From the Classroom to Keyboard: How Seven Instructors Created Their Online Teacher Identities
Abstract: Teacher professional identity is defined as a sense of teacher self that results from a productive combination of key personal and professional subjectivities, identity positions, or beliefs (Alsup, 2006). Strong teacher identity results in effective and well-motivated conceptions of professional self, which take into consideration institutional demands as well as personal priorities. Much research has been done on the development of teacher identity in the K-12 arena (Alsup, 2006; Danielewicz, 2001), with some research on instructors at the college level (Baxter, 2012), yet little research to date has looked at how instructors at the college level who are teaching online develop their online instructor identity. The purpose of this interview-based, qualitative study is to understand, through the lens of the theoretical framework of Beijaard et al (2004), the experiences of first time online instructors and how they develop their online teacher identities.
Presider: Karen Swan, University of Illinois Springfield