Developing a Rural Teacher Education Curriculum Package

This paper documents the development of a new website (www.rrrtec.net.au) specifically designed to better equip teacher educators to prepare graduates to teach in rural and regional communities. The two year study (2009-2011) that informed the website’s creation included three data sources: A literature review of research into rural teacher education, a survey of pre-service students who had completed a rural practicum and interviews with teacher educators about the current strategies they used to raise awareness and understanding of the needs of rural students, their families, and communities. An analysis of the data revealed that teacher educators need to focus more on developing graduates to be not only ‘classroom ready’ but also ‘school and community ready’. This analysis provided the framework for the creation of a set of curriculum modules and resources including journal articles, film clips, websites and books that teacher educators could readily and publicly access and use in their own classroom teaching.

Whüe there is a growing recognition of the need to prepare teachers to better understand student diversity in their classrooms, there is litt!e focus on preparing teachers for the diversity of the contexts or communities in which these teachers might find themse!vesp!aced.Yet 'place' particularly matters when it comes to staffing.In North America as in Australia, rural schools face a greater pressure to attract and retain quality teachers than their urban counterparts (Allen & MaUoy, 2007;Bryant, 2006;Green & Reid, 2004).In the Australian context, there currently exists an 'over supply' of teacher graduates; however, this supply does not filter through to the rura!, regional and remote communities where they are needed most (Tibbetts, 2008).SimplisticaUy, the further away and in!and from an Austrahan capita!city the more difficult it is to recruit and retain teachers.It does not appear that simply preparing more teachers is therefore the answer to the staffing needs of rural and regional communities.What is argued and documented in this paper is the need for a re-conceptualisation of teacher education curriculum and a more integrated approach between course work and the rural professional experience (practicum).Teacher education thus could be the key to solving rura!, regiona! and remote staffing issues (White et a!., 2008).

Australian Teacher Education Curriculum
Until most recently in the Australian context, the majority of universities have had !itt!e to no expücit focus on understanding rural or regional communities in their teacher education programs.They have had rather random and ad hoc mral professiona!experience (practicum) opportunities offered to their students.Students who do choose to take up a rural placement usually suffer the financia!burden as they trave!and relocate to a new !ocation for their practicum period.As a result the majority of students do not choose to complete a rural practicum (Halsey, 2005).While there does exist various Australian government financia!incentives to encourage graduates to work in rural areas these are often not wel!understood by those who teach in the teacher education programs and thus, this valuab!e information is often !eft for preservice teachers to uncover for themse!ves (see Reid et a!., 2010;White et a!., 2008).
It is c!ear that the !ack of expücit information about rural teaching opportunities to pre-service teachers has meant that the needs of rural students, their families, and communities often remain invisible.Pre and in-service teachers are under prepared to be successfli!rura! teachers and are thus un!ike!y to consider a future career teaching in rura! areas.
This situation !ed to a study to address this issue with the brief to focus on the development of an inclusive, forward thinking, rura! teacher education curricu!um package aimed at specificaüy preparing teachers for diverse rural and regional communities.The two year Australian study on which this paper reports, is now known as RRRTEC (Renewing Rural and Regional Teacher Education Curriculum) and the history of the work is provided be!ow to outüne the study's aims, the methodo!ogy, findings and the buüding of the RRRTEC website which houses a range of resources designed to be used by teacher educators.The website can be found at www.rrrtec.net.au.

Literature Review
Over four years ago, a team of teacher education researchers across Australia came together to investigate the issue of recmitment and retention of teachers for rural sustainability.Two national projects grew from this rneeting.In 2008, the Australian Research Council (ARC) ñinded project Teacher Education for Rural and Regional Australia (TERRAnova) began and in 2009 the Rural and Regional Teacher Education Curriculum (RRRTEC) project was funded by the Australian Leaming and Teaching Council (ALTC).Both projects have built from each other and as such, a rich model of theory-practice-policy nexus has emerged.
Building on the research and findings of TERRAnova that highlighted that a largely metrocentric 'one size fits all' model of teacher education was not sufficient in meeting the needs of rural teachers, the RRRTEC project looked at what teacher education could do differently to prepare teachers for the rural workforce.RRRTEC has aimed to develop a teacher education curriculum that is both inclusive of rural education needs and makes visible rural and regional teacher education research, curriculum resources, and pedagogical strategies for teacher education students.A centralised mral and regional resource repository, the website, has been developed to assist teacher educators in the preparation of pre-service teachers for working in rural and regional schools.
The study attempted to focus on uncovering the differences experienced by those who worked in mral contexts to establish particular gaps in knowledge and experience that teacher educators could better address and questions such as 'what should teacher education teach to better meet the needs of mral students, their families and communities?'

