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MSU Students Gain Teaching Experience In Rural Settings

MSU Students Gain Teaching  Experience In Rural Settings MSU Students Gain Teaching  Experience In Rural Settings

 

A group of seven elementary and middle school-aged students gather around a triangle of three tables in the center of Malmborg School, an octagonal building that has stood on this land on Jackson Creek Road near Bozeman Pass for nearly 120 years.

The students — in first, second, fourth, sixth and eighth grades — use crayons to draw airplanes, flowers, fish and more on their own kite-shaped piece of Tyvek. Some cut lengths of ribbon to serve as streamers. Two Montana State University students, Kylie Fisher and Abby Laverell, help them secure two long black dowels to the Tyvek material. Slowly, the kites take shape.

The students exit the school building into the warm November sunshine along with their teacher, Alison Bramlet, and Fisher and Laverell. The students scurry around the playground, looking over their shoulders to see how their kites are performing. Eventually, the seven students gather on the merry-go-round with kites in hand, propel themselves in circles, and watch as the kites take flight.

“This is so fun,” Laverell said as she observed the students. “The kites are working so well.”

Fisher and Laverell are two of about 75 first-year students at MSU who visited rural elementary and middle schools in the Gallatin Valley over the last two weeks to teach lessons related to science, technology, art, engineering and mathematics. The students are all enrolled in EDU 101, an introductory education course focused on teaching and learning.

Called the Rural Teaching Exploration, the experience provides MSU students who are studying to become teachers a formal classroom experience during their first semester at MSU. The experience also highlights and helps those students become familiar with the area’s rural county schools, including all one- and two-room schoolhouses in Gallatin County: Malmborg, Springhill, Pass Creek and Cottonwood. Other participating rural schools included LaMotte, Anderson and Gallatin Gateway.

“It’s really cool to get to see a rural school firsthand,” said Fisher, an early childhood education major from Missoula. “All of these kids know each other so well. We have been able to see how close they all are, even though they’re different ages.” Laverell, who grew up in Big Timber, is majoring in family and consumer science education at MSU and aspires to be a high school home economics teacher. She said her experience at Malmborg was the first time she had led a lesson for students in a real classroom. She added that the students were “so fun and energetic. It has been so much fun to be here,” she said, noting that she hopes to teach in a smaller school community, too.

Joe Hicks, assistant dean in the College of Education, Health and Human Development, said the MSU education department piloted the Rural Teaching Exploration with a few of the area’s oneand two-room schools, including Cottonwood, Malmborg and Springhill, in the fall of 2022. “At the time, we offered this as an optional experience for any interested EDU 101 students,” Hicks said. “With each subsequent semester, the interest and participation numbers continued to grow.” Eventually, Hicks said, the department decided to include the Rural Teaching Experience as a required element of EDU 101 for the first time this fall.

To support the MSU pre-service teachers during this early field experience in their first semester at MSU, the university’s Science Math Resource Center, which is housed in the College of Education, Health and Human Development, prepares curriculum kits and trains MSU education students on how to use those kits when teaching in the rural schools. Those kits relate to engineering, circuitry, microbes, the solar system, magnification and quantum art.

“This instructional support for our pre-service teachers assists them not only at this early stage in their preparations but generates awareness of the high-quality resources available through the Science Math Resource Center,” Hicks said.

The exploration also offers a “theory to practice” opportunity, in which students discuss aspects of rural education through an assigned text and presentation delivered by Jayne Downey, director of MSU’s Center for Research on Rural Education. Then, after visiting a rural school, they reflect upon the experience, Hicks said.

The Rural Teaching Exploration is supported by a grant-funded program at MSU called Advancing Support, Preparation and Innovation in Rural Education, or ASPIRE, of which Hicks is a co-principal investigator. The project is housed in MSU’s Center for Research on Rural Education and is working to establish a blueprint for attracting, preparing, developing and retaining teachers for rural schools and communities in Montana. ASPIRE is one part of MSU’s ongoing effort to strengthen rural education across the state.

Tricia Seifert, dean of the College of Education, Health and Human Development, called the Rural Teaching Exploration a wonderful experiential learning opportunity for MSU students.

In addition to many people at MSU who are involved, Seifert said she is grateful to the Rural Teaching Exploration’s external partners, including Gallatin County Superintendent of Schools John Nielson and the many cooperating teachers and administrators in the county’s rural schools.

“The exploration highlights the tremendously talented rural educators and students and their vibrant schools and surrounding communities across Gallatin County,” Seifert said.

“For her part, Bramlet, the lead teacher at Malmborg, said her students really enjoy having MSU pre-service teachers visit and teach at their school.

“They love it,” she said. “It’s so fun, and I think the kids get a lot of benefits from meeting new people.”

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