Social media like Facebook, Edmodo and Twitter are increasingly used as tools in blended learning approaches in higher education, including teacher education programs. This paper presents an overview of studies into the use of social media in teacher education, with a special focus on teacher knowledge. The paper will then introduce a research project focused on the use of social media as cooperative learning tools in teacher education. The project involved two student groups from the USA and Australia, who were microblogging on Edmodo, a social learning platform designed for use in educational settings and using many features familiar from Facebook. 

Increasingly, the use of social media to support cooperative learning in higher education has become a research focus (Liu, Kalk, Kinney, & Orr, 2010; Sarsar & Harmon, 2011; Author, 2012; Williams & Chinn, 2009), and emerging studies conducted in teacher education programs have shown that pre-service teachers use social networking sites in a variety of cooperative learning settings (Hutchison & Wang, 2012; Author, 2012). Krutka et al (2014), found that the use of Edmodo fostered collaborative dialogue space for novice preservice teachers .

This study builds on current research literature on asynchronous web-based learning environments (e.g., Paulus & Roberts, 2006) as well as the literature surrounding Web 2.0 environments where students read and write for real audiences, e.g., through online discussion, commenting upon one another’s posts, etc. (Solomon & Schrum, 2007). Digital communities of practice have the potential to create and foster a social and cognitive presence (Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007) for online learners.

The theoretical approach for this research project utilized blended learning concepts combining face-to-face and online teaching in a community of inquiry framework that fosters critical discourse and reflection (Garrison & Vaughan, 2011). Edmodo enabled asynchronous online discussions through students’ microblogging (posting and responding) about weekly discussion topics in response to semi-structured discussion prompts.  Furthermore, we applied concepts of cooperative learning theory (e.g. Slavin, 1999; Gillies, 2007) within an overarching framework based on constructivism (Wells, 1999; Vygotsky, 1978), which proposes collaboration and social negotiations between learners in a well-defined context, for example asynchronous online discussions, as a cornerstone of the construction of knowledge (Jonassen et al, 2002).

Cooperative learning is generally recognised to promote socialisation into academic learning groups (Cohen, 1994). While this project had high levels of teacher-control and was very content-specific, the theoretical approach was set around constructivist concepts of international knowledge cooperation amongst students. For this, the study employed a cooperative learning setting, a proven way to foster self-confidence and tolerance for difference (Johnson & Johnson, 1999) and to positively enhance intergroup relations amongst students from culturally and ethnically different backgrounds  by “constructing a shared cultural paradigm for defining the group, its work, and the social identities of the participants” (Slavin & Cooper, 1999, p. 659). This ‘collective agency’ (Gillies, 2007, p. 79) motivates individual members of the group to exercise autonomy over their own learning while contributing to a shared goal (Bandura, 2001; Goddard, Hoy & Woolfolk Hoy, 2004).  Furthermore, O’Donnell (2006) claims that cooperative and collaborative learning can support information processing by fostering organisation, and review and rehearsal of existing knowledge. Information computer technology (ICT) can support this construction and organisation of knowledge by helping students to access multiple sources of information cooperatively to build knowledge and understanding (Gillies, 2007).

 The project addressed the following research question:  

1. How is teacher knowledge developed through microblogging on a social media site?

2. Which features of cooperative learning are fostered through the use of social media?

3. How did the cross-cultural engagement between American and Australian students shape the development of teacher knowledge?

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