Over the years, there have been many efforts to enhance and motivate the transfer of learning from pre-service teacher education to application for classroom teaching practice. The efforts include to shift the focus from knowledge acquisition to practice-based approach and much of teacher preparation is moving online and even virtual environment, which was accelerated by COVID-19. In this study, the IUSE teach-to-avatar practice sessions provided the opportunity for pre-service STEM teachers to engage in the experiential deliberate practice of questioning and discussion skills in a virtual environment. The participants experienced teaching a STEM lesson in a virtual simulation to avatar students. This video will present the process of the teach-to-avatar practice and the major instructional strategies implemented in the practice session. More importantly, the video will also share the real stories from those who participated in the IUSE teach-to-avatar practice sessions and currently teach classes about how they transferred what they have learned from the practice sessions to actual classroom practice.
Emerging Technologies, PD Models, Workforce Development
UWF
Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE), Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program (NOYCE)
Related Content for Learning transfer from teach-to-avatar to classroom practice
Discussion from the 2022 STEM For All Video Showcase (14 posts)
Minkyoung Kim
Lead Presenter Assistant Professor
May 10, 2022 | 08:20 a.m.
Welcome!
Over the years, there have been many efforts to enhance and motivate the transfer of learning from pre-service teacher education to application for classroom teaching practice.
Our project team developed the IUSE teach-to-avatar practice sessions that provide the opportunity for pre-service STEM teachers to engage in the experiential deliberate practice of questioning and discussion skills in a virtual environment. The participants experienced teaching a STEM lesson in a virtual simulation to avatar students.
This video will present the process of the teach-to-avatar practice and the major instructional strategies implemented in the practice session. More importantly, you can hear the real stories from those who participated in the IUSE teach-to-avatar practice sessions and currently teach classes about how they transferred what they have learned from the practice sessions to actual classroom practice.
We look forward to your comments and insight below!
1
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Minkyoung Kim
Wendy Smith
Facilitator Research Professor
May 10, 2022 | 06:41 p.m.
Thanks for sharing the video about your engaging project! Having authentic practice experiences for prospective teachers seems even more important with all the COVID impacts. Can you share more about how many different avatar practice sessions the teachers had? Is teach-to-avatar all computer/AI-based, or is there a live person selecting/enacting the student responses? What do you see as the right balance between teach-to-avatar and field experiences in live classrooms for prospective teachers?
1
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Minkyoung Kim
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Co-Presenter Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce , IUSE, and ITEST projects
May 10, 2022 | 08:17 p.m.
Dear Wendy,
Thanks for your questions. The pre-service teachers had 3 opportunities to teach-to-avatars along with lessons designed to enhance their questioning and discussion skills. The avatars each have their own back-story and are a controlled by a live actor that plays all of the students.
There are a number of advantages with the teach-to-avatar experience. The students reported that they appreciated the experience of teach-to-avatar because it gave them the opportunity to concentrate on learning the new skills by repeating the same lesson multiple times and because they felt safe to try new things as they knew that even if they made mistakes that these mistakes would not negatively impact real students. An additional advantage with the teach-to-avatar reported by pre-service teachers was the ability to be able to teach in the evenings after work or other activities.
One of the other co-presenters will be better able to address your question about the right balance between various teaching experiences.
take care,
Melissa
1
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Minkyoung Kim
John Pecore
Co-Presenter Professor
May 10, 2022 | 09:31 p.m.
Wendy,
Both teach-to-avatar and field experiences are beneficial for different purposes. The teach-to-avatar experience provides an opportunity for practicing isolated skills (like questioning and discussion) and receive specific feedback for mastering the discrete skills. This helps to better prepare teachers to confidently implement effective teaching strategies during field experiences. Time in the teach-to-avatar simulation can reduce the amount of time for developing confidence and skills.
The results of a study in Sweden showed that three hours of simulation training in a small group setting with virtual characters develops pre-service teachers’ efficacy beliefs in teaching mathematics just as much as three weeks of training with real students and significantly more than teaching colleagues during a seminar.
1
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Minkyoung Kim
David Lockett
Facilitator Data Science Outreach and Grants Development
May 10, 2022 | 08:45 p.m.
What an interesting and unique project.The teach-to-avatar practice sessions further engaged students and educators in a more personalized and immersive virtual world. Students need and support authentic learning experiences. How do see humanlike avatars will deepening and enhance learning experiences?
1
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Minkyoung Kim
Corey Nagle
Co-Presenter Faculty Associate
May 12, 2022 | 08:57 p.m.
