{"title":"WhatsApp Discourse Throughout COVID-19: Towards Computerized Evaluation of the Development of a STEM Teachers Professional Learning Community.","authors":"Zahava Scherz, Asaf Salman, Giora Alexandron, Yael Shwartz","doi":"10.1007/s40593-022-00320-3","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This two-year study followed a professional learning community (PLC) of STEM Teachers Leaders, referred to as L-PLC. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated changes in the focus of many professional development frameworks from face-to-face to online communication. We sought for new ways and tools to follow the professional development and the dynamics in our L-PLC. In particular, we explored professional knowledge development and social interactions, as derived from its WhatsApp group (43-48 participants) discourse, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were extracted from 6599 WhatsApp messages issued during four consecutive semesters (March 2019-March 2021), as well as from participant background questionnaires. The analysis incorporated both structure and content examination of the L-PLC WhatsApp discourse, using social network analysis (SNA), and a distinctive coding scheme followed by statistical analysis, heat map, and bar graph visualizations. These provided insights into whole group (macro), subgroups (meso), and individual (micro) profiles. The results indicated that over time, the participants gradually began to use the WhatsApp platform for professional purposes on top of its initial administrative intention. Moreover, the pandemic seemed to lead to a unique adjustment process, denoted by enhanced professional interactions, regarding content knowledge, professional content knowledge, and technological knowledge, and also accelerated the development of productive community behaviors, such as sharing and social support. The research approach enabled us to detect changes in key PLC characteristics, follow their dynamics under the influence of chaotic changes and navigate the community accordingly. Taken together, WhatsApp exchanges can serve as a rich source of data for a noninvasive continuous evaluation of group processes and progress.</p><p><strong>Supplementary information: </strong>The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40593-022-00320-3.</p>","PeriodicalId":46637,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.7000,"publicationDate":"2022-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9734941/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s40593-022-00320-3","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"COMPUTER SCIENCE, INTERDISCIPLINARY APPLICATIONS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This two-year study followed a professional learning community (PLC) of STEM Teachers Leaders, referred to as L-PLC. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated changes in the focus of many professional development frameworks from face-to-face to online communication. We sought for new ways and tools to follow the professional development and the dynamics in our L-PLC. In particular, we explored professional knowledge development and social interactions, as derived from its WhatsApp group (43-48 participants) discourse, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were extracted from 6599 WhatsApp messages issued during four consecutive semesters (March 2019-March 2021), as well as from participant background questionnaires. The analysis incorporated both structure and content examination of the L-PLC WhatsApp discourse, using social network analysis (SNA), and a distinctive coding scheme followed by statistical analysis, heat map, and bar graph visualizations. These provided insights into whole group (macro), subgroups (meso), and individual (micro) profiles. The results indicated that over time, the participants gradually began to use the WhatsApp platform for professional purposes on top of its initial administrative intention. Moreover, the pandemic seemed to lead to a unique adjustment process, denoted by enhanced professional interactions, regarding content knowledge, professional content knowledge, and technological knowledge, and also accelerated the development of productive community behaviors, such as sharing and social support. The research approach enabled us to detect changes in key PLC characteristics, follow their dynamics under the influence of chaotic changes and navigate the community accordingly. Taken together, WhatsApp exchanges can serve as a rich source of data for a noninvasive continuous evaluation of group processes and progress.
Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40593-022-00320-3.
期刊介绍：
IJAIED publishes papers concerned with the application of AI to education. It aims to help the development of principles for the design of computer-based learning systems. Its premise is that such principles involve the modelling and representation of relevant aspects of knowledge, before implementation or during execution, and hence require the application of AI techniques and concepts. IJAIED has a very broad notion of the scope of AI and of a ''computer-based learning system'', as indicated by the following list of topics considered to be within the scope of IJAIED: adaptive and intelligent multimedia and hypermedia systemsagent-based learning environmentsAIED and teacher educationarchitectures for AIED systemsassessment and testing of learning outcomesauthoring systems and shells for AIED systemsbayesian and statistical methodscase-based systemscognitive developmentcognitive models of problem-solvingcognitive tools for learningcomputer-assisted language learningcomputer-supported collaborative learningdialogue (argumentation, explanation, negotiation, etc.) discovery environments and microworldsdistributed learning environmentseducational roboticsembedded training systemsempirical studies to inform the design of learning environmentsenvironments to support the learning of programmingevaluation of AIED systemsformal models of components of AIED systemshelp and advice systemshuman factors and interface designinstructional design principlesinstructional planningintelligent agents on the internetintelligent courseware for computer-based trainingintelligent tutoring systemsknowledge and skill acquisitionknowledge representation for instructionmodelling metacognitive skillsmodelling pedagogical interactionsmotivationnatural language interfaces for instructional systemsnetworked learning and teaching systemsneural models applied to AIED systemsperformance support systemspractical, real-world applications of AIED systemsqualitative reasoning in simulationssituated learning and cognitive apprenticeshipsocial and cultural aspects of learningstudent modelling and cognitive diagnosissupport for knowledge building communitiessupport for networked communicationtheories of learning and conceptual changetools for administration and curriculum integrationtools for the guided exploration of information resources
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