Rural Teacher Pathways

The Rural Pathways Program is aligned with reserach which suggests that offering experience in rural communities and classrooms can help to address the shortage of rural teachers. The Rural Teacher Pathways Program is a carefully desgined curricular sequence of rural school and community clinical experiences for undergraduate preservice teachers (PTs). This developmental, place-attentive approach to clinical preparation is grounded in the principals of place-centered pedagogy where undergraduates have the opportunity to participate in up to four integrated and immersive, rural field experiences. This set of experiences provide pre-service teachers with opportunities to develop the attitudes, skills, and understandings needed to teach and thrive in rural classrooms, schools, and communities. 

Within this initiative, we offer a variety of different types of rural experiences. As a student in the MSU Teacher Edcuation Program, one has the freedom to select experiences based on their individual preferences and needs. To assist in this selection process, a common set of categories are provided at the right of each experience description to help inform this decision process.