ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. STEM Education
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1578584
This article is part of the Research TopicRural STEMM Education Research: Bridging between Uniqueness and UniversalityView all 10 articles
RURAL ROBOTICS TEACHER LEADER IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT A Cross-case Analysis of Rural Robotics Teacher Leaders' Identity Development
Provisionally accepted
- 1West Texas A&M University, Canyon, United States
- 2University of South Carolina, Columbia, Missouri, United States
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As educational robotics becomes an increasingly popular extracurricular opportunity for K-12 STEM learning, researchers continue to explore effective learning environments and teaching approaches for this integrated form of instruction. However, limited research has examined the experiences of rural educators implementing robotics programs or how these programs contribute to rural teacher leadership development. This qualitative study examines the experiences of rural robotics teachers (RRTs) and the development of their identities as rural STEM teacher leaders. Guided by the rural teacher leadership in science and mathematics framework, the findings highlight leadership skills that helped RRTs pioneer educational robotics programs in rural schools. The results offer insights into how rural schools can support teacher leadership development in STEM, particularly through integrated, innovative STEM learning approaches. Implications from this study strengthen the support for the rural teacher leadership framework in other STEM content areas.
Keywords: rural, STEMM education, Robotics, k-12, Teacher leader identity
Received: 17 Feb 2025; Accepted: 30 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Meador, Starrett, Raygoza, Irvin, Quiroz and Cartiff. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Audrey Meador, West Texas A&M University, Canyon, United States
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