Erin’s first teaching position was at Carver High School in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.  When I contacted Erin about visiting her classroom for the day, in February of 2008, she said that I should get an escort to her classroom, not because it was difficult to find, but because there were frequent fights in the hallways and she wanted to make sure that I safely arrived to her classroom.  She explained to me that Carver was on probation or a watch-list for poor academic performance.  My immediate concern was for her safety and I mentioned that to her when I arrived safely to her room, but she said that being at the far end of the high school and surrounded by male teachers, many of them coaches, lessened the likelihood of physical problems for her.

At the time Erin was eight months pregnant with her first child. Before the class started her students joked with Erin about her pregnancy in varying good-natured ways, showing that she had developed a good relationship with most of the students under her care.  It was obvious the students respected her and that respect was returned.

There was a moment of silence, followed by the Pledge to the Flag at the beginning of this hour.  There was no direction concerning the moment of silence, just quiet and the students were quiet.  I did not notice any students openly praying, but that there may have been some who did pray or meditate.

One of Erin’s first comments for that day concerned a website she discovered called www.meetup.com.  The author of the site did not like what he saw after 9/11 and wanted to establish a more personal/community relations. Due to her connection to this site, Erin found a local book club, made up of mainly older women.  Erin found her connection to this group very rewarding.

This particular semester Erin was teaching all 9th grade World History classes.  That course was not subject to the North Carolina End of Course Exams and thus having a substitute finish out Erin’s year would not adversely affect test scores, an important consideration with the school on probation.

Similar to many teachers in this study Erin had a “Lesson Essential Question” written on her board: “Create a Venn diagram comparing and contrasting homo erectus to homo habilis from Chapter 1.1 info.”  The agenda for the class lesson was also on the board:

1. Warm-up:  key scientific findings about origins of humans
2. Thieves: Chapter 1.1
3. 2nd and 3rd guided readings with workbooks. Workbooks go along with the textbooks.
4. Ice Man research with laptops from laptop lab. (Erin, f.n., 2008, p.1).

There were 22 students in her first hour class, almost gender-balanced.  Four students came in tardy, not an unusual experience in an “at-risk” school.  As the class began Erin immediately moved around the room, checking on student work.  Erin displayed the same good task and classroom management skills that she displayed during her teacher assisting semester when I observed her at Grandville Middle School.

Similar to many of the GVSU students who pursued employment outside of Michigan Erin had no plans to return to teach in her home state.  Her husband had a good job and her parents moved to North Carolina from Michigan and bought a house just up the street from her family.  I do mean “up” because Erin’s neighborhood in Winston-Salem was quite hilly.

The warm up for Erin’s class took about 5 minutes.  Her three classes were 90 minutes long and she met with all her classes every day.  The World History class was conducted in a semester, similar to a college course.  Erin used the students’ prior knowledge at the beginning of the discussion in reviewing the physical make-up of early man. In her discussion Erin displayed a solid background knowledge of the subject matter.

Next, she handed out a “Thieves” worksheet: “Title, Headings, Introduction, Every Sentence in a Paragraph, Visuals and Vocabulary, End of Chapter Question and Skill Builders.” This day was the first time the students were introduced to reading skill building that drove the creation of this worksheet. Erin did a good job modeling the work for this assignment and as they were completing their work, she provided good examples for the answers that students might use in relating the skills to their lives.  At this point Erin pointed out the visuals on the worksheets and made a point about students not paying attention to the visuals in their textbooks.  She wanted the students to know that those visuals complemented the text, as do visuals in printed and digital media.

As the students started their work Erin told me that she was not a fan of state tests.  She thought the test drove a forced pacing of the curriculum that did not allow teachers to go into any depth with the curriculum.  As we chatted the students followed through with their work on the worksheets.

I noticed that the textbooks used in the class were very heavy and thick.  If textbook companies provided a complete text for all of World History that would necessitate hundreds of pages, plus visuals, indexes, appendices and a glossary.  Add that to the other texts the students needed to lug around during the day and it was no wonder students’ backpacks feel like a load of bricks.

Erin told me about a lack of certified teachers at her school and a teacher retention problem at her school.   Carver had four alternative certification teachers on its staff in 2008 and these teachers had no education classes in their background.  Erin could not imagine how these people could be prepared to teach.  There was a similar situation in the schools near Houston, Texas in 2008.

At that time the Econ/Civics course that Erin had been assigned was a 10th grade class.  She said she wished the course was a 11th or 12th grade class so that the students were closer to voting age and closer to being out on their own in the world, that way the material might be more meaningful to their lives in the near future.  I related to that statement in that when I was teaching in Kansas, Government class was a senior level class but for state testing purposes it was moved to the 11th grade so that if a student failed the state test there would be more time for them to repeat the coursework before graduation.  Government was a required course for graduation when I taught it and the same onus applied to students, without a state test.  If they did not pass the course then they would not graduate and that meant they would either have to take the course in summer school if they failed in the second semester of their senior year or come back to school for the fall semester.

Glancing around the classroom revealed the work Erin put into creating a meaningful visual environment for learning.  There were posters displaying hieroglyphics, definitions of varying teaching and learning techniques and a Word Wall area which assisted the students’ learning of new and pertinent vocabulary.

