Top 12 Adjunct Instructor Skills to Put on Your Resume
Building a standout adjunct instructor resume rests on a sharp mix of skills: teaching craft, platform fluency, assessment savvy, and a knack for connecting with learners who bring wildly different backgrounds. Spotlight the abilities that prove you can design meaningful learning, pivot when needed, and strengthen the academic community you serve.
Adjunct Instructor Skills
- Curriculum Development
- Online Teaching
- Blackboard Learn
- Zoom Proficiency
- Student Engagement
- Assessment Creation
- Moodle Expertise
- Canvas Familiarity
- Lecture Preparation
- Google Classroom
- Research Skills
- Feedback Mechanisms
1. Curriculum Development
Curriculum development means designing, sequencing, and refreshing course content and learning activities so students reach clearly defined outcomes. It’s planning with purpose, then iterating as evidence rolls in.
Why It's Important
It ensures relevance, alignment, and coherence. Done well, it meets program standards, supports diverse learners, and anchors assessment to what actually matters. Students feel the clarity; outcomes show the impact.
How to Improve Curriculum Development Skills
Start with outcomes: Write measurable objectives first, then design assessments and learning activities that map directly to them.
Modularize: Break content into digestible, clearly labeled units with consistent patterns and pacing.
Active learning: Blend mini-lectures with discussion, problem-solving, and authentic tasks tied to real contexts.
Design for inclusion: Apply Universal Design for Learning principles—multiple ways to access, engage, and demonstrate learning.
Integrate technology on purpose: Use tools for collaboration, low-stakes practice, and feedback—only when they actually add value.
Iterate with evidence: Gather student input, review performance data, and tune materials each term.
How to Display Curriculum Development Skills on Your Resume
2. Online Teaching
Online teaching is the art and logistics of delivering courses in digital spaces: structuring modules, facilitating interaction, and assessing learning without a physical room.
Why It's Important
It widens access, supports flexible learning, and leverages multimedia and analytics to boost outcomes. Adjuncts who thrive online expand their opportunities and their reach.
How to Improve Online Teaching Skills
Build a clear course shell: Consistent navigation, weekly checklists, and predictable due dates.
Be present: Timely announcements, quick replies, and short video or audio check-ins humanize the course.
Mix media: Short videos, transcripts, visuals, and interactive elements to meet varied preferences.
Prioritize accessibility: Captions, alt text, readable contrast, flexible pacing where possible.
Encourage community: Set norms, use discussions with strong prompts, and recognize contributions.
Use data: Monitor activity and grades to spot stuck learners early and intervene.
How to Display Online Teaching Skills on Your Resume
3. Blackboard Learn
Blackboard Learn is a learning management system for building courses, managing content, collecting work, grading efficiently, and communicating with students.
Why It's Important
It centralizes teaching tasks. A well-structured Blackboard course saves time, reduces confusion, and keeps learners engaged and on track.
How to Improve Blackboard Learn Skills
Structure the menu: Use clear content areas, weekly folders, and consistent naming.
Announce early and often: Summarize the week, clarify due dates, celebrate wins.
Leverage the Grade Center: Set categories, weights, and rubrics; return feedback fast.
Design meaningful discussions: Provide starter prompts, models, and expectations for replies.
Use adaptive release: Gate content based on completion to guide progress.
Embed media smoothly: Short video intros or demos inside content areas are gold.
Monitor performance: Use dashboards and reports to catch disengagement early.
How to Display Blackboard Learn Skills on Your Resume
4. Zoom Proficiency
Zoom proficiency means running smooth, secure, and engaging live sessions: managing rooms, sharing content, prompting interaction, and troubleshooting on the fly.
Why It's Important
Live sessions can energize online and hybrid courses. Fluent use of Zoom tools boosts participation, clarity, and community.
How to Improve Zoom Proficiency Skills
Dial in your settings: Waiting room, passwords, mute on entry, and name conventions.
Engage deliberately: Breakout rooms, polls, reactions, and chat protocols with purpose.
Present cleanly: Screen share with window-only views, use whiteboards, keep slides lean.
Secure the room: Host controls, remove disruptions quickly, lock meetings when needed.
Record responsibly: Clarify privacy, share recordings promptly with captions.
Mind accessibility: Live captions, readable visuals, and pacing for note taking.
Have a backup plan: Alternate dial-in, co-host support, slide deck available if tech falters.
How to Display Zoom Proficiency Skills on Your Resume
5. Student Engagement
Student engagement captures attention, curiosity, and effort—students leaning into the learning process and sticking with it.
Why It's Important
Engaged students participate more, learn deeper, and perform better. Instructors feel it, too: livelier discussions, richer work, steadier progress.
How to Improve Student Engagement Skills
Active learning: Case work, debates, labs, peer instruction—short, frequent, purposeful.
Transparent tasks: Clear purpose, steps, and criteria reduce confusion and raise quality.
Make it real: Tie concepts to current issues, local examples, or workplace practice.
Frequent low-stakes checks: Quick polls, muddiest-point prompts, short quizzes.
Inclusive participation: Multiple avenues to contribute—voice, text, async.
Choice and autonomy: Let students pick topics, formats, or partners where feasible.
How to Display Student Engagement Skills on Your Resume
6. Assessment Creation
Assessment creation is the design of quizzes, projects, papers, presentations, and practical tasks that validly measure learning objectives.
Why It's Important
Good assessments drive learning, inform teaching decisions, and provide fair, transparent evaluation.
How to Improve Assessment Creation Skills
Backward design: Start with outcomes; write assessments that require evidence of those outcomes.
