How Rural Educators Improve Professional Capital in a Blended Professional Learning Network

• In Event: Professional Learning Networks: Facilitating Transformation in Diverse Contexts With Equity-Seeking Communities

Abstract

While the story of rural schools is often told through the lens of their deficits, this study presents a different narrative grounded in the unique assets of rural settings lifted up through a blended PLN. This paper describes the work of the Northwest Rural Innovation and Student Engagement (NW RISE) network in the United States. NW RISE brings together rural educators across schools and districts in bi-annual gatherings, helps them to form “job-alike” groups, and provides support for shared curriculum design. The intentional design of the NW RISE network is grounded in deeper collaborative work and face-to-face connection that results in increased professional capital and student outcomes. Rural educators have seized upon the resources in NW RISE in combination with their own unique assets to promote student engagement across the network’s schools. Through the NW RISE network, rural teachers have experienced and expanded their understanding of teacher leadership. It has also created an environment for rural educators to recognize the deep understanding of place that they possess as a source of expertise and professional identity critical for their students’ learning and development. Taken together, the experiences of NW RISE teachers shed light on ways that PLNs specifically nurture the innate strengths of rural settings in direct service of the needs of rural students.

Authors

• Karen Martin, University of Alaska Fairbanks

• Min Jung Kim, Boston College