Analysis of Turkish teachers' posts in Facebook groups in terms of professional development and special field competencies

In the changing world with technology, teachers are also expected to renew and develop themselves. After starting the profession, teachers can continue their professional development with formal or informal professional development activities. In particular, the support that teachers will receive from their experienced colleagues is an important way in terms of professional development with both cooperation and direct response to needs. Social media, which emerged with the development of web technology, increased the interaction opportunities in online environments and informal professional development activities began to be seen in various environments in social media. It is seen that there are many groups in which Turkish teachers support each other on Facebook, which draws attention with the increasing number of users since its established. Within the scope of the study, it is aimed to examine the posts made in Facebook groups for Turkish teachers in terms of professional development and Turkish Teacher's Special Field Competencies. The research conducted in accordance with the qualitative research approach is a case study. After a preliminary review on Facebook, one of the three groups with the highest number of participants was selected. In the selected group the posts made in the 2019-2020 academic year were collected through document review and analyzed by content analysis. The six themes reached as a result of the content analysis were determined as "Material", "Language and Expression", "Teaching Process", "Other", "Official Process" and "Culture and Art" from the highest frequency to the least. Within the framework of the second research question, the relationship between the codes obtained from the shares and the Special Field Competencies of Turkish Teachers was examined. As a result of the category analysis, the codes were mostly found in the competence areas of "Providing professional development in the field of Turkish", "Planning and organizing the Turkish teaching process", "Developing language skills", "Collaborating with the school, family, and society" and "Monitoring and evaluating language development" found to be related. It has been observed that there are changes in the appearance of the shares throughout the year according to the semester and exam periods and the epidemic process. In this study, it was seen that the posts in the examined Facebook group support Turkish teachers in terms of professional development and that the posts can be associated with the Special Field Competencies of Turkish Teachers. In the study, suggestions were presented for the use of Facebook groups for professional development and online professional development research.