E-teaching in E-workplaces: the affective nexus

This article outlines a small-scale phenomenological study of e-teachers’ experience of feelings about and while discharging professional responsibilities in online workplaces, i.e. wherever a teacher is located while teaching the online components of either blended and wholly online teaching. In this paper the term blended refers to courses characterized by online teaching and learning as well as by face-to-face methods. Findings indicate that e-teachers’ consciousness
of positive feelings is associated with enhanced self-perception of well-being and increased engagement in eteaching, but that e-teachers are also conscious of feelings of disempowerment, isolation, vulnerability and frustration about and while working in e-workplaces. Findings also suggest that negative feelings impact detrimentally their sense of self as e-teachers, their participation in e-courses, their choice of e-teaching strategies, their interactions with e-learners and their self-efficacy as e-teachers. This in turn suggests an affective nexus in being e-teachers and interacting as e-teachers. The significance of this affective nexus for e-teachers’ learning and continuing professional development is identified, and implications for those charged with overall responsibility for management of workplace conditions, workplace culture and employee well-being, as well as employee learning and professional development, are presented.