Assessing the Impact of a Large-Scale Online Teacher Professional Development Community

Abstract

TAPPED IN™ is an online community that supports teachers' professional growth through both formal education and professional development programs provided by a coalition of partner organizations and informal activities that occur year-round. The authors of this paper are members of both the community and a research team investigating whether and how the design of our online environment can help foster a culture of learning within a large and diverse community of education professionals. The community is now three years old, and we believe it is time to examine its impact more closely. In this paper, we review data collected from a survey that was recently sent to the educators in the community. Specifically, we examine how experiences in TAPPED IN affect teaching and teachers.