Erin moved throughout the room, giving students one-on-one help with their learning.  She recognized that students were working at different paces, and she reinforced the thought that since the students working doing something new it was perfectly fine that they worked at their own pace. As the students reached the “End of Chapter Questions” Erin emphasized that the students were not supposed to answer the questions themselves, but they were to analyze why the authors thought those questions were important for understanding the material in the chapter, a great critical thinking skill.

Erin employed questions and statements referring to prior knowledge during this part of lesson as a method of reinforcing past lessons and information.  Uniformly the teachers in this study were intentional in their use of prior knowledge in order to deeply seat important information and skills.  In this case Erin pointed out information in the map keys and the symbols on the maps indicating the movement of early man around the globe.  She then asked good questions invoking students’ critical analysis skills so that they made interesting conjectures about the differences between homo erectus and homo habilis.  At the end of the activity, she asked the class what piqued their interest in the activity and complimented them on their questions and participation during the discussion.

The next activity was a web search for information on a man found frozen in the ice in Southern Europe.  The worksheet was entitled ICE MAN and Erin used the opportunity for developing the students’ researching and critical thinking skills.  There was some trouble involving the school’s web blocking software as the students employed various key terms in their web search, but for the most part, the students found many websites which were useful and interesting for their learning.  Erin did provide a few examples for search terms and the students used those models to expand their own ideas for searching.  All the students appeared to be engaged in their searching and as students remarked on what they found Erin wrote the URLs on the board so the entire class could build up a database.

While the students worked on their searches Erin commented to me that she did not think that the 90-minute blocks equated directly to the same amount of time that a 45 or 60 minute, full year class provided.  Her inclination was that time was lost that might be better used in developing the students’ knowledge and skill base with the previous class time schedule.

The last 10 minutes of class was time for the Learned Essential Questions.  During this segment the students applied the information from the activities to the learning objectives for the day.  All the students were engaged during this time, matching what they learned to the objectives.  Erin’s lesson planning and time and task management skills perfectly suited the 90-minute block.  There was consistent student engagement and no behavior problems.  Remember this school was under probation because the state viewed the school as underperforming.

Erin’s Second and Third Block classes for this semester were Honors World History Classes.  There were 14 students in her Second Block Class but 6 were being taken out on this day so Erin said she would modify her lesson and have the rest of the class do research on the Ice Man.  The six students who left were headed to a “We Mentor” session. Erin described her Second Block class as her “gems”.   The class started similar to the First Block class with a Warm Up, but the segment of the class took half the time that the previous class did.  The students were engaged and used more descriptors when answering Erin’s prompts concerning questions involving the development of the human race.  Even though this was an Honors Class Erin used the same modeling examples in this block since this was the first time that these students had engaged in an activity like this one.

Erin explained to me that she would not use the “THIEVES” activity with this class since it would be too basic for them.  She was not sure how these students were placed in an Honors class, but she did mention she heard something about a test given in the 7th grade which determined students’ placements.

Students began filling out their workbooks after the various sections of the chapter were read aloud and Erin supplemented the workbook questions with extension questions in order to further the students’ knowledge.  She referred to the vocabulary words involved with this chapter and used prior knowledge from a crossword activity from the previous day.

At this point in the lesson the six “We Mentor” students left and Erin reminded them to take their workbooks and that they had to finish the assignment for the day for homework.

Erin next started a discussion concerning “Lucy”, the partial remains of what many anthropologists believe to be one of the earliest human ancestors.  Erin said the name was derived from a Beatles’ song, “Lucy in the sky with diamonds”, but the Beatles reference was entirely lost on her class.  Erin said she would bring in a CD so the students could hear the song.  Next came a discussion on the importance of an opposable thumb in the development of humans.  Erin pointed out a timeline in the textbook that helped at least one of her students realize the time scale in the development of modern humans.  Erin also pointed out the differences between Paleo and Neolithic humans. She brought in the development of domestication of animals and also had the students compare the size of brain cases from the various illustrations provided in the textbooks.

In recognition of the various reading abilities of her students Erin said in future classes the students would be able to read at their own pace through guided readings versus a whole class reading.  Erin was very cognizant of the fact that reading levels of her students varied greatly.  Throughout this activity Erin helped students deconstruct the meanings of words within the article. She also reinforced the idea that even with what was known about the early development of humans there was still speculation which required further research.  With that comment Erin implied that students should always want to know more and be willing to learn more about any topic.

Erin shared the district’s testing policy.  There were district-wide quarter tests for subjects with end of year tests and strict pacing guides. This assessment and teaching approach created stress for teachers with end of year tests versus teachers who have classes that do not feature end of year testing.  Erin taught both types of classes; a Civics/Econ course with end of year testing and World History without end of year testing.  She thought the teaching load should be divided equally between end of year testing classes and non-end of year classes for each teacher in order to even out the stress level.

