A Pilot Project Exploring Rural Classroom Music Teachers’ Perceptions and Practices via an Online Professional Development Course

Music teachers in urban, suburban, and rural communities face a multitude of challenges and opportunities. To identify and examine specific experiences that may be unique to rural general music teachers, we recruited six teacher-participants to complete a 5-week online professional development (PD) course for this exploratory study. We created a teacher-led approach for this PD, implementing topics and solutions generated by the participants. Using qualitative content analysis, we found two categories of themes in the online discussion posts that either connected or disconnected our participants with other music teachers on their general music context or their geographic setting. Although participants clearly articulated the influences of setting and place-based pedagogy, we found shared issues related to general music that transcended location. Implications for future PD include the importance of online delivery methods and developing PD differentiated by teaching contexts and geographic settings.