Date of Award

Spring 2021

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

Education Policy, Planning, and Administration

Committee Chairperson

Merry Staulters Ph.D.

Committee Member

Matthew Kruger Ross Ph.D.

Committee Member

Katelyn Hammond Ed.D.

Abstract

Those who teach online are often concerned with preservice or in‐service teacher development, specifically the lack of specialized opportunities focusing on online instructional practices. Online educators have acknowledged that this focus is limited and that the induction years of beginning teachers are an important component of teacher development. This mixed-method sequential explanatory study focused on the induction years of cyber charter teachers. It examined their perceptions of their induction program with the intention of adding to the literature in this under-examined area (Creswell, 2013). Twenty new online teachers shared the perceptions of the induction program through Likert scale items on a questionnaire. The researcher utilized a series of ANOVAs for each of the dependent variables of interest, which were scored on the survey's different subscales. The qualitative phase involved a semi-structured focus group interview and journal entries designed to understand teachers' perceptions of their induction program (Creswell, 2013). The results suggested that the induction program's practical focus effectively prepares and builds confidence in new cyber charter teachers. Additionally, respondents indicated that same subject peers and mentor support as well as access to sandbox courses or practice courses contributed to their effective asynchronous lesson development preparation and synchronous lesson delivery.

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