Erin related to me that the pacing guides were ridiculous, even for World History. The World History pacing guide for 10th grade started with the beginning of Man through Modern Day in a Block-scheduled single semester. Even with a 90-minute block every day it seemed like a huge amount of information and concepts to teach and learn.  A South Carolina teacher in this study had Global Studies divided into two full years.  During my 46-year career I taught in varying time schedules and it would be impossible to impart the same information and concepts in a semester block in contrast to two full regular semesters.  Several questions arise:  What would have to be removed in a single semester with a scope that dealt with the entire history of the World as a timeline?  What information and concepts would a teacher choose to teach and reinforce in a single semester? Another teacher in this study contacted me when a new curriculum director in his district said that the new social studies standards dictated that the entire history of the Roman Republic and Roman Empire should be taught in three days!  He asked me what I would leave out if I were confronted that that directive and I was at a loss in telling him what to do.  As it was, Erin described her teaching as “surface teaching” without an ability to go into any depth on any topic of study.

Erin’s Third Block class was a little larger, 19 students, 17 women and 2 men.  This class met after the lunch period and Erin remarked that this class period was always a “little wound-up”.  As in her other two classes, Erin used questions to lead her discussion on the material:  “What else? How? What? Where? Why?”  At this point in the day Erin explained to me that she adjusted the order of the workbook in a way that made sense to her teaching style and methods. Apparently, the pacing guide allowed for a certain degree of teaching autonomy.

When Third Block arrived at the “opposable thumb” section of the lesson, Erin brought in a student’s information from a biology class, thus integrating teaching and learning.  In my experience when students saw the connection between various disciplines, the content and concepts made more sense and stayed in the students’ long-term memory since the information was tied together in multiple cognitive ways.  I found this integration fairly easy with U.S. History and English Language Arts, especially in Colonial and Early U.S. History and Literature, but also with Math when teaching about geometry in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia and elementary physics when teaching about Ancient Greece and Rome.  Art appreciation was another area where I witnessed teachers, both in and outside of this study, making thoughtful and useful connections for student learning.

Despite the pacing guide and the scope of material for a semester class Erin injected as much upper level critical thinking, analysis and evaluation as time allowed.  She used her time effectively, ran a well-disciplined and rigorous class and the students seemed engaged in the lesson in all of her classes that day.

Interview, 2008

Defining Success, 2008

While Erin admitted that all of her Education classes helped prepare her for her career, she said she was not sure if any education really prepares a person for teaching.  “Once you are in the classroom, you can go back to books, reference, be prepared…but you really have to get in there and figure out your own methods, your own strategies, and nothing can completely prepare you for it.  Every class you saw today is completely different. Every student is different…. I felt prepared to the point where I couldn’t be prepared any more.  …I came into the classroom and I just had to apply perhaps what I learned, but I never thought it would be how it actually was” (DeRoo, v.t., 2008, p.1).  Erin said student teaching helped but nothing replicated the experience of having your own classroom.  She said that she felt much better prepared than some of the teachers from North Carolina colleges and universities who started teaching with only a semester of student teaching instead of a full year.  Erin also thought that these same teachers did not have the “toolbox” of classroom management strategies that GVSU provided for her.  She admitted that the first year of teaching was so intense that she was unable to draw from the theories she learned in college and how to apply them.  Later in her second and third year she was able to “breathe” and draw from the theories now that she had established some perspective.

Mentoring, 2008

Erin had a mentor assigned to her but this person was not a Social Studies teacher so there was no curriculum help.  This person did help Erin learn about teaching in North Carolina and Winston-Salem, in particular.  Unfortunately, she received little help from the Social Studies Department.  No materials, no sharing of teaching ideas or examples.  Erin said in the long run, being entirely on her own helped her.  In her third year her colleagues started to come to her for help.  They knew Erin did the research, had fleshed out her materials and experimented with many strategies and methods.  Despite her early struggles she thought all her hard work made her a better teacher and that positive attitude and success must have been apparent to her fellow teachers.

All the students in my college classes had to prepare a unit plan which tied into the classes they were teaching during the teacher-assisting semester.  The hope was the students might apply the content and planning to their future classrooms.  Erin was also a student in my Social Studies Methods class and one of the assignments was preparing an annotated bibliography of resources across the Social Studies discipline.  Erin was assigned a Middle School geography class during teacher assisting so she did not see a close correlation between the content she was teaching in 2008.  She did, however, mention that she referred to the annotated bibliography.

Content, 2008

Erin saw very little connection between the content she learned from her classes in the History Department and what she was teaching in North Carolina in 2008.  She readily admitted that she was focused on procuring her degree and not necessarily engaged with the content and its possible connection to her first job.  As it was, what she learned at GVSU through her content coursework had very little connection to the North Carolina curriculum when it came to World History, Civics and Economics.  At the time Erin attended GVSU the requirements were that, at a basic level, she just take two World History survey courses, two Economics classes, Macro and Micro, and two Political Science courses.  After interviewing all the teachers in this study, I found that the content within these courses, while they might follow a “syllabus of record”, did not necessarily correlate with the Michigan Social Studies teaching standards, and might not correlate at all with the standards of other states.  There was also variability in how different professors interpreted the general syllabus.

Erin was in the same situation which many rookie teachers find themselves.  She was learning the material, and trying to figure out how to relay that information to her students, on the run.  She did admit, as did many of the teachers, that she might have learned the content at one point but forgotten that she learned it, what class that might have provided the information and what professor might have taught the class.  At the same time, she said that the process of planning and learning or re-learning the content made her a better teacher.  By her third year in the class she felt she had a good grasp of the material and how she conveyed that content to her students. One of Erin’s fears was that she might not have the same teaching assignment in the future and repeating the process of learning the material and how best to teach it was daunting.