Data Collected
, \, The RRRTEC website resource has been developed from three main data sources.The first a literature search and analysis ofthe key research projects in Australia into rural (teacher) education over the last two decades ; secondly a large longitudinal Australian survey of pre-service teachers who participated in a mral practicum experience (2008 -2010) as part ofthe TERRAnova project and thirdly in depth interviews with teacher educators (n=30) across Australia to investigate their knowledge about the needs of mral students and what strategies they currently use in preparing teachers for mral communities.Each data source is discussed below.
The literature review revealed a growing number of studies into the field of mral teacher education.Large Australian related studies in this area, include: the Rural [Teacher] Education Project (R[T]EP) (Green, 2008) (Lyons, Cooksey, Panizzon, Parnell & Pegg, 2006); Staffing an empty schoolhouse: attracting and retaining teachers in mral, remote and isolated communities study conducted by the New South Wales Teachers Federation, (Roberts, 2005); the Rural Education Forum of Australia's 'Pre-Service Country Teaching Costings Survey' (Halsey, 2005); and most recently the three year (2008-2010) ARC ftinded project, TERRAnova.These and smaller localised studies paint a particular picture ofthe issues facing teachers and pre-service teachers working and living in rural communities.Roberts (2005), in his report Staffing the Empty Schoolhouse, confirmed that Australia's remote, rural and regional schools are frequently staffed with young, inexperienced teachers and teacher tumover is high.Distance from family, geographic isolation, weather, and limited shopping were all reported among the main reasons teachers gave for leaving rural areas (Collins, 1999).Halsey (2005) specifically explored the impact for preservice teachers taking up a rural practicum experience, and highlighted the additional 'social and economic costs' pre-service teachers encountered in completing a rural professional experience.Sharplin (2002) examined the perceptions of taking up a mral career from the perspective of pre-service teachers and uncovered that for many, fears about access to resources, isolation, and cultural differences were associated with teaching in mral areas.These fears were believed to be the cause of an unwillingness to consider a fliture rural career, or even to trial a teacher education incentive program.Other studies (Collins, 1999;Hudson & Hudson, 2008;McClure, Redfield & Hammer, 2003) indicated further reasons for rural staffing shortages due to teachers' (both pre-service and in-service) beliefs about geographical, social, cultural, and professional isolation; inadequate housing; and a lack of preparation for rural multi-age classrooms.
Classroom bumout appeared to trigger an exodus from rural classrooms as reported in an Australian newspaper: "Younger teachers point to issues such as overwork, pay stmctures, being put on contract without assurance of permanency.
Winter 2012-37 community expectations, student management and lack of social status" (The Age as cited in Hudson & Hudson, 2008, p. 67) as reasons for leaving rural areas.
Further research undertaken by Starr and White (2008) indicated that beginning teachers in rural schools and communities were more likely to deal with real and imagined perceptions of personal and professional isolation and questions about access to professional learning and teaching resources, than their urban colleagues.Work conditions such as increased levels of visibility in the community; requirements to teach 'out of area', and early professional advancement to positions of leadership without preparation at an earlier stage in their careers all appeared to result in considerable personal and professional demands on them as teachers for which they identified they were not always prepared.Each of these studies highlights some of the differences for teachers working in rural communities and signifies that the design of teacher education curriculum needs to better equip graduates for these diverse contexts.Halsey (2005) urgently recommended teacher education programs to develop policies to increase significantly the number of pre-service country teaching placements with the view that this might encourage beginning teachers to consider a rural career.Rural practicum however is only one component of a teacher education program and to seriously address teacher shortage and staffing churn.White and Reid (2008) argued for a closer connection between the course work and the practicum itself requiring teacher educators to take responsibility for the periods of preparation before and after the rural practicum.

