The Intersection of Physical and Virtual Social Networks Within and Outside the Schoolhouse

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

Abstract

In a digital age, social media allows one to observe interactions and examine knowledge diffusion within virtual spaces. Teacherpreneurs take initiative to find, share, and sell materials or ideas related to their teaching practice, pursuing supplemental materials and practices outside those provided within their local districts or social networks. Teacherpreneurial behaviors often occur as individuals form social networks, through physical and virtual interactions, and develop trust with one another. Using a prevailing social media platform, Pinterest, as a way to manage their enterprise, teachers may facilitate the acquisition and promotion of teaching practices and ideology with virtual network members. Using a sample of 100 teachers, both early career and their more experienced colleagues, this study examines the teacherpreneurial behavior of ECTs and their physical-based experienced counterparts within Pinterest.

Analysis finds patterns of engagement across 1,469 online sites. We restrict analysis to the 30 most accessed sites and use factor analysis to classify them into constructs defining broad characteristics captured by similar sites. Furthermore, we incorporate teacherpreneurial coding that identifies the source or purveyor of instructional resources to examine the interplay between the resource and purveyor from whom teachers seek information. Finally, to examine the effect of virtual colleague’s resource access and sharing, we use a social network influence model to examine 9,900 social network dyadic pairs across their engagement in 1,469 online sites. Preliminary results indicate online connections led to a 15% increase in the odds of common behaviors of resource sharing from same online sites among dyadic pairs.

Authors

• Kaitlin T Torphy, Michigan State University

• Sihua Hu, Northwestern University

• Yuqing Liu, Michigan State University

• Zixi Chen, Michigan State University

• Jiliang Tang