There were a few instances within this group of teachers where assignments were changed within the first few years of teaching and it was understandable that the teachers with changed assignments were under more stress than those who had similar content assignments for the first few years.

Erin’s next comment was repeated many times throughout my interviews and visits in 2008 and 2015; no amount of college preparation and student teaching really prepares you for your own classroom.  Erin was concerned, early on, about appearing “weak” to her students because she knew that she did not know the answer to every question they might ask about the content.  She was honest with herself and her students in those occasions and said she would “look it up” and get back to them. She thought that admission and the fact that she was still learning made her appear more “human” to her students and that was a good thing.  She wanted them to develop their own habits of researching information that they might not know.

Methods and Strategies, 2008

Contrasted with her content background provided by GVSU, Erin thought that her Education classes were directly applicable to her classroom.  She mentioned that she referred to her Education materials and that part of her training provided a good foundation for continuing research on ways to teach her students.  Fundamentally Erin had a skill that suited her very well in her first few years in teaching and probably still works to her advantage; she is willing to admit to herself when she did not know something and then did the work to fill that gap in knowledge.  I did have a few students during my time at GVSU who insisted they knew all they had to know to be successful in the classroom, even before they took some of my classes.  I was concerned the most about these students’ future success.  Throughout my career I knew that I needed to continually learn more in order to best fulfill my mission as a teacher in public schools.

Erin related that there was a History teacher in her school that teaches “off the top of his head”.  Apparently, he lectures most of the time and does not understand why Erin used multiple teaching methods and strategies.  She felt somewhat inferior in comparing her content base to his, but she knew she was finding multiple means of conveying the information and skills to her students that he might not be accomplishing by his “sage on the stage” persona.  At this point she referred back to the rigid lesson pacing in those courses with end of year testing and the restrictions that pacing guide placed on her ability in using various teaching methods in order for the students to learn and apply the information and skills she taught.  Within the strictures of the pacing guide she did not have the flexibility to use various methods if students did not grasp what she was teaching in one particular fashion. There was not enough time to use multiple methods.

I asked Erin if there were instances where she did not feel like she had the “toolkit” of methods necessary to reach all of her students.  The previous semester she had an Honors class that really challenged her and part of that challenge involved the class that preceded the Honors class every day.  The preceding class Erin described as “low level”.  I did not ask her if that meant they had learning disabilities or they found school challenging in other ways.  What she did admit was that she knew she could not use the same methods with her Honors class that she used with the preceding class.  The Honors students had many of the learning skills necessary for success before they walked into her classroom.  She found out that she needed to meet them where they were, like she did with her challenged students, but at a different level.  Once she came to that realization the Honors class became easier for her.  Erin did not fall back on one method that has been unfortunately used with many “honors” level students; just give them more information.  What Erin did was to challenge their critical thinking and analysis skills.  Yes, there might have more information, but that might have been due to the fact that these students were using newly developed skills in viewing and applying the information they were learning.

Erin admitted that she did not recall much of the information which she learned from straight lecture approaches by her professors at GVSU.  What did stick in her memory were the research papers and the projects she prepared.  She also remembered the “hands on” assignments where she actually applied the information in whatever format was required.  “Taking notes in class, listening to lectures and study that and taking tests…I can do that, but do I know any of that now…I couldn’t really remember much of it” (DeRoo, v.t., 2008, p.8).  Erin did use lecture, but always coupled with some type of project where the information or skills gained from the lecture resulted in some type of application by her students.  She also had most of her classes write, both research and reaction essays, with the exception of her Civics class.  Since the Civics class had a standardized end of term test based on multiple choice questions and a fast-paced curriculum there was not enough time for writing of any type.

Pearls of Wisdom, 2008

Erin’s first pearl was for college students to get the most of their time in college as possible.  Learn as much as they can.  She felt like she did not take full advantage of that opportunity and wished that she had.  Second, new teachers need to develop their own teaching style and part of that style has to do with how your students best learn.  While she admitted that in her third year she was not making as many changes to her lessons, she was constantly reviewing and updating what she did in her classroom.  Add to that change is the impact of technology and how that would impact student learning and teaching methods.  This comment was made before Erin became an online instructor for the North Carolina Virtual High School Network and would never meet her students face-to-face but potentially have even more contact with them online than she did in a traditional classroom setting.

2015

Erin made the decision after she started a family that her children came first and teaching at a “brick and mortar” school building would not work for her any longer.  We met this time in her house in suburban Winston-Salem.  No worries about walking into a student fight in the hallways.  Of all the 28 students in this study I had the most contact between 2008 and 2015 with Erin, in part because two of her children were the same age as two of my grandchildren and, more importantly for my college students, Erin was the only one of the 28 teachers who was teaching entirely online.  I regularly “streamed” Erin into my Social Studies Capstone seminar so my students could query her about her job and its responsibilities.  She always had thoughtful replies to my students’ questions and I know that several of my students became interested in pursuing a career similar to Erin’s due to her forthright answers.