Pre-service Surveys
Alongside the literature review, pre-service teacher surveys (n=263) and teacher educator interviews (n=30) also informed the RRRTEC resource development.Pre-service students who completed a rural placement (August 2008 -December 2010) as part of their degree were invited to complete an online survey.The survey instrument was designed to investigate the views of how well prepared the preservice teachers were to complete the practicum by their teacher education program and what improvements could be made.The survey analysis revealed that pre-service teachers wanted more information about how to build and sustain relationships with parents and other professions beyond the classroom and the school and into the community and they wanted to know more about meeting the needs of learners in multi-age seftings.They wanted more information about the places they were going to and how to cope in a highly visible profession.They also wanted more time to share, debrief and discuss with their lecturers and their classmates about what they had learnt about teaching from the experience.They wanted more strategies about working with diverse learners, particularly indigenous students.The survey responses supported the earlier study by Halsey (2005) and it was clear that any subsidies were not sufficient full cost recovery for the students.The majority who went to a rural school placement described wanting to try a different location and experience.
Although the surveys revealed more that could be done from the teacher education program they also strongly indicated that a successful rural practicum experience led to the graduate thinking positively about applying for a rural placement.Unfortunately, the survey numbers revealed only small percentages of all pre-service teachers taking up a rural practicum opportunity.

Semi-structured Teacher Educator Interviews
The third source of data used by the RRRTEC project were semi-structured interviews of teacher educators across Australia (n=30).A number of teacher educators responded positively to the invitation to participate in the study but expressed that they felt ill equipped to respond to the questions.Interviews were conducted between 2010 and 2011.The interview questionnaire featured seven open-ended items exploring questions such as: Responses revealed two distinct groups.The first comprised a group of teacher educators who felt they were able to discuss the needs of rural teachers, usually based on their own experiences and because they had taught in rural settings themselves; the second group of teacher educators described themselves with no rural experience or knowledge from which to draw and who described themselves as ill-equipped to respond to the questions as a whole although they attempted to.This clear lack of teacher educators' ability to respond to the questions and discuss the needs of rural students meant that the number of interviews were limited and highlights the need for more

38-Winter2012
professional learning for teacher educators about rural and regional communities.
From those teacher educators who were able to respond comprehensively to the questions, the findings that emerged from the interviews were similar to those from the pre-service survey data: Interviewees recognized the important work of mral teachers in their communities.A number of teacher educators had created resources to better prepare their students for thinking about a rural placement.Some teacher educators had developed rural and remote field trips and simulations; others had created videos to showcase the views of beginning rural teachers.The interview data about successñjl strategies proved a valuable tool when it came to collating resources to be housed within the RRRTEC website.

Identifying Themes
Key themes of the differences of working in mral and regional contexts emerged from across the data sources.Understanding the knowledge and skills required to work in a particular rural place appeared vital for new graduates' preparation.The visibility of teachers working in a smaller town was also identified in the data.As Reid et al. (2009) observed, "the reality and nature of working in rural communities is that the distances between towns and settlements means teachers must live alongside or close to the children and families that they serve" (p.3).Survey responses highlight the need for pre-service teachers to be better prepared and equipped to understand the very public face of a teacher working in a small town.One respondent noted: They [future teachers] need to realise that when they are going into a mral community or a remote community, it can be very small and very different from living in a large metropolitan area where they can blend in and live in one suburb and go and teach in another and no-one necessarily knows anything about their life.In a mral community, student teachers are basically in the eyes of the community all the time so they have to be very professional in what they do both socially and professionally.
-.... .Pre-service teachers need to know that mral communities perceive rural teachers as leaders earlier on in their careers than their urban colleagues.Thus, teachers in mral areas must view themselves a leaders within the community as well as have the ability to communicate with a range of different 'stakeholders' in a language that can break down rather than create barriers to educational choice and opportunity.The mral school is often identified as the traditional heart of its communify; often it operates at the focus point of extemal economic and social infiuences, as well as political requirements for change and renewal.Therefore, the rural school frequently ftinctions as the barometer of community well-being (Halsey, 2005).Further, Halsey notes the school is often the largest organization in a town or area, and thus it is often "strategically positioned to be a rallying agency when the town feels under pressure, providing a sense of connection to the past, present, and the friture" (p. 6).Understanding place and community are therefore important answers to the question what knowledge is of most worth in preparing teachers for rural communities?Teachers who want to be successfril in a mral/remote context need to be prepared to teach students from different socio-economic and cultural backgrounds to themselves.They need to approach the decision to teach in a mral community by looking at the benefits of the community rather than from a deficit viewpoint (Thompson, 2002).They need to acknowledge and match learning experiences that significantly build on the rich and diverse lives of mral and regional students; to be prepared to teach different developmental stages and ages in any one learning experience or classroom setting.Rural teachers also need to know how to work in teams using technology to develop their own professional learning.While all of these skills, understanding, and knowledge might arguably be necessary for all teachers, their value is increased for those who work in mral, regional and remote contexts.

