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This mixed-methods observational study analyzes Advanced Placement (AP) Biology teachers’ engagement in microblogging for their professional development (PD). Data from three hashtag-based Twitter communities, #apbiochat, #apbioleaderacad, and #apbioleaderacademy (121 users; 2,253 tweets), are analyzed using methodological approaches including educational data mining, qualitative two-cycle content analysis, social network analysis, linear and logistic regression analyses, and hierarchical linear modeling. Results indicate that Twitter adheres to standards of high-quality PD and has the potential to complement more traditional PD activities. Notably, Twitter’s non-hierarchical leadership affords shared content creation and distribution. Additionally, Twitter allows for different temporal participation patterns and supports the personalization of learning experiences aligned to teachers’ needs and preferences. Furthermore, teachers frame their interactions on Twitter positively, thus, creating a supportive environment for professional learning that might reduce teachers’ perceived isolation. Therefore, policy makers and school leaders should feel empowered to encourage teachers to use microblogging complementary to other PD activities. 

Abstract: This empirical study examined teacher self-reported participation (using or not using) and engagement (posting or lurking) in the online Advanced Placement (AP) Teacher Communities (APTC) coinciding with the redesigned AP Biology, Chemistry, and Physics exams and curricula. Prior analyses indicated that APTC participation has positive, direct associations towards teacher practice and students’ scores, motivating further exploration. Based on teacher self-reported data, this analysis suggested that significant differences in teacher, teaching, and school characteristics predicted whether a a teacher was using or not using the APTC. However, there were not substantive differences in most characteristics between the types of engagement, such as lurking and posting. Insights about teacher learning from online peer communities in this study might generalize to other national shifts in curriculum and assessment, such as the Next Generation Science Standards or Common Core State Standards. 

This empirical study explored participation patterns of 1,733 Advanced Placement (AP) Physics teachers in the online AP teacher community (APTC) following the redesigned AP science examinations in the United States. We identified profiles of teachers with different levels of engagement in this peer-based online learning community. Our results provide insight into underrepresented user groups and the development of more personalized online teacher support systems. Our analysis suggested that teachers’ knowledge and experience, the enactment of AP practices, challenges with the AP redesign, and AP workload were all significantly associated with changes in the probability of teachers becoming APTC users. This indicated that the APTC attracted a non-representative population sample of all AP physics teachers. However, most teacher, teaching, and school characteristics provided no indication as to whether APTC users were posters or lurkers. 

This paper describes a study using a quasi-experimental design to examine teachers’ preparations in low-income schools for a revised version of the AP Biology and AP Chemistry examinations, and explores variables associated with student scores on the AP science examinations that are better than would be predicted based on their PSAT scores. Considering the frequently-measured achievement gap on high-stakes examinations, identifying “what works” to raise student performance of at-risk students is an urgent area for research. The analyses indicate that (a) districts per-student funding allocations, (b) teachers’ knowledge and experience, and (c) teachers’ participation in professional development activities with a responsive agenda and effective support for teaching the redesigned AP science course are significantly associated with higher students’ average performance on the AP science exams than would be predicted. 

In an era of high-stakes accountability and widespread calls for improved student performance in science, technology, engineering, and math (National Research Council, 2002), it is critical that we also focus on how to support and enhance teachers’ learning. Teachers have long been understood to play a key role in the performance of students (e.g., Nye, Konstantopoulos, & Hedges, 2004). Educational policymakers have become increasingly focused on “value-added” approaches to gauging teacher performance (McCaffrey, Lockwood, Koretz, Louis, & Hamilton, 2004), which attempt to directly link the contribution of individual teachers to their students’ subsequent test performance, in both the near and far term. We take the position that, no matter what one thinks about the current testing and evaluation regime, it makes sense to conduct research to improve our understanding of how to support teachers’ ongoing learning and efforts to improve their practice related to student outcomes. This paper reports on a study of teacher learning in a context that is especially apt in the current policy climate – how teachers learn to teach a curriculum associated with a recently-revised high stakes examination. In particular, we report early results from a study of high school teachers learning to teach the revised Advanced Placement Biology curriculum as they prepare students for a high-stakes examination. We examine the role of professional development in supporting teachers’ learning to use the revised Advanced Placement Biology curriculum and the relationship between teachers’ professional development choices and subsequent student performance on the Advanced Placement Biology examination.