Defining Success, 2015

The first question provided some problem in that during Erin’s time at GVSU there was very little formal preparation offered within the university’s coursework for online teaching.  Her initial answer had nothing to do with technology or a virtual learning experience. “So, defining success as a teacher is boils down to your actions with students and student success so being a successful teacher is making sure your students are getting what they need out of class and being successful in that. And that’s maybe even taking a step further and being, utilizing what they learn in the classroom, outside of the classroom and keeping in touch with my students” (DeRoo, v.t., 2015, p.1).  Erin defined “success” in these words: for a student to say, “I just saw this and I connect today with what we learned in the classroom, and that, to me, is success” (DeRoo, v.t., 2015, p.1).

Erin reinforced her answer to this question from her 2008 response by saying that college does not really prepare anyone for having their own classroom.  “There are so many different situations. We wouldn’t have been able to go through every scenario and you really don’t know because even if you had that scenario, it’s a different student, a different home life, a different everything that you just have to figure it out as you go, and the same with the online world” (DeRoo, v.t., 2015, p.1-2).

Mentoring, 2015

Erin said that there was no real mentoring program when she started to teach online.  There were other online teachers who were willing to offer ideas and advice so that was a better situation than her actual classroom experience. Erin said she was imbued with that helpful attitude during her time at GVSU and she continued to help others new to the online teaching world.  Being a parent had also changed her view of the world, and, in particular, whether or not she would want her children in a first-year teacher’s classroom.  Erin’s take was that the teachers in her children’s elementary school were much more cooperative with each other than possibly a middle or high school environment.  She focused in on classroom management as a critical component for a first-year teacher’s success and said that even with tips, pointers and the two semesters of classroom student-assisting and student teaching, she really did not know how to react until she had her own classroom.

At the time of this interview in 2015 Erin was teaching one section of Advanced Placement World History, one Medieval Studies course and she was instructional leader for 9 teachers.  At this point she did feel that her college experience was sufficient in terms of the background content to teach her class load, but she also said that she constantly read and researched.  She did go through the process with the College Board in becoming an A.P. certified teacher three years before she actually taught an A.P. class so she needed some refreshing and she admitted she asked her colleagues more than a few questions, which they were more than willing to answer.  She immediately pointed out a difference in the timing of help provided by online teachers versus a traditional teacher.  A traditional teaching day, coupled with all its duties, both in and outside of the classroom, does not leave teachers much time to collaborate.  In the online world Erin said that many of her colleagues were online or able to be contacted throughout the day so if she had a quick question or needed advice on how to grade an essay, she could “message” someone immediately and expect an answer fairly quickly. This quick help was especially important since technological change happens fast.  In just a few short years the state virtual school went from using Blackboard™ to Moodle™ to Canvas™.  Erin’s reinforced her 2008 comments by saying that teaching, especially with technology, is constantly changing so teachers have to be constantly learning.

Challenges, 2015

Erin quickly responded to this question by reaffirming what many teachers claim in terms of their teaching challenges; the first few years were the most challenging.  Erin’s position at Carver High School increased the challenge.  The state of North Carolina was constantly checking to make sure the teachers were instituting the changes and requirements due to Carver’s “At Risk” status.  All new teachers feel that they are barely “keeping the heads above water”. Added to that stressor was the fact that Erin felt she did not have a good mentor.  She was surrounded by Social Studies football coaches who had classroom management down but were of little help when it came to the content and how to teach it.

Erin’s online teaching position had its own set of challenges. Erin cited “time” and how to prioritize it as her biggest concern.  She decided to teach online so she could be at home with her children, but that situation blurred the lines between home and work.  Defining the time committed to husband and children and to her students and content created stress for her (DeRoo, v.t., p.6, 2015).  I asked her if it was hard for her to disconnect from the online world and she answered in the positive.

Because the students have my phone number.  They text constantly throughout the day, and that’s ok, too, and I don’t mind.  It’s nice to just knock out a quick answer, but it’s Saturday, Sunday, 11 o’clock at night, all day long, so sometimes I can’t respond to them right away if I am in the middle of something and then they get a little frustrated so it’s disconnecting that way and just not being available all the time… .  And I don’t mind that as much as just figuring out the time.  So now that my daughter is in pre-school I have a little bit of time during the day, which is nice, “but I still do a majority (of my work) when the kids go to bed at night and I’m usually pretty tired by then…. My husband wants to spend time with me and I have to work so I’m usually up until about midnight, 1 o’clock every night.  I went to bed about 12:45 last night (DeRoo, v.t., p.6, 2015).

Her day starts at 6:30 the same morning because her family’s day operates on a different schedule. Erin’s three children are now in school and, hopefully, time has opened up for her during the day.  She does reserve one day on the weekend where her understanding husband takes charge of the children which allows Erin the freedom to catch up on her work; things like grading and documenting all her contacts (each email, phone call and text) with her students (required by the Virtual High School Network).

At this point in 2015 Erin had 57 students, 30 in her Medieval class and 27 in her Advanced Placement class. Overall, there were 23,000 students in the NCVPS.  She was asked to take on a third class, but she resisted. She did not feel like she had the time in her day to take on another section of students.  “I wouldn’t be able to give the students what they deserve, the time they need” (DeRoo, v.t., p.7, 2015).  Erin said that there were full time classroom teachers who also taught online and she had no idea how they had the time to do both in person and online teaching.

