The emergence of digital communication channels has transformed faculty development, offering new opportunities for networking and collaboration. This paper explores successful practices for promoting connection and belonging among faculty members through platforms like Slack and Discord. Key strategies include creating dedicated channels for…

Purpose: This study aims to examine the role of key network actors in relation to the discourse structure of a microblogging hashtag stream within a global agricultural educators' conference over two years. Prior work in online networks suggests that participation is dominated by highly active members, and in this study, the authors focus on…

During the COVID-19 quarantine, we conducted a field-setting pre/post-test randomized experiment (n = 115), creating a community using the social media application Instagram to enhance students' interactions with their peers and immediate physical environments in a large, introductory online course in environmental psychology. We used the…

The social aspects of faculty instructional development programs are increasingly recognized because the programs' impact is greatly influenced by social interactions among faculty participants. These interactions allow faculty members to reflect on and improve their teaching practices. Although the literature has shown that effective…

Online collaborative and content-focused professional development (PD) is becoming an increasingly important setting for supporting mathematics teachers' professional learning. The purpose of this study was to better understand the process by which a community emerges in such a PD setting by examining how the cohesiveness of 21 mathematics…

This study explores Wikipedia as a site for learning. It traces how people learn to become Wikipedia editors through engagement in an editathon, a training event for people who want to become a volunteer editor. The study is original in its emphasis on the various types of knowledge editors acquire as they develop expertise. Determining the…

Mobile instant messengers such as WhatsApp have become an essential part of everyday life and can be a transformative tool for teacher professional development. Several studies have addressed the use of WhatsApp in a community of practices. However, there is a lack of study on examining teachers' interaction in WhatsApp community of practices,…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is two-fold--(1) to offer a conceptual understanding of knowledge brokering from a sociometric point-of-view; and (2) to provide an empirical example of this conceptualization in an education context. Design/methodology/approach: We use social network theory and analysis tools to explore knowledge exchange…

Sharing the same philosophy of "relations matter" with computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL), social network analysis (SNA) has become a common methodology in the CSCL research. In this research, I use SNA methods from "relational ties," "network modes," and "integrated methods" perspectives to…

Current research indicates that instructors find support for their teaching via membership in small social networks. The present study was conducted to further our understanding of these networks by looking specifically at the perceptions network members hold of each other in terms of similarity of beliefs and the value of their interactions.…

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has affected teaching and professional learning activities. Teachers may have to rely on online spaces, such as Twitter, to interact with their professional learning networks and get enough support. Objectives: This study aims to investigate the structure and the content of teachers' network interactions on…

Regional professional learning networks support school change by linking principals to others engaged in similar change work. While increasingly prevalent, little is known about the factors that contribute to the formation of ties between network members, or how knowledge moves across the network. Using social network analysis, this study examined…

This study investigated the impact of using a discussion strategy with learning analytics on the level of student cognitive presence and interaction. The study used a quasi-experimental design with control and experimental groups. The experimental group applied open-ended discussion and elaborated feedback with learning analytics while the control…

Although collaboration is considered a key 21st-century skill, oftentimes it is only assessed through the outcome measures of individual learners. In this paper, we draw upon collaborative cognitive load theory (CCLT) to explain the process of collaboration in learning from the point of view of the collective, rather than an individual learner.…

The school is an enriched learning environment, but it is not the only educational environment. The educational mission of the school should take into account the school-family coordination as a feature of its social project. A great part of this bridge between school and family is based on dialogue through the participation of the family in the…