Amplifying Rural Educators' Perspectives: A Qualitative Study of Generative AI's Impact in Rural U.S. High Schools

TL;DR

This study explores how rural U.S. high school educators perceive and use Generative AI, highlighting resource barriers, challenges, and opportunities for inclusive AI integration in under-resourced educational settings.

Contribution

It provides qualitative insights into rural educators' experiences with GenAI, emphasizing the need for rural-specific design and support to reduce educational barriers.

Findings

Rural educators use GenAI to streamline tasks but face resource limitations.

Infrastructure and AI literacy barriers hinder meaningful adoption.

Educators see potential for GenAI to support teaching and learning.

Abstract

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.