"I Love Feeling Connected Still": Educator Preparation Program Alumni Engagement Through Social Media

• In Event: Teacher Use of Social Media for Teaching and Professional Development

Abstract

This research explores how a program-wide teacher-education Twitter hashtag facilitated interactions between alumni and current faculty, staff, and pre-service teachers. We draw upon a mixed methods analysis of focus groups interviews and more than 49,000 tweets sent over five years. After providing context around the teacher-education hashtag, we describe alumni hashtag use and interactions with descriptive statistics and social network analysis. We examine alumni perspectives on their experiences with and motivations for using the hashtag. We found the hashtag provided space for faculty and staff to support and learn from alumni, for alumni to continue learning, and for alumni to mentor each other and current pre-service teachers. We consider implications for research and social media use in teacher education.

Authors

• Jeffrey P. Carpenter, Elon University
  Presenting Author

• Scott Morrison, Elon University
  Presenting Author

• Joshua M. Rosenberg, University of Tennessee
  Non-Presenting Author