Dealing With Stress, 2015

Erin reinforced the idea that her biggest stressor was prioritizing time in her life; how to balance career, family and marriage.  As of 2015 Erin started yoga as an exercise routine.  Making the time for that exercise was a challenge but she made it a priority.  Erin also volunteered at her children’s elementary school and I saw that as stress relief as well.  It was an activity that was a shift from her daily routine and Erin did not see volunteering as work.  Ultimately her family was and continued to be Erin’s most important way of relieving stress.  The photos she posts on Facebook dealing with the activities with her children and the events and vacations with her husband and children, along with the comments she posts about those opportunities for sharing their lives must be Erin’s way of maintaining a positive attitude about life and her career.

Motivation, 2015

Erin started her answer to this question by sharing stories of teachers she oversees for the NCVPS.  One teacher was in a health crisis.  Teacher pay is low in North Carolina and teachers pick up online classes as a way of supplementing their income.  Erin was concerned that this particular teacher might not have the energy to take on an extra class, while realizing that the cost of health care meant finding as much extra income as possible.  How to best serve the students without denying the teacher an opportunity to meet that person’s expenses?  Erin had to weigh the amount of time, as a stay-at-home mom, albeit one with three children, she could spend planning lessons, grading homework, and, especially in the virtual world, answering email and texts versus the amount of time that full-time classroom teachers had for doing that extra work.  In my own case, I likened it to the fact that for most of my teaching career I coached two sports per year.  I knew that the hours spent on the practice field, riding buses, dealing with practice planning, and games drew away from my total concentration on teaching my content.  I saw the bridge between athletics and teaching content in the fact that I developed out of classroom relationships with my student-athletes, which in more than a few cases, allowed for more success for them in the classroom and a better understanding by me of the students’ lives and concerns outside of my classroom’s walls.  What caught me by surprise was what happened after I finished coaching two sports and then quit coaching altogether.  Yes, some of that time was taken up with doctoral work, but I now had more ‘free time’ during the school year than I ever had in my previous years of teaching.  I envisioned going home much earlier than what athletic practice time allowed me to do. It just was not the case.  I found myself staying after school for at least an hour or an hour and a half after the contract stated.  I re-worked lessons, researched new teaching strategies, and read more content than coaching had allowed me to do in the past.  Was I a better teacher?  I am not sure and I know that my teaching evaluations did not reflect a sudden uptick in student achievement or noteworthy praise from administration.  I was the same person trying to do the same things that were the best for student learning.

However, teaching both in person and online has its own set of circumstances.  Relationship building with a whole different set of students, while it might help develop a teacher’s overall skill in developing connections, does not necessarily deepen the connections with the students they have in the real classroom every day.  To put it succinctly, Erin thought these full-time teachers with an online extra teaching load might be spreading themselves too thin.

So how much time and effort does it take to be a successful teacher?  I can safely say that a good teacher puts in more than forty hours a week.  Without coaching I averaged 50 to 60 hours a week and when there were major projects or research papers it was more than that.  Although appropriating enough time and setting priorities for that time was a stressor for Erin and all other teachers, I think how that time is spent and how it is prioritized is a bigger issue.  A question I posed to my GVSU students every semester was, “How do you plan to find balance in your life?”  I am convinced that one of the factors in early teacher ‘burnout’ is an overcommitment to their teaching duties and responsibilities.  I did not have a fool-proof method for finding that balance because my experience in teaching showed me that different people have different abilities in coping with work and the stress that that work creates.  I have never believed that a time clock had anything to do with the make-up of a successful teacher.  Yes, I became suspicious of teachers who could beat the buses out of the parking lot and never took home any work to grade, but I never felt comfortable dictating the exact amount of time it took to do the job well.

Erin summed up her decision to teach online at home this way when I asked her if the amount of time and effort she put into teaching equaled the pay she received.

Well, yeah, and that’s a teacher in the classroom as well.  I mean every teacher works overtime and doesn’t get paid for it, but to me, I get to be home with my babies and that’s priceless, so that outweighs the amount of work I’m putting into it. It outweighs…I don’t have to pay for work clothes.  I don’t have to pay for gas to get to work. I don’t have to pack my own lunch. I don’t have to pay for daycare.  So, to me, I just factor that into what time I put into it and it all balances out but the most priceless thing is me being able to be home with my children.  And I love it. I love being able to still have my identity as a teacher and have that separation of “mommy” to my own identity of what I can do.  (26:17) And my kids, “But you don’t go to the classroom?  But I am still a teacher.  I teach on the computer.”  I have meetings.  I have more meetings now that I am an instructional leader. We have them weekly and we also have monthly department meetings so logging in and doing that, but I like it. I like being able to connect with other teachers and talk to other teachers and brainstorm and so that gives me enjoyment (DeRoo, v.t., p.9, 2015).

Next, I asked Erin whether her motivation to do her best for her students centered on her love of her content area or the desire to establish strong relationships with her students.  Erin did not separate those two areas.  She wanted to go above and beyond the requirements of her online standards, but she also connected that drive for connections to her students with her enjoyment of the content.

