A Different Experience in a Different Moment? Teachers’ Social Media Use Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Adam

Explores how teachers’ social media use for professional learning changed before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using intensive longitudinal methods, the study repeatedly surveyed 14 teachers with 386 total responses and identified patterns in platform uptake and purposes, while highlighting largely idiosyncratic individual use. Multilevel models show increased likelihood of using social media to connect and share and to learn and follow after the pandemic began, relative to earlier periods. Higher COVID-19-related family stress also correlated with greater use to find materials.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages17

Reading Time43 min

AccessFree to download

Teachers’ professional learning and social media context

Social media as part of professional learning networks

Stress and the shift during emergency remote teaching

Study design and data

Intensive longitudinal surveying

Measures and responses

Findings

Patterns of platform uptake and purposes

Changes before vs. during the pandemic

Links between family stress and social media use

AERA Open January-December 2021, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 1–17 DOI: 10. 1177/23328584211063898 Article reuse guidelines: [sagepub.com/journals-permissions](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)[ ](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)© The Author(s) 2021. [https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero](https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero) A Different Experience in a Different Moment? Teachers’ Social Media Use Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic Stephen J. Aguilar University of Southern California Joshua M. Rosenberg University of Tennessee, Knoxville Spencer P. Greenhalgh University of Kentucky Tim Fütterer University of Tübingen Alex Lishinski University of Tennessee, Knoxville Christian Fischer University of Tübingen Teachers participate in professional learning activities to enhance their pedagogical knowledge and share best practices—and the increasing role of technologies in education, including social media, is shifting how this professional learning occurs. The COVID-19 pandemic provided an opportunity to consider the role of social media for professional learning. Using intensive longitudinal methods, we repeatedly surveyed 14 teachers’use of social media both before and during the pandemic (N = 386 total responses). We found patterns in social media platforms uptake and their purposes, but teachers’use of social media was largely idiosyncratic. Also, teachers demonstrated notable shifts in social media use after the pandemic started; multilevel models indicated that teachers were more likely to use social media to connect and share, especially, as well as learn and follow, compared with before the pandemic. Higher levels of COVID-19-related family stress were also associated with more use of social media to find materials. Keywords: online spaces, teacher learning, professional learning networks, COVID-19, social media, stress Teachers participate in professional learning throughout their careers to enhance their knowledge about teaching and to share best practices (Borko et al., 2010; Darling-Hammond et al., 2017; Fischer et al., 2018) . Although professional learning is often conceived of in terms of improving teacher practice, it can be understood broadly as “growth in affective, social, cognitive, and identity aspects of teaching”(Trust et al., 2016, p. 16) . Ensuring that there are sufficient opportunities to participate in meaningful professional learning has been shown to be a central strategy to promote an effective and responsive education system (Borko et al., 2010; Dede et al., 2008) . Although professional learning often takes place in formal contexts organized by schools, districts, and other institutions, teachers have also long engaged in self-directed learning that supports their professional practice (Dede & Eisenkraft, 2016; Kyndt et al., 2016) . Jones and Dexter (2014), for example, note that teachers have identified “each mode of professional learning [as] important, useful for different learning situations, and Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License ([https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages ([https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage](https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage)). Aguilar et al. supportive of the other modes”(p. 379). Auseful framework for understanding teachers’ learning is thus the professional learning network (PLN), a personalized collection of learning resources, including specific social media platforms and particular spaces within those platforms (see Trust, 2012; Trust et al., 2016) . Over the past decade, researchers have taken particular interest in teachers’ p

FAQs

How was teachers’ social media use examined before and during the pandemic?

The study used intensive longitudinal methods, repeatedly surveying 14 teachers and collecting 386 total responses across time periods.

What changes in social media purpose were observed after the pandemic started?

Multilevel models indicated teachers were more likely to use social media to connect and share, and also to learn and follow, compared with before the pandemic.

How did family stress relate to teachers’ social media use?

Higher COVID-19-related family stress was associated with more use of social media to find materials.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Adam