David-
Thank you for your interest and question. The use of human-like avatars fits well with experiential learning and deliberate practice in a way that allows teacher candidates to focus on particular skills, reflect, and then apply new learning to enhance the implementation of skills. The ability to focus on certain skills and have repeated practice is just one way that learning experiences are enhanced. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the avatar teaching experiences allowed teacher candidates to engage in practice that would otherwise have been impossible due to limited access to students and classrooms. In a post-pandemic environment, avatar experiences may continue to be useful tools for providing teaching experiences in areas where there are limited classrooms available or as initial experiences to build skills prior to field experiences and student teaching experiences. This particular project focuses on developing and implementing questioning and discussion skills, so factors such as disruptive behaviors were minimized. However, there are numerous other applications such as classroom management skills, culturally responsive pedagogy, and responding to multilingual learners, to name a few.
If you would like to discuss more possibilities or have further questions, I am willing to respond.
Cynthia Callard
Facilitator Executive Director and Faculty
May 12, 2022 | 04:54 p.m.
Thank you for sharing this interesting work. I think that any time we can slow down and reflect on teaching moves and practices, it can be beneficial. It seems that this teach-to-avatar program has the potential to do just that for pre-service teachers. I am curious about how it actually works in terms of supporting pre-service teachers' questioning and discussion skills? It was noted that the pre-service teachers could try new things and "make mistakes." I am wondering what this means. Are there right/wrong ways to engage with the avatars? Is it focused on specific content (math?)? I think teachers' abilities to ask meaningful and effective questions and to facilitate classroom discussions is quite complex (and something that many teachers continue to work on throughout their careers). How does this provide support in doing so? (And I hope I don't sound "challenging", I'm just not familiar and am curious about how it works!) Thanks for sharing your work!
Corey Nagle
Co-Presenter Faculty Associate
May 12, 2022 | 08:37 p.m.
Cynthia-
Thank you for your questions and your interest! I will begin to answer your questions and some of my colleagues may share their perspectives as well. Based on the initial review of data, this process of engaging in experiential deliberate practice in the asynchronous and synchronous platforms has had a positive impact on pre-service teachers' questioning and discussion skills. Skills were scored using Domain 3b of the Danielson (2013) rubric. Participants engaged in teaching the avatars three times (baseline prior to intervention, after the asynchronous module on questioning, and then the final experience after the asynchronous module on facilitating discussions). Teaching sessions were recorded, randomized, and then scored by independent scorers familiar with the rubric in order to determine if the participants improved in the areas of questioning and facilitating discussions.
The content was primarily science (a scenario on the water cycle), but the focus was on questioning and discussion skills. While there is not a "right" way to interact with the avatars, participants were provided with feedback after each teaching session and the asynchronous activities that overviewed research-based strategies for improving questioning and discussion skills, such as Webb's (1997) Depth of Knowledge for higher-level questioning and other skills for engaging all students to ask and answer questions and respond to each other in discussions. Participants reported that they appreciated having multiple opportunities to teach and improve without the potential for "hurting real students," so there was less perceived risk by participants and therefore an increased comfort level in trying new or different skills and strategies. "Making mistakes" in the context of the avatar teaching experiences would be asking too many low-level questions or not engaging all of the students.
I agree that teachers continue to work on questioning and discussion techniques and that implementation requires a number of strategies to meet the needs of particular students and groups of students. The approach in our study allows pre-service teachers to engage in initial experiences and practice with feedback and learning that provide a foundation for continued growth. The avatars provide a safe space for practice that can then be broadened as the participants engage in real classroom events through field experiences, student teaching, and their teaching careers. We did not expect students to reach a "distinguished" level on the Danielson (2013) framework or to master questioning and discussion skills from this experience. The purpose was to explore if the use of the synchronous and asynchronous virtual simulation platform could positively impact participants' questioning and discussion skills.
I hope this helps clarify the project and answers some of your questions. If you have any follow-up questions, I would be happy to respond.
1
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Found helpful:
Cynthia Callard
Cynthia Callard
Facilitator Executive Director and Faculty
May 15, 2022 | 10:12 p.m.
Thank you so much for your thorough and informative response, Corey. Sounds like a great project to support pre-service teachers as they begin to try out and build their questioning and discussion skills!
John Pecore
Co-Presenter Professor
May 12, 2022 | 10:53 p.m.
Cynthia, Thank you for commenting. I would add that we while the project highlighted in the video focuses on elementary education majors teaching a science lesson on the water cycle, we also had a group of students teaching an algebra lesson. I will also add that we are seeing positive results in students advancing at least one or two levels in the independent rater scorings of the simulation videos using the Danielson (2013) rubric. additionally, a key factor in improvement, according to participants, seems to be feedback.
1
Discussion is closed. Upvoting is no longer available
Found helpful:
Cynthia Callard
Cynthia Callard
Facilitator Executive Director and Faculty
May 15, 2022 | 10:17 p.m.
Thank you for your response, John. Really interesting, and it seems to have strong potential to be a supportive tool to impact practice for pre-service teachers.
Heather Howell
Research Scientist
May 16, 2022 | 02:12 p.m.
