Sharing through the tough times: teacher professional development in a social media community during COVID-19
This study explores social media as an avenue for English language teacher professional development (PD) during the COVID-19 pandemic. There is a growing body of research on social media’s potential benefits for teacher’s professional development. This indicates the advantages of social media for networking, reducing isolation and receiving just-in-time help for teaching issues. The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the demand for digital sources of professional development, including social media, to receive up-to-date information during a period of dynamic change for English language teachers. Recent research has shown that changes in teacher professional development during COVID-19 have allowed teachers to self-direct their learning in new ways. However, much of the research available is perception-based, rather than observational, and, as a result, there is still little understanding of how teachers learn and develop online. The consequence of this is that teachers are increasingly advised to connect with others on social media, but have little guidance and understanding of what they should do to maximise their learning online.
This knowledge gap is addressed by the research herein, which examines teachers’ dialogues and activity in a social media group through a multi-perspective lens. A large Facebook group for English language teachers in Australasia is used as a case study. Addressing methodological limitations of previous studies, the data set includes all posts, comments and reactions from the group combined with analytics from January 1 to June 10, 2021 to examine group activity. Learning and development are conceptualised using ideas from dialogic education, Cultural Historical Activity Theory and Transformative Activist Stance. These are operationalised into a methodological approach to explore the activity of the group from a discourse level but also from a wider macro perspective, to understand individual and collective learning and development. The data analysis was reflexive and iterative, based on findings at each stage in relation to the research questions.
There are several key findings from the research that contribute to our understanding of English language teacher PD on social media. These include the nature of learning and development in a teachers’ social media group, the connection between tensions and learning, and the role of the social media platform in structuring activity. In addition, situating the research within its socio-political context provides a unique picture of teacher professional development and support during a period of crisis, and their struggle to improve their working conditions, indicating the potentially transformative power of learning.
An important implication for both research and practice is the creation of the Enabling Moves model that proposes behaviours on social media that can facilitate learning and development. These entail supportive moves that create a safe, open environment along with dialogic moves, which seem to progress the discussion further and create opportunities for learning and development. This model can be used by teachers, administrators of social media groups, academic managers and peak bodies to help guide social media use for professional development. It allows teachers to reflect on context-specific applications of the model and consider how to maximise opportunities for professional development on social media.
