Date
Publisher
arXiv
Recent breakthroughs in Generative AI (GenAI) are reshaping educational landscapes, presenting challenges and opportunities. While all contexts present unique challenges, rural schools are historically under-resourced, facing persistent technology-related barriers. To understand and reduce these barriers, we studied 31 rural high school educators across three U.S. states to examine their use of GenAI and understand how GenAI introduces new challenges, opportunities, and may exacerbate existing educational barriers. Results show while rural educators use GenAI to streamline teaching tasks, existing resource disparities restrict meaningful integration. Through rural educators' voices, we reveal issues like infrastructure barriers, resistance to adoption, and lack of AI literacy training create significant obstacles. Nonetheless, educators envision GenAI can support themselves and their students, but findings emphasize the need for rural-specific design approaches. As a community, embracing inclusive GenAI design and re-examining assumptions about technology adoption in under-served educational contexts is essential to reducing barriers rather than widening them.
Study at a glance
- Question: How do rural high school educators experience, navigate, and envision generative AI in their schools and classrooms?
- Setting and data: 31 rural high school educators across Arizona, Maine, and North Carolina, surveyed and interviewed between August and November 2024.
- Method: Mixed methods study using an online survey and semi-structured interviews analyzed with grounded theory and critical rural theory.
Why it matters
Nearly one-fifth of American public school students attend rural schools, but educational research often overlooks their distinct contexts. Understanding rural educators' experiences is essential to ensure generative AI reduces rather than widens existing educational barriers.
Key findings
- Most rural educators surveyed (80.6%) use generative AI primarily as a personal support tool, most commonly for lesson planning, grading, and differentiating instruction.
- Persistent rural barriers, including unreliable internet, lack of devices, limited professional development, and missing guidelines, restrict meaningful integration of generative AI into classrooms.
- Educators envisioned promising generative AI uses, such as adapting curricula across multi-grade classrooms, creating location-based learning projects, and providing tutoring to address staffing shortages.
Summary drafted with AI from the full paper and may contain errors. See the full paper for details.
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