Chapter 4: “Sharing is Caring”: Extending the Professional Learning Community Using Social Media

Our 4-year research project focused on teachers’ professional development in self-organized Facebook groups. Specifically, we studied six large Facebook groups for teachers (> 2,000 members), created and maintained by the teachers, with themes connected to subject-specific education (i.e., mathematics or Swedish). To better understand what the online communities offer the teachers, we analyzed interactions in a stratified random sample of 553 threads and interviewed 26 participants. The results showed that the interactions are strongly focused on professional issues rather than social interaction. The major part of the interactions involved the sharing of teaching material and lesson tips through transactions that occur when the participants answer questions raised in the group or when key persons offer content. A small percentage of the threads (9%) showed explicit signs of individual learning or transformation taking place.