Developing the Conceptual Framework
The data analysis and themes revealed that teacher education programs require a curriculum developed with an understanding of diversity of contexts, including an understanding of mrality and all that it means in terms of living and working in different rural, remote and regional places and contexts.Based on the rich array of studies and data collection and analysis from both TERRAnova and RRRTEC, as well as from close consultation with the reference group of RRRTEC, which included fellow academics, practitioners and policy makers, a conceptual framework was developed (White, 2010).
The conceptual framework developed highlighted that the preparation of (mral) teachers needed to encompass three overlapping fields of the classroom, school and community.In each field a focus on the teachers' work and the student leaming is important.This working framework in tum underpinned the module and resource development.
The current focus on classroom readiness alone clearly is problematic in preparing teachers to work in mral schools and their communities.The Winter 2012-39 heavy focus on classroom preparation that permeates current models of teacher education is at odds with a broader view of teaching that locates the work of a teacher in the wider school community.Prospective teachers for rural areas need to develop a tri-focus, that is, an understanding ofthe links between the classroom, the school, and the wider rural community and their place across these three different contexts-a different set of issues from those that the traditional model of a teacher education and professional experience currently provides.

Creating the RRRTEC Resource
Using the conceptual framework ofthe fields of classroom, school and community, five areas were selected to focus on.A range of strategies related to how to work collaboratively with colleagues, school support staff, other professionals and community-based personnel to enhance student learning and wellbeing in rural and regional communities were then developed.The five areas are: 1. Experiencing rurality 2. Community readiness 3. Whole school focus 4. Student learning and the classroom 5. Preparing for a rural career Each focus area is described in the website and is unpacked in terms of key theories and concepts for teacher educators to consider in their classroom teaching.The model ofthe rural social space (Reid et al., 2010) which has been developed as part of the TERRAnova project for example is provided under the focus area of 'Experiencing rurality'.The rural social space model can inform how preservice teachers can think about places to which they are going from the three aspectsdemography, geography and economy.A series of resources is also provided in each area for example film clips of rural teachers discussing their place, to photographs and images of different rural places, to virtual and simulated places on the website.All are offered for teacher educators to show their students how they can learn about diversity of place and how they might prepare pre-service teachers to find out more about a rural location they might be placed to.
The curriculum writing team used the themes and areas to develop a series of modules (activities and resources) and outcomes for pre-service teachers.The modules collectively aim to prepare pre-service teachers to: • know and understand the diverse distinctions between definitions of metropolitan, rural and regional communities as they relate to

Preparing for a rural career
Module 7 -Advice for working rural/regional settings Each module draws from theory and provides practical activities.For example, as the data highlight, ftirther concepts such as teacher identity, leadership, and professional learning are important in thinking through how rural teachers connect with their colleagues both within the whole school context, across schools, and within their communities.It appears imperative from the data sources that there is an emphasis on leadership skills and an ability to communicate across sectors.As professional !eaming opportunities are reported to be more difficult for rural and regional teachers due to access and geographic isolation, a more explicit teacher education curriculum that prepares graduates to mobilise their own professional leaming by working close!y with teacher and community mentors and requires the use of techno!ogy to support professiona!!earning is needed.In Module 3, 4 and 7 these concepts are explored in teaching scenarios.
A series of modes within Modu!e 6, Professiona!experience, has also been developed.The modes refer to different approaches to experience !eaming about rura! places, for example field trips, simulations and scenarios, or listening to guest speakers.While the physical experience of completing a rural practicum cannot be replaced, a series of modes of !eaming have been offered to provide teacher educators with different ways to assist pre-service students !eam about rural teaching.One mode, for example, provides short fi!m clips of experienced mral principals providing advice for future rural teachers on working and living in mral communities.Another mode focuses on simulations in order to connect coursework to the practicum.All resources such as the film clips and simulations have been designed to be quick!yaccessib!e and linked to each mode via the website in university classrooms.

Conclusion
This paper has documented the development of a teacher education curriculum package to better prepare teachers for mral communities.The different phases of the study show the rich theoretical and conceptual development on which the curriculum modules, modes, and teaching resources were created.The next phase of the work will focus on the professional leaming of teacher educators to know about the resource and have the opportunity to use the materials in their classrooms.
The website is newly launched and it is hoped that further activities and resources will be added over time.The authors of this paper are keen to hear about how the website is used and what improvements can be made by those interested scholars and researchers in all countries.This can be done by going to the website www.rrrtec.net.au and completing the survey link on the bottom left comer on the homepage.