Rethinking Rural Educational Contexts as Sites for Teacher Education to Innovate Teaching and Learning

Despite recent prioritization in national politics and economics, rural communities and schools across the United States (US) are still facing an array of challenges.In the US, rural schools are funded less proportionately than and often do not have the resources of suburban and urban schools.In addition, rural schools struggle to recruit and retain teachers in nearly all subject areas.Rural schools are often unable to provide the same academic opportunities as suburban and urban schools, which has compounding effects on all students, whether they want to take advanced placement courses or other specific courses for their chosen career pathways.Furthermore, rural student populations are becoming increasingly diverse and require rural schools to provide new services (e.g., English language learner [ELL] resources, mental health support, internet access) to their community.To better address these challenges the Rural Education Center at Kansas State University has increased their efforts to collaborate with rural schools in addressing their need for resources, teachers, and support.We use the theory of ecological agency to frame ways in which the contextual affordances and challenges of rural educational settings provide distinct opportunities for teacher education programs to innovate teaching and learning in rural schools.Many of the factors that have prevented sustained and authentic engagement with rural schools have been minimized in recent years through technology and increased broadband connectivity in rural contexts.Technology offers a range of opportunities for teacher education programs to engage more authentically with rural schools and provide sustained support through (1) telepresence-based field and student teaching experiences, (2) distance and online-based supervision, and (3) shared virtual and online pedagogies of the rural.To make these innovative engagements more sustainable, the use of technology in rural schools will need to be evolved and supported in new manners to have an impact on the agency of rural teachers to aid their students' learning.In this way, rural can be a lens for technological innovation in teacher education and rural schools.