The COVID-19 pandemic forced K–12 school closures in spring 2020 to protect the well-being of society. The unplanned and unprecedented disruption to education changed the work of many teachers suddenly, and in many aspects. This case study examines the COVID-19 school closure-related changes to the professional life of a secondary school teacher in rural Alaska (United States), who had to teach his students online. A descriptive and explanatory single case study methodology was used to describe subsequent impacts on instructional practices and workload. Qualitative and quantitative data sources include participant observations, semi-structured interviews, artifacts (e.g., lesson plans, schedules, online time), and open-ended conversations. The results of this study demonstrate an increase and change in workload for the teacher and that online education can support learning for many students but needs to be carefully designed and individualized to not deepen inequality and social divides. The forced move to online learning may have been the catalyst to create a new, more effective hybrid model of educating students in the future. Not one single model for online learning will provide equitable educational opportunities for all and virtual learning cannot be seen as a cheap fix for the ongoing financial crisis in funding education.
Despite the documented importance of professional experiences in teacher preparation, numerous questions persist as to how university supervisors can effectively contribute to rural preservice teachers' development and to establish lasting collaborations between involved stakeholders (e.g., collaborating teacher, principal, community). This paper provides insight into the challenges and potential for a comprehensive and updated approach to in-person supervision in a rural sociocultural context. Transcriptions of field notes, observation protocols, and conversations from forty supervision travels to remote Alaska villages are examined and interpreted. Results support a fresh, rural-contextual approach to in-person supervision that has the potential to help preservice teachers not only master effective teaching strategies but also support teacher recruitment, retention, and collaboration.
Alaska faces unique challenges in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education, including limited accessibility to resources and learning opportunities, and a lack of place-based education resources. Museum education programs, traditionally focused on public outreach through docent-led tours, are playing an increasingly important role in both formal and informal aspects of STEM education to help address these challenges. The University of Alaska Museum (UAM) stands as a model in the Arctic region exemplifying how public natural history museum collections can be utilized to create active place-based learning experiences with the aim of increasing engagement in STEM literacy and building connections between museums and communities. These efforts take many forms, including the development of teaching materials involving physical objects and (or) online data from the open-access database ARCTOS, training preservice teachers, and implementing citizen science projects. Because many UAM specimens and objects are from Alaska, they are easily incorporated into place-based education, thereby demonstrating how the Arctic environment is unique at local and regional scales. Here, we showcase several programs that are either unique to UAM or part of larger national projects and include exemplar teaching modules in order to provide learning opportunities in the Arctic region and other rural settings.Key words : specimen-based science, STEM education, place-based education, citizen science, University of Alaska Museum.Résumé : L'Alaska est confronté à des défis exceptionnels en matière d'éducation en science, technologie, ingénierie et mathématiques (STIM), et parmi ces défis il y a l'accessibilité limitée aux ressources et aux possibilités d'apprentissage et un manque de ressources en éducation selon une approche locale. Les programmes éducatifs de musée, traditionnellement axés sur la sensibilisation du public au moyen de tours guidés, jouent un rôle de plus en plus important sur le plan tant formel qu'informel de l'enseignement de la STIM,
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