Becoming a Teacher Influencer: Factors Influencing Online Teacherpreneurs' Perceptions of Themselves as Leaders

• In Event: Educators Meet the Fifth Estate: Social Media in Education

Abstract

Introduction
Online teacherpreneurs are current and former P-12 teachers who sell their original classroom materials through online educational marketplaces such as TeachersPayTeachers.com (TpT). Two-thirds of U.S. teachers have downloaded a lesson from TpT (TpT, 2019). As teacherpreneurs’ materials become in demand among a market of their peers, teacherpreneurs are challenging schools’ reliance on corporate curriculum providers. They are also emerging as social media influencers.

Objectives and Perspectives
Teacherpreneurs are active participants on teacher social networks, particularly on Pinterest, a network where teachers curate classroom materials and ideas (Hu, Torphy, Opperman, Jansen, & Lo, 2018; Pittard, 2017; Schroeder, Curcio, Lundgren, 2019). Teacherpreneurs primarily use social media sites for business marketing, but social media is also a space where they engage with their teacher followers, providing informal virtual mentorship for teachers (Author(s), 2018, in press). Teacherpreneurs reported providing professional validation for teachers, talking through ideas, and encouraging teachers to try preferred classroom approaches. As distributed approaches to teacher leadership become more popular (Bennett, 2019), teacherpreneurship may be a new way for teachers to develop as professionals through virtual collaborations. While our past findings indicate that teacherpreneurs identify themselves as teacher leaders, the mechanism behind a teacherpreneur’s path to becoming a leader remains unknown.

Methods and Data Sources
This study sought to understand factors influencing teacherpreneurs’ perceptions of themselves as leaders. We used data collected through a previously validated international survey of online teacherpreneurs who sold content through TeachersPayTeachers.com (n = 329) (Author(s), 2018) (Tables 1-4 for participant demographics, survey items and constructs, descriptive statistics, and correlations). We conducted an ordinary least squares regression analysis to assess what effect, if any, the constructs of Collaboration, Entrepreneurship, and Teaching Impacts had on teachers’ perceived Leadership, while controlling for background factors, including whether a teacherpreneur held an official leadership position at school and monthly TpT earnings.

Results
The fifth and final model had the best fit (Table 5). We found significant positive effects for two demographic variables (years of TpT experience and highest degree), as well as for the Collaboration, Entrepreneurship, and Teaching Impacts subscales. This indicated that teacherpreneurs who engaged in more virtual collaborations, pursued more TpT entrepreneurial efforts, and gained more teaching impacts, had stronger perceptions of themselves as teacher leaders. Teacherpreneurs with more years of TpT selling experience and higher levels of education were more likely, on average, to perceive themselves as educational leaders in the virtual space.

Significance
Findings indicate that teacherpreneurs become influencers through a convalescence of collaborations, TpT entrepreneurship, and perceived developments in their own classroom teaching. There may be something special about the entrepreneurial aspect and virtual collaborations afforded by teacherpreneurship. Traditionally, teacher leaders’ influence has been limited within their own school walls, they may not receive additional compensation, and they may experience the challenge of not wanting to stand out among their peers (York-Barr & Duke, 2004). Alternatively, teacherpreneurship may pose a novel path to teacher leadership that is teacher-driven, involves an impact beyond school walls, includes a financial incentive, and enables teachers to lead at a distance from local interpersonal dynamics.

Author

• Catharyn Crane Shelton, Northern Arizona University