Strategies and Methods, 2015

I laughed when I asked this question because of all the former students in this study Erin’s teaching methods have changed the most of any of them.  She quickly admitted that classroom management, a big concern for most teachers, has vanished in the online world.  No seating charts, no worries about who sits next to who.  She still promotes and requires group work and they are penalized by grade if they do not participate.  Erin said her teaching strategies have completely changed.  “Connecting to students is completely new.  Making relationships.  Building them. Building the trust system.  Making them motivated to do the work.  I can’t look over their shoulder and tap them on the shoulder and say, ‘get to work’ ” (DeRoo, v.t., p.10, 2015).  Erin admitted that there is not a lot of collaboration with her online classes.  She does have her students comment within Forums and there have been some cases of destructive criticism, but for the most part, she thought her students were more constructive and polite online than her students in her regular classroom.  Erin does communicate with a lab person if the students are attending her class from a computer lab in a classroom some place in North Carolina.  She does ask the lab aide to check on student progress, especially if it appears a student is not working up to expectations.

At this point I asked about the background of the lab aides, based on an article I wrote concerning E 20/20 labs in Grand Rapids Public Schools.  In that situation the lab aide was not a content person and if the student had a question involving the subject, in many cases the person present could offer very little help.  Erin pointed out that there may be 60 students at any given time in the lab and they may be taking all different courses.  Besides technical questions involving online access or computer problems, the lab person serves as an extra set of ‘eyes and ears’ for Erin.  She said that schools have ‘extended learning advisors’ who also supply help. Erin reached out to the students’ parents, including phone calls.  All these efforts at providing assistance and gaining student connection and motivation required documentation by Erin.  I got the sense that the paper trail for her was just as great or greater than the mounds of paperwork required by regular classroom teachers, above and beyond lesson planning and grading.  Beyond all the paperwork and electronic connections, Erin was upbeat about her job.  “It’s learning, it’s growing, it’s constantly changing and I think that’s a challenge but it’s also fun. It keeps it interesting…(DeRoo, v.t., p.11, 2015).

I asked Erin if she thought her teaching was more individualized than when she had her regular classroom at Carver.  She said that she had good relationships with many of her students, but some students, not unlike a regular classroom felt fine without further connection.  “I do my work. You don’t need to talk to me.  I’m just going to do what I need to do” (DeRoo, v.t., p. 12, 2015).  She said she did reach out with emails and texts as reminders for due dates and upcoming texts, something she did not do with her Carver students.

Erin explained an interesting situation with her online work with Medieval History that normally would not happen in a regular school setting.  When she started teaching online her class was open to 6th through 12th grade students.  The age difference did show up, I gathered through online collaboration, and the state decided to end middle school student involvement.  Erin said some of her best students were middle-schoolers because they were in the classroom because they really loved history.

Next, I asked about socio-economic differences in her students’ backgrounds.  When I was teaching high school Social Studies in Kansas, I was very aware that some students had great internet connections at home and the computers in order to utilize the Web. Their parents might also have the ability to supplement my teaching and, in some cases, unfortunately, supplement their child’s work, with their own knowledge and abilities. What about students who did not have that technical capability or parental knowledge at home?  Erin said that while the district in which she lived did not utilize online classes, the rest of the area districts did.  There were many rural districts that belonged to the NCVPS and in some cases it was due to budget cuts.  If the district could not afford a full-time teacher with an average size classroom of students, they could afford a lab aide with 60 students.

Beyond that Erin related that there were cases where seniors might need a course to fill out a schedule or re-take a previous class.  Within all those parameters Erin said there was a range in the socio-economic status of her students.  Some homes did not have an Internet connection, some could not even get connected because they lived so far out in the country.  Some homes cannot afford a computer and in one case a father admitted he could not get his child to the local library to use a computer because they did not have a car at that point.  He said his daughter was going to try to stay after school and somehow find a ride home.  On the other hand, some of her students’ homes had as many computers as there were people living under the roof so there was no reason their child could not finish their work.

Evaluations, 2015

Erin oversaw several teachers in her role as an instructional leader.  The NCVPS had a spot check system which happened about four times a year.  New teachers who received lower scores on the spot check had more evaluations.  There was a rubric that Erin followed as well as evaluating the teachers’ grading. Questions on the evaluations are similar to: “Is your grading done in a timely manner?  Are the students submitting their work?”  Teachers were expected to grade daily.  Erin could see everything the teachers were doing online, such as submitting grades, as well as having a password into all the classes. Teachers were expected to give feedback on every assignment, something Erin admitted she did not do in some cases in her regular classroom where a check mark signified work completed on minor assignments.  The expectation was that major assignments, such as essays, require major comment and especially focusing on how the students’ work might be improved.  There was also an evaluative focus on daily contact with the students, since the only contact is online, up to and including making celebratory comments and announcements outside of classroom work, i.e. birthday greetings, congratulations on an athletic event performance.  All of the comments and feedback requires daily logging by the online teachers.  “Are you making the contacts?  Are you informing the parents?  Are you keeping all the stakeholders informed with how the child is doing?  And that’s really where we get audited” (DeRoo, v.t., p.14, 2015).

