The effects of teacher self-disclosure via Facebook on teacher credibility

This article by Mazur, Murphy, and Simonds investigate the hypothesis that teachers who relate well with students in their classroom maintiain creditability when they disclose personal information on social media websites. Their research indicated that teachers who had high levels of self disclosure in and out of the classroom still exhibited creditability with their pupils. However teachers needed to be careful about their classroom demeanor in should  alwaus match their social media mantras. Strict teachers should not display their online identity as something very different from their classroom character.

My thoughts: I really enjoyed this article, it must have taken some effort getting all those citations together for the introduction. Actually the introduction and teacher communication behavior paragraphs alone is worth being shown to classroom teachers in faculty meetings. I have known of dozens of teachers who do not have a clue or fathom what personality is in the classroom. They are stoic personalities that do not always have the best interests of the students in mind. Or they teach advanced and feel they are about content only and that’s the way it is. Also they rationalize that they aren’t teaching to be in a popularity contest. But in this day and age of technology, special teachers with charisma are able to hold the attention of kids who otherwise are entertained by digital means.