Discovering Utilization Patterns in an Online K-12 Teacher Professional Development Platform: Clustering and Data Visualization Methods

Teachers have many options for continuing education and professional development. Online platforms are one option that can provide 24/7 access to professional development resources and communities for practice and support. By examining how teachers use these sites, we can offer suggestions for improvement and continued engagement. This paper describes an analysis of utilization patterns of instructional resources and site features in one online professional development platform for K-12 teachers in the state of Missouri in the United States. A clustering algorithm was applied to a large dataset of web analytics records to find patterns of use of professional development materials and site features. Prominent patterns suggest that teachers seek concrete video examples of teaching strategies and examples of units of instruction, and school administrators review teachers’ journals and perform administrative site functions. Teachers who are new visitors use the journal tool for initial reflection activities, but they do not access the journal tool in the future. Small patterns provide additional knowledge about the most utilized resources and the issue of referrer spam.