Erin thought the amount of feedback she gave her teachers was much more than teachers receive in a regular classroom setting.  She offered positive feedback, constructive criticism and links to examples of best practices which was a benefit Erin gets from being able to peek in on other classrooms.  She credited her work as an instructional leader and evaluator for making her a better teacher because she saw all the classrooms online.  Before becoming an instructional leader, Erin was just trying to keep up with the “spot check” rubric so her outlook and operation really changed when she started evaluating other teachers.  Unfortunately, that was not the case in the experience of some of my former students.  Evaluators changed from year to year.  How rubrics were used and the focus that some evaluators had on some parts of the teachers’ job varied.  The amount of positive versus negative criticism varied.  There were some evaluators who teachers did not want coming into their classroom because of the negative experience.

Erin said the preceding summer the state made a change.  They focused on consistency in evaluation.  They wanted to establish interrater reliability.  I have no personal experience where a school district in which I taught or have observed has ever talked about or promoted the idea that there should be consistent approaches to teacher evaluation.  My hope is that there is at least some training in consistency and fairness.

Mentoring, 2015

Erin repeated what she shared with me when we met in 2008 concerning mentoring early in her career. “I felt like a fish out of water.  I was just thrown in and it was not…I had someone I could talk to but it was mainly just ‘cry on her shoulder at the end of the day’ type of situation.  She was there but she was not going to really help me with what I need.  She was just going to pat me on my back as I cry” (DeRoo, v.t., p.16, 2015).  That situation was compounded due to the fact that Erin was moving to a new state, a new city, a new school and a new environment.  Things were different when she became an online teacher.  She immediately knew she could contact people for support.  The amount of cooperation, sharing and support was the exact opposite of her previous experience.  How much of that change was due to the experience Erin had gained as a new unsupported teacher who now felt she had the background and knowledge to ask the questions I do not know.  I do know that Erin had a positive attitude and confidence which she displayed during her student assisting semester.  She had the courage to accept a new situation in a new state and used the challenges she faced as a way to improve in positive ways.  What about new teachers that do not have that positive frame of mind?  Are they the ones who get lost in the system, cut loose because they could not make it on their own?  Erin commented that in the summer session in North Carolina on evaluation the decision was made to help the current online teachers grow into their jobs with the implication that some of them were not performing to the best of their abilities.  How many times are new teachers truly given the support and feedback to make positive changes in their teaching and attitudes and how many are just left to fend for themselves and cut loose if they do not figure it out on their own?

Continuing Education, 2015

As cited in my own experience, in New York State in the early and mid 1970s there was an expectation that teachers would have, within the first few years of their teaching career, enough graduate credit to qualify for a Master’s degree.  There were inducements within teacher contracts to help make that happen, both in the salary schedule and through fringe benefits that assisted with the cost of tuition. There was also the stick that if you did not complete those credits hours a teacher would not be permanently certified.  Kansas in the late 1970s did have similar contractual agreements but the requirements to maintain certification were far less rigorous.  I know that both states wanted qualified and exemplary teachers in their classrooms, but there was also a definite difference in teacher evaluation with Kansas, or at least the Circle School District at that time being far less rigorous. How much does an advanced degree add to teaching success in the classroom?  Does a varied program of professional development through workshops or presentations equate with long term teaching success?

In Erin’s case she took advantage of constant professional development offered online.  Erin did certify for Advanced Placement courses and she used the resources provided by the A.P. website for continuing her knowledge and skills.  At this point in her career her focus was on her family and doing what was best for them, with the thought that an advanced degree and corresponding time and responsibilities that that work entails would conflict with time dedicated to her children and her husband.  Admittedly, I slowed down my pursuit of a degree when I moved to Kansas.  We were living in a new state with new requirements and we had two young children.  I was the sole breadwinner for a few years and the thought of graduate hour cost and time away from helping my wife with two young children, on top of coaching two sports, was just not reality.  I took advantage of inexpensive or “free” professional development through the National Science Foundation, school-sponsored in-service and grants to further my content and professional skills, options I would not have enjoyed in New York.  I have always believed that teachers need to be “life-long learners” but what does that learning need to look like?  After 46 years, three different states and three different levels of teaching I am still not sure.

Pearls of Wisdom, 2015

Erin’s first advice was not to be afraid to reach out for help if you need it.  Asking for help face to face was more difficult for Erin, and I think many new teachers, than a less personal online request. Even if a new teacher is afraid that their questions will go unanswered it is better to ask.  Even veteran teachers in my dissertation work, when faced with the challenges of using new technology in their classrooms, were fearful or at least uncertain about asking for help, especially when some of them knew that their students were more knowledgeable about the tech than they were.  All teachers, no matter how much time they have in the profession or the level in which they are teaching, need to feel secure in asking for help if they need it.

Erin realized that some established teachers are not open to sharing ideas and lesson plans which took them much time and effort in creating.  She understood their reticence, but that lack of sharing does not help anyone, the teachers who need the help, the teachers who have the expertise to share for success and, most importantly, the students who might have a teacher who would benefit from positive support.

Erin’s last comment may be a little dated at this point.  She encouraged current students to investigate online instruction.  In 2015 Erin estimated that there were already around 23,000 students taking online coursework in North Carolina alone.  Given the Erin’s needs and set of circumstances, her online career was a total fit for her and her family.

As of August 2020, due to the pandemic, North Carolina started the school year with online instruction. A news article stated that 70% of the state’s 1.5 million students were receiving instruction online.^[1] Given Erin’s comments from 2015 concerning online instruction I cannot imagine that any state’s teachers had a smooth transition to online teaching.