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This dissertation is about teacher education and employment in Russia, with a particular focus on correspondence teacher education programs. Correspondence education is the focus of the study because it is typically excluded from research on teachers in Russia, and thus little empirical knowledge exists for the evaluation and comparison of correspondence program outcomes among teacher education graduates. The two major types of higher education programs in Russia are daytime (students acquire content by attending lectures) and correspondence (students acquire content through independent reading). The research questions in the dissertation are: (a) how does recruitment into teaching differ for daytime and correspondence educated teachers (including who applies to the two different types of study programs)?, and (b) how does the type of study program (daytime or correspondence) impact employment at school level? Primary data were gathered in Russia from school records (quantitative) and interviews (qualitative) with schoolteachers, directors, teacher education program students and faculty, and education policy makers. The qualitative analysis include the development of two typologies of students, the daytime and correspondence groups, with special attention to their decisions in choosing institutions of higher education, enrolling in programs of study, and career networking after graduation. The cycle of recruitment into teaching describes the real work and life circumstances for prospective and current teachers in Russia. The quantitative analysis includes ordinary least squares regression to test relationships between teacher variables, such as rate of pay and years of experience, across the daytime and correspondence program groups. The quantitative findings indicate some differences between daytime and correspondence educated teachers in employment at the school level, although the type of education program was not a very influential factor. The study contributes to research on teachers in Russia by substantiating and deepening knowledge about university enrollment, in particular into correspondence education, and about professional programs for current and future teachers in Russia.

Online learning is a rapidly growing phenomenon in post-secondary education. Institutions of higher learning have embraced online learning for its perceived merits, but without the consideration of how instructors deal with this different learning medium. Little is known of the extent to which different disciplines are suited to the online medium; this is pertinent to disciplines that rely on spontaneous in-person discussion. Furthermore, as colleges continue to invest heavily in online learning, instructors who only possess face-to-face teaching experience may begin teaching online. This poses a pedagogical challenge for instructors who are unfamiliar with the medium. This qualitative, in-depth interview study with ten social science instructors elucidates the process of transition from face-to-face teaching to online teaching. Through grounded analysis, a few key themes emerged. Respondents explain that teaching in the online classroom is qualitatively different from teaching in-person. The asynchronisity of the online classroom - which means students do not "meet", discuss, or learn at the same time - is a subtle yet significant difference between the two mediums. The asynchronous classroom means instructors relinquish control of when and where students will engage in study and discussion, and this requires students to have especially high self-regulatory skills. Respondents also explained that their online courses were several times larger than their in-person ones, with some courses allowing over twice as many students as an in-person course. Consequently, instructors must find new ways to approach teaching in the online medium. This pitfall of relying on old, obsolete methods in the online medium can be avoided if instructors are provided with the peer and pedagogical support of their professional peers, and access to teaching assistants to manage the greater time commitment of teaching online. In order to have a positive experience, online teachers must be willing to take on an intellectual challenge that may defy how they perceive themselves and their role in higher education. If instructors are open to a new intellectual challenge and possess the proper resources, they will become committed to teaching online and perceive the advantages of the medium to outweigh the disadvantages.