Abstract:

The spread of the Covid-19 pandemic shed light on the role of social media as a platform that facilitates teacher professional development. This includes the Facebook network. Dedicated Facebook groups are perceived as a space that allows professional communities to collaborate and share resources and knowledge. By virtue of my role as a mathematics teacher educator, I was interested in examining the nature of interactions that take place in Israeli Facebook groups of mathematics teachers during the period of school closure that was imposed due to the pandemic.

In this paper, I refer to the largest Facebook group of mathematics teachers in Israel, a group comprised of about 6,500 primary and secondary school teachers as well as prospective teachers.

The analysis of the interactions related to three periods:
(i) Pre-pandemic: The beginning of school year in September 2019 to the beginning of first school closure on March 13, 2020;
(ii) the first closure of schools, until May 2, 2020; and
(iii) the gradual opening of schools until June 20, 2020.

In period i, only about 250 members of the group were regularly active, most of them elementary school mathematics teachers. Typical posts during this period referred to sharing learning materials developed by the teachers, requests for assistance in solving mathematical problems, and suggestions regarding didactic ideas and relevant Internet sites. As of February 2020, an average of 5 posts was published per day, with each post having, on average, 7 comments. In period II, three prominent phenomena were observed: a rapid increase in the active participation of middle and high school teachers; productive didactic discussions (particularly on topics related to remote teaching of mathematics); and an increase in the willingness of teachers to share learning materials they had developed (mostly ones that are suitable for teaching in Zoom). In addition, there was significant growth in the number of posts. On average, about 20 posts were published daily, with a wide range of responses to each post. In period iii, the nature of interaction changed again. At first, only 1st-3rd grade students returned to school, and teachers who had not previously taught mathematics at these age groups were required to do so. These teachers asked for advice and appropriate teaching materials, and many group members happily uploaded worksheets, PowerPoint presentations, and references to sources, and even provided their phone number and suggested to contact them. However, the general didactic discussions faded. In conclusion, the Facebook group served as a space that responded to the professional needs of its members. The fact that all teachers were required overnight to change teaching methods created solidarity among them, which contributed to the strengthening of the group as an independent and enterprising professional community. Given the potential of a social network such as Facebook to serve as a platform for mutual professional support of teachers, it is worth examining how this media can be leveraged to create a solid and sustainable environment for continuous teacher professional development, not just in emergencies or crises.

The paper includes examples of the types of interactions that took place during school closure and group members' viewpoints regarding the benefits of the collaborative generation of knowledge by teachers themselves over receiving a response from an outside institutional source.

Keywords:

Covid-19 pandemic, Facebook, social media, teacher professional community.