Abstract
As social media has grown, participation in virtual communities focused on the teaching and learning of mathematics has become a norm within the field of mathematics education. Little work has been done within the field to understand the evolving landscape these communities present and the boundaries that educators, both new and old, create, cross, or demolish through community participation. In this chapter, we draw upon theoretical work in communities of practice and boundary crossing to build a framework for understanding mathematics education communities. Using this framework, we then present profiles of several communities currently popular within North America. In doing so, we demonstrate how the framework can serve as a tool to examine aspects of these communities and understand the boundaries associated with them.
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Notes
- 1.
We recognize the concept of virtual communities is itself an area of some discussion and debate (Ellis, Oldridge, & Vasconcelos, 2004). In particular, virtual communities may be re-creations of existing communities, members of virtual communities may also work within in physical communities, and the interaction between virtual and physical communities is complex.
- 2.
We acknowledge there are inherent differences between physical and virtual communities of practice. For example, members of virtual communities of practice may never meet face-to-face, share information via artifacts, and may be limited in communication by the context of the platform. Additionally, the situated, co-constructed nature of learning may be different within a virtual community of practice from within a physical community of practice (Ellis et al., 2004).
- 3.
As a society we are beginning to wrestle with the hidden costs and challenges of such convenient access. For example, one cost is the commercialization of personal user data, which are mined, stored, and distributed by the entities—typically private companies—that own the platforms. Access to this information can provide any individual or group with insight into the characteristics of platform users, which can be used for advertising and promotion.
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Hertel, J.T., Wessman-Enzinger, N.M., Dimmel, J.K. (2020). Mathematics Education Communities: Crossing Virtual Boundaries. In: Radakovic, N., Jao, L. (eds) Borders in Mathematics Pre-Service Teacher Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44292-7_10
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