Grant Recipient
Yvonne Dawydiak, Learning Design Manager – TEO
Dr. Leyton Schnellert, Associate Professor UBC & Eleanor Rix Professor in Rural Teacher Education
With generous funding support from the Edith Lando Virtual Learning Centre, we are re-designing an existing website – ruralteachers.com – to better meet the needs of rural educators and researchers interested in rural education. The redesigned web space will house research-based multi-media resources shared openly to support the rural and remote education community including faculty associates, mentor teachers, and teacher candidates as they prepare for and successfully work together during rural practica. The site will be designed to be accessible and searchable and will act as an open repository for content created and carefully curated by educators for educators, students and researchers working in rural and remote communities.
Preparing, recruiting and retaining rural teachers is an issue worldwide. UBC’s West Kootenay Rural Teacher Education Program (WKTEP) and the new Rural and Remote Teacher Education (RRED) program were created to help meet this need. These programs focus on preparing teacher candidates (TCs) in and for rural and remote settings considering the unique teaching roles and opportunities that they will encounter– multi-grade classrooms, resource-based economies, and teaching outside of traditional specialties (many K-12 rural schools have less than 100 students). School districts need rural teachers. We struggle, however, to find and support mentor teachers (MTs) and faculty associates (FAs) outside of the Lower Mainland and West Kootenays. Increasingly, we recognize the need to develop shared, research-based pedagogical understandings across the practicum triad (MT, FA & TC) and with the wider education community. Due to the often isolated nature of these practicum placements, easily accessible, multimedia resources and a space to connect virtually (both synchronously and asynchronously) are necessary to help maintain connection, build community, and promote shared practices. The redesigned ruralteachers.com website is expected to launch in Fall 2022 and will help to meet these needs. We expect to conduct user experience surveys at that time and welcome your input.
