Hiring Online Teachers for Supplemental Programs

1. Hiring Online Teachers for Supplemental Programs Karen Sanders, Ed.D. Leanna Archambault, Ph.D Arizona State University

2. Background • As an administrator in a rural public school district seeking to become an online education provider, it was critical to identify effective online teachers. • Most teachers have not received formal training/preparation for teaching online courses (Cavanaugh, Gillan, Kromrey, Hess, and Blomeyer, 2004). • Administrators and policymakers have little or no experience with online instruction or evaluating online teachers (National Education Association; Rice, 2006; Watson, 2007).

3. Purpose • The intent of the research was to equip administrators with a hiring rubric that could be utilized when attempting to identify effective online teachers. • Research Question: • How does the use of a hiring rubric predict the effectiveness of online teachers in a high school setting?

4. Methods • Developed a hiring rubric based on • Stronge and Hindman’s teacher interviewing instrument,The Teacher Quality Index: A Protocol for Teacher Selection, • iNACOL’s National Standards for Quality Online Teaching, • Specific performance indicators from a southwestern Arizona high school district’s certified evaluation instrument • The rubric was utilized during one-on-one interviews where participants responded to 13 prompts, categorized under five domains (global scoring), and consisted of 69 indicators (indicator scoring). • The domains and indicators were aligned with, and scored using an Assessment Instrument after each participant designed and taught an online lesson to high school students.

5. Findings • Generally speaking, the correlations resulted in only a few statistically significant results. For Implementing Instruction, global scoring of the interview and the assessment of the lesson were significant, rho = .77. • Additionally, for Teacher as a Person, indicator scoring of the interview and the assessment of the lesson were significant, rho = .97. • Although there were some correlations and validity coefficients that were significant; the vast majority of the validity coefficients failed to support the outcome that scores for the interview would be predictive of scores on the assessment of lesson.

6. Lessons Learned • Need for better instrument to be developed that is more powerful, adding to its reliability, and tailored to a diverse audience. • Instrument should address qualities and performance that are relative to specific areas of teaching. • During development stage of the revised instrument, the intended audience should be kept at forefront. • Defining whether experienced and/or inexperienced teachers are invited to apply for online teaching positions needs to be considered. • How one troubleshoots the unexpected is significant when completing procedures in a study. • Realization that data may very well contradict that which was anticipated.