Vary the methods: Mix formats to capture different kinds of learning and reduce bias.
Use rubrics: Describe quality levels in plain language to guide work and speed grading.
Formative first: Frequent low-stakes checks before the big, summative moments.
Promote integrity: Authentic tasks, question banks, randomized items, and reflections.
Design for access: Time windows, readable prompts, alternative demonstrations when appropriate.
Close the loop: Give timely, actionable feedback and adjust teaching based on results.
How to Display Assessment Creation Skills on Your Resume
7. Moodle Expertise
Moodle expertise is proficiency with Moodle (particularly the Moodle 4.x interface): creating courses, configuring activities, grading, and tracking progress.
Why It's Important
It enables flexible, feature-rich courses with clear structure, robust assessment, and strong student support.
How to Improve Moodle Expertise Skills
Pick the right format: Topics vs. weekly formats; keep modules tidy and consistent.
Set up Gradebook early: Categories, weights, and visibility prevent headaches later.
Use activity completion: Completion rules nudge progress and clarify expectations.
Build a question bank: Randomized quizzes, reusable items, and tagged outcomes.
Add interactivity: Forums, assignments, workshops, and H5P activities.
Leverage groups: Groupings for sections, differentiated due dates, targeted forums.
Practice in a sandbox: Experiment safely and document settings that work.
How to Display Moodle Expertise Skills on Your Resume
8. Canvas Familiarity
Canvas familiarity means comfort with building in Modules, managing Assignments and Quizzes, communicating with students, and grading with SpeedGrader and rubrics.
Why It's Important
Canvas is ubiquitous in higher ed. Knowing it well trims administrative time and improves the student journey through a course.
How to Improve Canvas Familiarity Skills
Think in Modules: Use prerequisites and requirements to guide pacing.
Streamline grading: SpeedGrader, rubrics, comments, and late/missing policies.
Organize assignments: Weighted groups, clear naming, and consistent due dates.
Strengthen communication: Announcements, Inbox, and course calendar sync.
Use analytics: Identify at-risk students and intervene quickly.
Reuse smartly: Copy content, share to Commons when allowed, and maintain templates.
How to Display Canvas Familiarity Skills on Your Resume
9. Lecture Preparation
Lecture preparation is designing a focused learning experience: researching content, setting objectives, planning activities, and prepping materials that make the session land.
Why It's Important
It sharpens clarity, pacing, and relevance. Students track the story, practice the skills, and remember what matters.
How to Improve Lecture Preparation Skills
Know your learners: Prior knowledge, goals, and barriers inform the plan.
Write crisp objectives: Action verbs and realistic scope per session.
Design a narrative arc: Hook, build, apply, reflect—tight timing with buffers.
Blend talk with action: Every 8–10 minutes, invite students to do something.
Keep visuals clean: Minimal text, high contrast, readable figures, captions.
Prime and follow-up: Short pre-reads; exit tickets and recap posts after.
Rehearse: Time it, tune transitions, and prep a Plan B for tech hiccups.
How to Display Lecture Preparation Skills on Your Resume
10. Google Classroom
Google Classroom is a streamlined platform for managing assignments, materials, communication, and grading in one hub.
Why It's Important
It reduces administrative friction, keeps students organized, and makes feedback faster and more transparent.
How to Improve Google Classroom Skills
Organize with Topics: Group materials and assignments so navigation is effortless.
Use rubrics and the comment bank: Speed up grading while keeping feedback detailed.
Leverage integrated tools: Classroom + Drive + Docs/Slides/Sheets + Meet for a tight workflow.
Assign originals: Distribute individual copies and track version history for transparency.
Quizzes and forms: Auto-grade where appropriate; export results for quick analysis.
Originality reports: When enabled by your institution, check work for proper citation and integrity.
Reuse posts: Copy assignments across classes to maintain consistency.
How to Display Google Classroom Skills on Your Resume
11. Research Skills
Research skills include locating, evaluating, and synthesizing evidence; managing data and sources; and communicating findings clearly and ethically.
Why It's Important
They keep your teaching current, deepen students’ critical thinking, and bolster credibility in your discipline.
How to Improve Research Skills
Clarify the question: Define scope, keywords, and criteria before diving in.
Search strategically: Use subject databases, controlled vocabulary, and citation trails.
Evaluate relentlessly: Authority, methods, relevance, recency, and bias.
Manage sources: Keep organized notes and consistent citations with a reference manager.
Synthesize: Map themes, gaps, and methods; connect threads across studies.
Mind ethics: Respect IRB rules, data privacy, and proper attribution.
Write and revise: Draft quickly, edit ruthlessly, invite peer feedback.
How to Display Research Skills on Your Resume
12. Feedback Mechanisms
Feedback mechanisms are the structured ways you and your students exchange information about learning and teaching—surveys, rubrics, comments, check-ins, and peer review.
Why It's Important
It powers continuous improvement. You catch confusion early, adapt instruction, and build trust through responsiveness.
How to Improve Feedback Mechanisms Skills
Set expectations: Explain when and how feedback arrives—and how students should use it.
Mix the channels: In-assignment comments, quick polls, mid-course surveys, and office hours.
Make it actionable: Specific, prioritized, and linked to criteria or models.
Structure peer review: Clear rubrics, roles, and deadlines to ensure quality.
Short cycles: Frequent, light feedback beats the end-of-term deluge.
Close the loop: Share what you changed based on feedback; it boosts participation.
Track patterns: Note recurring issues and address them with targeted resources.
How to Display Feedback Mechanisms Skills on Your Resume
