Social Media–Based Professional Learning Communities for Physical Educators: Opportunities and Challenges

Abstract

This article aims to explain how social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter can be useful setting for effective professional learning communities (PLCs) for physical educators. It also pinpoints the opportunities and challenges of using social media for PLCs and provides recommendations for physical educators and physical education teacher educators for promoting social media-based PLC (SMB-PLCs) engagement in physical education. SMB-PLCs minimize the geographic and temporal barriers to PLC participation, provide diverse perspectives and experiences, and make PLC participation more accessible and flexible. However, physical educators need to be aware of the issues of content validity and reliability, echo chamber effects, and the time and emotionally consuming nature of social media when participating in SMB-PLCs. To better promote in-service physical educators’ SMB-PLC engagement, professional development on technology literacy needs to be offered to connect inexperienced physical educators to more experienced colleagues. Moreover, physical education teacher education should incorporate social media into its curriculum to better connect preservice teachers to the larger communities of practice and use it as a learning tool.