Cultivating Connections: Tailoring PLCs for Rural Resilience

Connections are at the center of the human existence. These connections add value to much of what we do in our day-to-day lives, and are often essential when looking for a way to improve an aspect of lives. Educators make professional connections amongst themselves, working together to improve their professional practices, which in turn improve student learning outcomes through a framework called PLC (Professional Learning Communities). This framework provides the guidance and structures to guide educators in their work towards improving practices and learning outcomes and has shown to be effective in doing just that. However, implementing PLCs can be challenging for smaller, rural schools with significantly lower numbers of professional staff, and limited access to needed resources. This dissertation examined the ability of educators to cultivate a process designed to tailor a PLC process to meet the needs of a small, rural school. Inside action research was used to identify essential elements of the PLC framework, and the generate ideas on how to best serve a rural school looking to implement a PLC framework. Using qualitative data obtained from a pre-survey, collaborative meetings, and adapted frameworks created by participants, the themes of collaboration, shared vision, teacher and student improvement, and teacher authority emerged.