For Rural Teachers, Support Is a Click Away

Though located hundreds of miles apart, only one thing separated Kansas teacher Linda Dixon from the six novice special educators she advised last year: bandwidth. Day and night, the veteran teacher offered personalized advice and support to her junior colleagues in all corners of the Sunflower State, as well as stimulate discussions among them and point the group toward resources through the online platform that kept them all connected.

Online mentoring—or E-Mentoring for Student Success, as it’s called by the Santa Cruz (CA)-based New Teacher Center, which facilitates the Kansas initiative—is beginning to catch on as states seek ways to support new teachers that aren’t limited by geography or time. Those two factors have been particularly challenging for teachers in rural locales, where the nearest physics, calculus, or special education teacher might be in a school or district hours away.