A growing hope is that Twitter and similar technologies will enhance teachers’ professional growth by allowing them to collaborate and support each other online. In this conceptual paper, we evaluate the potential of such claims, theorizing about the relationships among technologies, practice, and communities of practice. Specifically, we demonstrate how the concepts of materiality and sociomateriality can be applied toward understanding and researching teachers’ professional communities on Twitter. Materiality refers to the physical or digital components of a technology. Sociomateriality refers the social practices and contexts shaping one’s sense of a technology.

Performance assessments attempt to provide a practical and authentic demonstration of students' learning. Despite growing investments in performance assessments by states, as well as researchers' theorized value of this type of assessment, the field has not developed a measure of assessment literacy specific to performance assessments that has sufficient psychometric evidence to support it. This study begins important research on developing a quantitative measure that can be used by educational practitioners to self-evaluate their own performance assessment literacy (PAL). Using the Quality Performance Assessment (QPA) framework from the [organization masked for blind review] as a foundation, this study explores and confirms the dimensionality of a 27-item survey instrument that assesses educational practitioners' perceptions of their PAL using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Our findings provide evidence that the instrument captures five reliable dimensions of PAL: valid design, reliable scoring, data analysis, fair assessment, and student voice and choice.

As providers of massive open online courses (MOOCs) continue to experiment with new mechanisms for providing transferable course credit and alternative credentials (Caudill, 2017; Hollands, 2017; Wulf, Blohm, & Brenner, 2014), there has been a growing interest in the experiences of students in these programs. This mixed-methods studies uses student interviews, survey responses, and MOOC log data to examine the experience of students participating in an edX MicroMasters in a private university in the Northeastern United States. We found that the program attracted a cohort of mid-career professionals, largely in developed countries, who were seeking to enhance their skills in order to advance their careers. Successful students were more likely to be more motivated by “mastery” goals, focusing on gaining new skills and knowledge, than “performance” goals such as grades or credentials and many students who earned a credential said they did not think the credential by itself would help them advance their careers. For residential instructors, the findings of this study suggest that MOOC-based blended program can be an effective way of recruiting highly-qualified non-traditional applicants to residential programs

Envisioning the Graduate of the Future (March 8 to April 5, 2018) was an experiment in rapidly producing a compelling, open, online learning experience. This massive open online course (MOOC) featured schools at various stages of developing their vision of a high school graduate. Over 2,000 educators and others from across the United States and 100+ countries registered for a collaborative and exploratory design process to develop a graduate profile, a shareable document that conveys what a community and/or school believes a high school graduate should know and be able to do.