangement is a flat fee per course (regardless of how many hours it takes you).

If you are able, find some other adjunct faculty at this university (preferably in the same college) and reach out to them.

I can't emphasize enough that the comparison of pay to hours required should be fully evaluated.

I'm in engineering, and the adjuncts I knew all said it didn't pay nearly enough for them to be doing it for the money. They did it simply because they had a desire to do it - teach, interact with students, and give back to the field. Most only did it for a very limited time before they had to go back to their "day job" that actually paid the bills. Teaching was more like a "hobby".

Just retired after a 23+ year stint as a full professor. Either you got "it" or you don't got "it." I was a courtroom attorney before becoming a prof, so teaching seemed like a natural and seamless transition. Have fun, and let your students know on Day 1 that learning can be fun and hard work at the same time. Heck, I made those 1st and 2nd year goobers stand and recite (just like law school using the Socratic method). They ended up loving that system. Keep them engaged. No phones. Stay aggressive. And don't let them get lazy. Good luck.

This is my research area expertise -- feel free to hit me up.

whoop03@
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I'm doing my dissertation on engineering adjuncts these questions make me very happy!!