Some of the best telecommuting jobs in education do not require you to have a teaching license.
The best telecommuting jobs in education include teacher, tutor, content developer, director, and trainer.
Read on to find out more about these jobs!
Teacher (or Professor)
You can find many opportunities to teach online. For many of these jobs, you will need at least a Bachelor’s degree. Teaching at the college level will usually require a Master’s degree or even a Ph.D. The following shows the variety of possible jobs you can find as a telecommuting teacher.
Home School
Many parents who teach their children at home may lack knowledge in a specific subject. An expert in this subject can use his knowledge to benefit someone who lives far away. If you can find one home school parent who wants to hire you, offer them a group discount.
Instead of teaching one person for $20 per hour, teach 4 people who each pay $10 an hour. That way, you double your rate, and help four times as many students!
Virtual School
Technically, virtual schools and home schools have some differences. Usually, parents organize a home school arrangement for their own children. A virtual school can have classes larger than traditional in-person schools (100 to 200 students or more!).
Home schooling allows parents to tailor a custom for their children. Virtual schools will generally teach the same curriculum to every student, with the possible exception of elective courses.
To teach at a virtual school, you will generally need a teaching license. The rules for obtaining a teaching license vary by state. Some states, such as Massachusetts, require you to complete a Master’s degree or certificate program to earn a teaching license. You will likely also need to pass tests to earn a license. Many virtual schools might require you to have a few years of experience to become a virtual teacher.
Colleges
Many colleges offer online courses or programs. Some colleges offer all of their courses online. Most of these institutions will require you to have at least a Master’s degree to teach. You will likely need a Ph.D. to teach graduate level courses.
I teach online courses in Algebra, and I have done so for a few years now. After after teaching in-person for a few years, I moved into this online teaching role. I have my Master’s degree in Math, as do most of my fellow faculty members. Proof: picture below – my MA in Math from Boston College!
To succeed as an online teacher, you should have a strong knowledge of the topics you will teach. You should also have strong written communication skills, since you will use email to answer student questions.
In addition, you should take student feedback into account and continue to revise course materials to improve the user experience. Finally, you should have a knack for technical issues. In my experience, many technical challenges occur at the beginning and end of the semester.
Tutor
You can find tons of opportunities to tutor online. Students need tutoring in almost any subject you can imagine. Subjects include sciences, math, history, social studies, language arts, music, art, and more.
Some tutoring companies might hire you to tutor younger students, even if you only have a high school diploma. Tutoring for high school students will generally require a Bachelor’s degree in your area of expertise.
In addition to subject tutoring, you can also pursue test prep tutoring. Some students in 7th or 8th grade need to prepare for high school entrance exams. High school students need to prepare for the ACT or the SAT and subject tests. They might also need to prepare for the AP Exams.
College students need to prepare for the GRE (Graduate Record Examination), LSAT (Law School Admission Test), or MCAT (Medical College Admission Test). If you work for yourself, you might charge $100+ per hour. Keep in mind that you must have expert knowledge, and you must deliver results (improved test scores!) When you work for a company, expect lower hourly rates, to account for the company’s profit.
If subject and test prep tutoring do not excite you, then consider tutoring ESL (English as a Second Language). You will work with students (sometimes adults) who need to learn English for a school or job. Many of these jobs will involve teaching students in China or other foreign countries, where speaking English increases your value.
Content Developer
As a content developer, you create books and course materials for classes. You might do this for either in-person or online classes. Following the course curriculum, you will need to outline the course. Then, for each topic, you will conduct research, write the lessons, and edit your work.
You might also need to provide supplemental learning material, such as pictures, videos, and text files (for example, study guides). In addition to teaching the material in a logical, coherent way, you must make the course interesting.
Many teachers would agree that keeping students engaged presents one of the biggest challenges in education. If you can make the material relevant, your course will have much more success. Pearson does a lot of work in online education and course development. You can find many other companies in this space as well.
