Recruiting outside/expert teachers

DMS General
#1

Some one of Talk mentioned that we should be looking for outside and or expert
teachers from out side our members, The same topic came in a a discussion back
in Fired arts tonging

The one in FA was more about looking in the local artist and artisan community for folks
One of the ideas there was to reach out to the local 4 year colleges to see if they have some grad
students especially that might want to share new skills with us

Does anyone have contacts that could help?

So folks have any other ideas of how o reach otu to the local arts community/

I don t think we are well known in that groups

#2

Fixed that so it will appeal more to Grad students, who tend to have plenty of outlet for their talents, but not so much $$ in their pockets…
Also, appeal to the resume-building facet.

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#3

probably will require ditching the “non profit means everything should be free” ethos

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#4

Non profit does not mean free. There are non profit health insurance companies and their product is anything but free.

As for teachers, there are many user groups for various computer products. They may be a good source for teachers.

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#5

Agreed. But it seems to be a persistent rumor at DMS that it does. See: the rental poll, various other thread on the topic of class fees.

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#6

If non profit means everything is free, then membership is free too, right? That argument makes no sense.

#7

I’m going to agree with @halachal. There is a persistent opinion (as stated on Talk) that once a person has paid their membership, everything else should be free. Oh the furor about charging a few dollars for a class and how deceptive and manipulative that is …

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#8

Just 2 cents from a new member, money for materials and classes seems totally reasonable. Materials and tools don’t just fall from the sky (hopefully). It’s just kind of surprising to me that at 1731 members there isn’t either already a member that is an expert teacher on “x” or teachers coming to DMS and asking to teach classes. Where I would kinda see a rub is if the calendar started getting overfilled with outside teachers. I stand by what I said about materials and classes, at the same time though the fact that there are a lot of free classes was a major selling point for me. I ramble and lack cohesive thoughts sometimes so I don’t really know where I was going with this. I’ll go back to enjoying my first week as a DMSer before I say something dumb or dumber than I already have.

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#9

There are plenty of experts, the problem is that once your expertise crosses a certain threshold, then the $50 honorarium becomes less of an incentive.

From what I gather, if an outside instructor wants to teach they will probably be pointed towards an orientation night and told that if they’re a member they can teach classes. I could be wrong on this, I just joined the PR committee a few weeks ago.

You can see why a professional instructor might not be interested in teaching a class if they have to invest the time to become part of the community first, then they have to HOPE that enough people show up for them to get paid.

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#10

You do not have to be a member to be an instructor and receive the honorarium. You must be sponsored by a member and turn in a W-9.

In the I know committees have paid for outside expertise above the $50. This is a legitimate expense and the classes had classes fees attached to it. This is also similar to the wood carving classes that charge a fee.

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#11

I agree! Maybe we could create a program where DMS members could vet an instructor, and then sponsor that instructor by putting classes on the calendar for them. This way the initial investment from the instructor isn’t too high. We might even get some teachers to join after teaching.

Same for me! Like you, I understand that wood doesn’t grow on trees ( :face_with_raised_eyebrow: ) so I wouldn’t have a problem paying for a class that used wood. Especially if I knew I was going to learn from an expert.

I meant that if someone asked they might get a soft sell on membership instead of “We would love to host your class, here’s how to get your class approved.”

The “Teach” page at dallasmakerspace.org has a little information, but the way I read it doesn’t explicitly say that non-members can teach.

Even if it did say that, if an outsider wanted to get sponsored by a member there’s no sanctioned way to make that happen.

I think it could be as simple as the potential instructor sending an e-mail about the class they wish to teach.
That would be followed up by someone in PR, who would need to either meet with the instructor, or put them in touch with a committee chair who could verify that person’s skills. Not sure of the details, but there should be more indication that we welcome outside instructors.

#13

So the next question…

Where do we go head-hunting for instructors? I wouldn’t even know where to start.

Does anyone have connections at local community colleges?

#14

If you look at the page for submitting something to calendar, there is box for a sponsoring member
image

W-9 info required

image
image.png1213Ă—55 3.77 KB

#15

Hiring outside teaching talent would not come cheap.

The recommended income for a community college professor is $6800 per 3-hour course per semester. This works out to be about $150 per class hour.

Assuming the number of credit hours is the same as the number of hours taught per week:
$6800 / 3 hours = $2266.67 per hour per semester
$2266.67 per hour per semester / 15 weeks per semester = $151.11 per hour taught

It should also be noted this is buying the teachers time in bulk if we are buying teaching time in smaller quantities the per hour taught cost will probably be higher.

#16

I believe you have to be logged in with a DMS membership to do that though, am I missing something?

The case I had in mind is a person who doesn’t know anyone at DMS and doesn’t feel like joining in order to teach a class.

Say someone is a glass maker and they’ve got a full studio, so they don’t really want to join DMS, and they just heard about us on facebook or something. If they just visit the site and click the teach button they might give up when there’s not an obvious way to get approved to teach a class.

#17

Yes, you log in with a DMS membership but that should not be a problem as a DMS member must sponsor the event and submit it.

#18

DCCCD, a local educational employer and thus applicable, publishes their salary schedules:
https://www.dcccd.edu/jobs/tc/compben/comp/salary/schedules/pages/salarypt.aspx
This is probably the closest to what we’re talking about:

2.Part-time/supplemental instruction, including Applied Music instructors		
$48.42 per contact hour (credit)
($775 per unit)
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#19

If it’s a 2 hour class and there are 6 participants that equals 50 bucks a head.

I don’t think that’s an unreasonable price to learn a technique if it’s something I care about.
I’d like to hear some other folks’ opinions on how much they’d be willing to pay for classes taught by a pro.

#20

I paid $100 to take @frank_lima class to build an opensource go cart and there were 5 or 6 others that paid the fee too. I wasn’t really interested in building the gocart but Frank was going to teach us how to use Inventor. I was happy with what I received for my money. It was a class that was scheduled for a couple of months. Frank was going to use the fee collected to build the go cart. Unfortunately the class was hijacked and Frank didn’t get to follow through.

Russell Ward

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#21

Ah, that’s the important info I was missing. I wasn’t really trying to pick a side or anything, inside or outside teacher if I’m interested I’m game. Bringing up the fact members may already be experts was more meant to say given the choice between two classes of the exact same type, one taught by a DMSer and one taught by an outside teacher I’d rather support the DMS one. In my mind that has more value to DMS, not that I don’t want to support the general “maker” community. Hearing about the go kart class though is pretty sad, I’d have a sour taste in my mouth about teaching if that happened. I guess this has turned into 99 cents worth from a newbie, not trying to hit a sore subject or stir the pot in any way, sorry.

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