Beginning Teachers Finding Support Through an Online Teacher Network: Affinity Lear-NING
Open Access
- Author:
- Olcese, Nicole Rose
- Graduate Program:
- Curriculum and Instruction
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- June 11, 2014
- Committee Members:
- Jamie Myers, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Jamie Myers, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Priya Sharma, Committee Member
Anne Whitney, Committee Member
James F Nolan Jr., Committee Member - Keywords:
- Affinity Spaces
Teacher Education
Online Social Networks - Abstract:
- Teacher attrition remains a concern in the field of education; while this is not a new problem, the reasons why teachers tend to leave the profession are concerning. Recently, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (2014) found that nearly one third of all teachers leave the profession within their first three years; many cited a lack of administrative and professional support as a major factor in their decision to seek alternative employment. “The problem takes many forms, including the feeling of being isolated from colleagues, scant feedback on performance, poor professional development, and insufficient emotional backing by administrators” (p.7). While there is no replacement for a solid teacher induction program, it is clear that teacher educators need to find alternative and expansive ways to provide intellectual and emotional support to new teachers as they enter the profession, helping them focus not only on their pedagogical and content knowledge skills, but also on nurturing their emerging and constantly evolving teacher identifications. One way that teachers are able to achieve this level of additional support on their own, bridging the gap from the University to their initial in service positions (supplementing what can sometimes be less than ideal professional development), is to turn to online teacher communities, or what I term online teacher affinity spaces. The purpose of this study was to investigate the types of support beginning teachers perceive they obtain from voluntary membership within a particular online teacher affinity space called The English Companion Ning (EC Ning). Using a qualitative ethnographic approach, I sought to identify the types of discursive practices that emerge as beginning teachers participate in the content-specific online space. It incorporates sociocultural and social learning theories (Gee, 2006; Lave and Wenger, 1991; Wenger 1998) to explore how beginning teachers, often considered legitimate peripheral participants, display patterns of membership and interaction, as well as how they position and identify themselves as beginning teachers within the discussions they engage in. The results of this study suggest the potential of online teacher affinity spaces to support beginning teachers, both professionally and emotionally. A salient finding is that beginning teachers tend to take up various degrees of participation in the EC Ning and this can be closely tied to the levels of support they experience at their schools of employment. In addition, the EC Ning displayed elements of affinity space that provided beginning teachers the opportunity to conduct important identity formation and experimentation. The utilization and implementation of these types of spaces as supplemental support, as early on as in teacher education programs, have the potential to provide beginning teachers with the reinforcements they need in order to survive and thrive during their first years of teaching.