Openings, Serendipity, and Generativity in a Rural Professional Learning Network

• In Event: Professional Networks for Educational Change

Abstract

External workshops, external experts, and implementing non-local or top-down initiatives often fail to produce change in rural schools. Key to retention of rural educators is to overcome isolation through intentionally organized networks of teachers/leaders who can support one another to experience ongoing professional growth. An effective approach is to create technologically-supported professional learning networks as a strategy to increase innovation while building a community of otherwise isolated educators (Parsley, 2017). This study attended to the participants' experiences of professional learning network processes and related outcomes. Through inductive data analysis of interviews, field notes, and artifacts, this research identified three significant themes - openings, serendipity and generativity - as central to rural educators' sense of agency within their contexts.

Authors

• Leyton Schnellert, University of British Columbia

• Donna Lynn Kozak, University of British Columbia - Okanagan

• Mehjabeen Datoo, University of Toronto - OISE

• Miriam Miller, University of British Columbia

• Graham Giles, York University