Designing a Professional Learning Program with Rural Secondary Science Teachers: A Design Case

Rural secondary science teachers face the major challenge of isolation, sometimes geographic location or as the only science teacher in their school. They also often have fewer professional learning and meaningful collaboration opportunities. When professional learning is up-to-date, ongoing, collaborative, practice-based, and connected to local contexts, it is more effective at changing teaching practices. Within a collaborative research-practice partnership among directors of four regional service centers, secondary science teachers, and researchers, this case describes the process, successes, and challenges of designing a meaningful professional learning program for and with rural secondary science teachers, the development of a process called technology-mediated lesson study, lesson creation and iteration, classroom implementation, and iterating on the enactment of the program.