The Use of an On-line Classroom Simulation to Enhance the Decision Making Skills of Beginning Teachers.

Abstract

This paper describes the design of a simulation designed to support pre-service teacher education. The simulation prototype allows the user to take on the role of the teacher of a virtual Kindergarten classroom (children whose ages range from 5 to 6 years). As the simulation runs, the user is required to make many decisions about structuring the literacy lessons, classroom management, and responses to individual students. The user can monitor and track the progress of three targeted students throughout the course of the simulation. An embedded tool serves as ‘thinking space’ that is used at decisive points to encourage the user to plan and justify new decisions, and to reflect upon the observed consequences of previous decisions. Other supports within the simulation prototype include links to: textbooks; syllabus documents; inservice materials; sample artefacts collected from schools and classrooms; and other annotated online teaching resources. The initial prototype software of the simulation will be presented at the conference.