Dr. Therese Letourneau

and

Dr. Joseph Maddox

“Online learning through virtual schools is one of the

most important advancements in attempting to rethink the

effectiveness of education in the United States”

(NACOL, 2006)

In 2007-2008 1,030,000 K-12 students were enrolled in online

learning

Picciano, A. G. & Seaman, J. (2009). K-12 Online Learning: A 2008 Follow-up of the Survey of U. S. School District Administrators. Needham, MA: The Sloan Consortium.

The study explored the perceptions of online high school teachers regarding

what factors motivate them to

teach online.

What are the motivating factors that drive a high school online teacher to work in the online teaching environment?

This study will increase the understanding of what motivates current online teaching staff.

Understanding this topic will help to recruit and retain online teachers to met growing demand by students to provide online courses.

“ Unless students (and teachers for that matter) are motivated, they will reject the rigor of any learning task and abandon it before achieving success.”

Christensen, C.M., Horn, M. B, and Johnson, C. W. (2008) Disrupting Class, How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns. New York: McGraw Hill. p.7

Qualitative

Phenomenological Phenomenology is the philosophical movement

dedicated to describing an experience as it presents itself to the person telling his or her story.

Sample Data Collection

online open-ended questionnaire

Data Analysis Procedures Ethical Considerations

Four Major Themes EmergedPersonal ImpactTeacher Student RelationshipsProfessional DevelopmentNew Challenge

•Family•Flexibility•Less Stress•Time

“My personal family situation as another factor that influenced my decision to teach online. My inability to be with my family in an emergency situation prompted me to start considering other educational opportunities.” -Teacher Two

“Lifestyle is definitely a key factor. I can work any time; I’m

not tied to a 7:00AM-3:00PM schedule in a building.” -Teacher Eight

•Individualized Learning•Recognition

“I feel I am truly able to a one on one educator to each and every one of my students. I feel that students are very seldom “left behind.” –Teacher One

• Collaboration• Positive Work Environment• Job Opportunities

“Professional Development is excellent, also enjoy collaborating with my peers.” –Teacher Six

•Making History•Technology

“I strongly believed that this learning platform was just beginning to take off and getting in on the ground floor would present future opportunities for promotion with an every growing organization.”-Teacher Two

“When students tell me they have learned, grown and achieved, due to the course my help that is the

absolute best.” –Teacher Nine

•Continue to allow flexibility concerning online teachers schedule.

•Continue to provide quality professional development to staff.

•Teachers should be supported to buildone-on-one relationships with their students and be provided enough time to establish those relationships.

•Compare online full time teachers vs. online part time teachers

•Conduct a quantitative or mixed method study

Questions&

Discussion drtletourneau@gmail.com jmaddox@mail.barry.edu

Thank you for attending this session