From Cloud to Classroom: Mathematics Teachers' Enactment of Resources Accessed Within Virtual Spaces

• In Event: The Redefinition of Teacher Professionalism, Knowledge, and Practice in the 21st Century

Abstract

The increasingly widespread use of social media to expand and deepen teachers’ access to instructional resources and social connections is a relatively new but potentially transformative phenomenon that has implications for classroom instruction. Yet, empirical evidence on the implementation of online resources accessed and saved is limited. Vision of high quality mathematics instruction (Munter, 2016) as conceptualized by the research community tend to focus on the cognitive dimension of teaching mathematics, which does not fully account for teachers’ professional life in the social continuum. In this study, we bring in the affective and social component in narrating the complex teaching activity in a social media era. Teachers’ professional engagement and knowledge acquisition within social media calls for hybrid perspectives to reconsider teachers as proactive professionals with social connections. Using a sample of over 100 early career teachers (ECTs) from several Midwestern states, this study presents a rich description of mathematics teachers’ professional life within the intersection of physical and virtual spaces. Specifically, through interviews with ECTs on their lesson planning, authors conduct domain analysis to explore teachers’ selection of resources accessed within the cloud, while qualitative analysis of videotaped lessons provides an evaluation of teachers’ mathematics instruction. Together, teachers’ reflections and professional practices provide a window into how social media permeates from cloud to class. Results suggest a majority of sampled ECTs seek out resources online and implement those resources in their classroom to engage student learning. During the lesson planning and enactment process, teachers, however, tend not to just consider the characteristics of high quality math instruction in isolation. The planning and enactment process is also a spontaneous social process when it comes to finding and enacting resources online, despite the given organizational structure.

Authors

• Sihua Hu, Northwestern University

• Kaitlin T Torphy, Michigan State University

• Kim Evert, University of Virginia

• Amanda Opperman, Michigan State University

• John L. Lane, Michigan State University