A Different Experience in a Different Moment? Teachers’ Social Media Use Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Teachers participate in professional learning activities to enhance their pedagogical knowledge and share best practices—and the increasing role of technologies in education, including social media, is shifting how this professional learning occurs. The COVID-19 pandemic provided an opportunity to c...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inAERA open Vol. 7; no. 1
Main Authors Aguilar, Stephen J., Rosenberg, Joshua M., Greenhalgh, Spencer P., Fütterer, Tim, Lishinski, Alex, Fischer, Christian
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.12.2021
Sage Publications Ltd
SAGE Publishing
Subjects
Behavior Patterns
Communities of Practice
Coronaviruses
COVID-19
Decision Making
Distance Education
Elementary School Teachers
Learning Activities
Pandemics
Pedagogical Content Knowledge
Professional Development
Professional Training
Social Media
Social networks
Stress Variables
Teaching Methods
online spaces
professional learning networks
COVID-19
stress
social media
teacher learning
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Summary:Teachers participate in professional learning activities to enhance their pedagogical knowledge and share best practices—and the increasing role of technologies in education, including social media, is shifting how this professional learning occurs. The COVID-19 pandemic provided an opportunity to consider the role of social media for professional learning. Using intensive longitudinal methods, we repeatedly surveyed 14 teachers’ use of social media both before and during the pandemic (N = 386 total responses). We found patterns in social media platforms uptake and their purposes, but teachers’ use of social media was largely idiosyncratic. Also, teachers demonstrated notable shifts in social media use after the pandemic started; multilevel models indicated that teachers were more likely to use social media to connect and share, especially, as well as learn and follow, compared with before the pandemic. Higher levels of COVID-19-related family stress were also associated with more use of social media to find materials.
ISSN:2332-8584
2332-8584
DOI:10.1177/23328584211063898