Director
If you have an advanced degree (Ph.D., Ed. D., etc.) and/or many years of experience, you might land a director position. Virtual schools might need the equivalent of principals or superintendents. Colleges might need directors for Online Learning, Student Services, or even an entire division (for example, Nursing, Computer Science, etc.).
Online tutoring companies might need a Tutor Coordinator or Manager, in addition to a director of student intake. All of these jobs will benefit from experience as a tutor in a virtual setting.
Finally, content development companies will need project managers and directors for their operations. Keep in mind that you will not qualify for these roles in your first few years after college. They require an advanced degree, and sometimes decades of experience.
Trainer
Many corporations spend huge sums of money to train their employees. Training ranges from HR and Workplace Policies (anti-discrimination, anti-harassment, etc.) all the way to team building. You might also train employees on software, if you have expertise in systems that update frequently.
In addition, you can train employees to handle workplace stress or close more sales. You might even train them to communicate with their coworkers. A company that provides such training might hire you as a trainer. You can also work for yourself, if you have the expertise. As always, working for yourself means a trade-off.
As an independent training consultant, you can charge higher rates. However, you also need to find your own clients. In addition, you need to take care of everything else that comes with owning a business. This includes marketing, advertising, accounting, and paying taxes, to name a few. You will also need to hire contract workers to do things you cannot or will not do yourself.
Choose Your Own Adventure
Traditional education includes teaching, tutoring, and training. However, you can also “Choose Your Own Adventure”, as I like to say. (Remember those books? I loved those!) By “Choose Your Own Adventure”, I mean educating people about something of your own, in your own way.
YouTube
For example, you might start a YouTube channel to teach people how to do common home repairs. If you build up a following, with lots of views and subscribers, you can make a living doing this! One way to earn money involves placing ads in your videos. You can also provide consulting services to earn money. This can act as a “premium version” of what you teach in your YouTube videos.
Website
If you dislike YouTube, you have another option. You can start your own website! Instead of recording videos for YouTube, you can write about things that interest you. Some people do this with a blog, on platforms such as WordPress.
You can write tutorials (how-to guides), reviews, best-of, and many other types of posts. As long as you are teaching people with helpful content, this counts as education! Again, you can make a living doing this. If you build up your following and page views, then you can earn money in a few ways.
First of all, you can put ads on your site, using Google AdWords or another service. Advertising brokers can also help you with this. Depending on audience size and website topics, you can earn $1000 per month or more. This takes time, and requires hard work to develop good content, but the payoff makes it worthwhile!
You can also put affiliate links on your website. For example, you might recommend products that you use yourself. If anyone purchases the products through the link, then you receive a commission from the selling company.
Most people know about Amazon’s affiliate program, but many others have such programs. Some other companies will affiliate programs include ClickBank, ShareASale, CommissionJunction, and Overstock.com. Many retailers also have affiliate programs, some of which offer generous commissions.
Finally, you can create an information product, and sell it on your site. This generally means an electronic book (e-book) or online course. Anyone who pays receives access to the digital resource.
Example
Instead of spending 4 hours researching a topic, a customer can purchase a guide from you for $15. Then, he can learn everything in an hour. The customer saves himself 3 hours of research, at a cost of $15. Unless your customer values his time at less than $5 an hour, he just received a bargain!
Let’s say that researching and preparing the guide takes you 20 hours. Then you only need to sell 60 copies to make $900, or $45 per hour. If you sell more copies, your hourly rate goes up. You can even earn money while you sleep. Cool!
Conclusion
The best telecommuting jobs in education allow you to make a difference in the lives of students. They also allow you to work from the comfort of home – or a coffee shop, or whatever you like! If you aren’t sure whether remote work is right for you, check out my article on the pros and cons of telecommuting.
I hope this guide helps to give you some idea of what jobs exist in online education. Please leave a comment if you have questions or comments about telecommuting jobs in education.