From Isolation to Connection: Strengthening Rural Teacher Collaboration Through Large-scale Virtual Professional Learning

• In Event: Understanding and Sustaining Rural Educators: Motivation, Professional Learning, and Workforce Development

Abstract

Rural teachers often experience professional isolation, limiting access to collaborative pedagogical growth. This mixed-methods study examines how a large-scale, online professional learning program supported collaboration among 150 rural science teachers across two academic years. Grounded in Social Network Theory and Collaborative Professionalism, we analyzed survey (n=149) and interview (n=38) data to explore how rural educators built community, exchanged resources, and engaged in joint planning. Results highlight key supports, structures, and strategic facilitation that enabled teachers to overcome geographic isolation and develop sustained, trust-based ties. By centering rural voices and digitally bridging dispersed educators, this study contributes to “unforgetting histories” and reimagining rural professional learning as a space of solidarity, equity, and collective transformation.

Authors

• Martha Inouye, University of Wyoming

• Lauren Cabrera, University of Michigan - Dearborn

• Min Jung Lee, University of North Dakota

• Jenna Gist, Purdue University

• Maria Zaman, University of North Dakota

• Ryan G. Summers, University of North Dakota