The TeleLearning and Rural Education Centre was established in January 1997 at Memorial University of Newfoundland, in one of the most sparsely populated and economically depressed areas of Canada. Of 462 schools in Newfoundland and Labrador, 66 percent are rural and over half have enrollments of under 200 students. The Centre was established to address the educational needs of these small rural schools and improve the quality of educational services to rural communities. These goals will be accomplished through various research and development projects. The Centre acknowledges the long-standing relationship between rural and distance education, which has been formalized in the application of telelearning specifically for geographically isolated classrooms. A major research focus of the Centre at both macro and micro levels involves exploration of teaching, learning, management, and policy issues in small schools in rural areas. At the macro level, this focus is being pursued with research partners in New Zealand, Australia, Finland, Scotland, and Iceland. At the micro level, research and development work is being undertaken in several rural school districts in Newfoundland. The progress of the province's rural education reform over the last 5 years has been closely monitored, with particular attention paid to issues surrounding "school viability" and the combative informed resistance of rural citizens to government efforts to close small community schools. The Centre's teaching and learning initiatives include developing pedagogical approaches for multigrade or multiage classrooms, creating new media resources for effective teaching, and exploring effective ways of integrating new technologies into mathematics and science classrooms. Contains 68 references. (Author/SV)