I noticed you are looking at transfer between the simulated setting and the classroom; how are you measuring the transfer? It is super exciting to hear you're looking at this as its greatly needed in the field!
John Pecore
Co-Presenter Professor
May 16, 2022 | 03:20 p.m.
Heather. Thank you for the question. We use the Danielson (2013) rubric to score participants videos. The same rubric criteria is used by our program in student teaching and by the district, where most of our students teach, to evaluate teachers.
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Co-Presenter Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce , IUSE, and ITEST projects
Minkyoung Kim
Assistant Professor
Welcome!
Over the years, there have been many efforts to enhance and motivate the transfer of learning from pre-service teacher education to application for classroom teaching practice.
Our project team developed the IUSE teach-to-avatar practice sessions that provide the opportunity for pre-service STEM teachers to engage in the experiential deliberate practice of questioning and discussion skills in a virtual environment. The participants experienced teaching a STEM lesson in a virtual simulation to avatar students.
This video will present the process of the teach-to-avatar practice and the major instructional strategies implemented in the practice session. More importantly, you can hear the real stories from those who participated in the IUSE teach-to-avatar practice sessions and currently teach classes about how they transferred what they have learned from the practice sessions to actual classroom practice.
You can visit our project website for more information at https://uwf.edu/ceps/departments/teacher-education-and-educational-leadership/teach-to-avatar/
We look forward to your comments and insight below!
Minkyoung Kim
Wendy Smith
Research Professor
Thanks for sharing the video about your engaging project! Having authentic practice experiences for prospective teachers seems even more important with all the COVID impacts. Can you share more about how many different avatar practice sessions the teachers had? Is teach-to-avatar all computer/AI-based, or is there a live person selecting/enacting the student responses? What do you see as the right balance between teach-to-avatar and field experiences in live classrooms for prospective teachers?
Minkyoung Kim
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce , IUSE, and ITEST projects
Dear Wendy,
Thanks for your questions. The pre-service teachers had 3 opportunities to teach-to-avatars along with lessons designed to enhance their questioning and discussion skills. The avatars each have their own back-story and are a controlled by a live actor that plays all of the students.
There are a number of advantages with the teach-to-avatar experience. The students reported that they appreciated the experience of teach-to-avatar because it gave them the opportunity to concentrate on learning the new skills by repeating the same lesson multiple times and because they felt safe to try new things as they knew that even if they made mistakes that these mistakes would not negatively impact real students. An additional advantage with the teach-to-avatar reported by pre-service teachers was the ability to be able to teach in the evenings after work or other activities.
One of the other co-presenters will be better able to address your question about the right balance between various teaching experiences.
take care,
Melissa
Minkyoung Kim
John Pecore
Professor
Wendy,
Both teach-to-avatar and field experiences are beneficial for different purposes. The teach-to-avatar experience provides an opportunity for practicing isolated skills (like questioning and discussion) and receive specific feedback for mastering the discrete skills. This helps to better prepare teachers to confidently implement effective teaching strategies during field experiences. Time in the teach-to-avatar simulation can reduce the amount of time for developing confidence and skills.
The results of a study in Sweden showed that three hours of simulation training in a small group setting with virtual characters develops pre-service teachers’ efficacy beliefs in teaching mathematics just as much as three weeks of training with real students and significantly more than teaching colleagues during a seminar.
Minkyoung Kim
David Lockett
Data Science Outreach and Grants Development
What an interesting and unique project.The teach-to-avatar practice sessions further engaged students and educators in a more personalized and immersive virtual world. Students need and support authentic learning experiences. How do see humanlike avatars will deepening and enhance learning experiences?
Minkyoung Kim
Corey Nagle
Faculty Associate
David-
Thank you for your interest and question. The use of human-like avatars fits well with experiential learning and deliberate practice in a way that allows teacher candidates to focus on particular skills, reflect, and then apply new learning to enhance the implementation of skills. The ability to focus on certain skills and have repeated practice is just one way that learning experiences are enhanced. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the avatar teaching experiences allowed teacher candidates to engage in practice that would otherwise have been impossible due to limited access to students and classrooms. In a post-pandemic environment, avatar experiences may continue to be useful tools for providing teaching experiences in areas where there are limited classrooms available or as initial experiences to build skills prior to field experiences and student teaching experiences. This particular project focuses on developing and implementing questioning and discussion skills, so factors such as disruptive behaviors were minimized. However, there are numerous other applications such as classroom management skills, culturally responsive pedagogy, and responding to multilingual learners, to name a few.
If you would like to discuss more possibilities or have further questions, I am willing to respond.
Cynthia Callard
Executive Director and Faculty
Thank you for sharing this interesting work. I think that any time we can slow down and reflect on teaching moves and practices, it can be beneficial. It seems that this teach-to-avatar program has the potential to do just that for pre-service teachers. I am curious about how it actually works in terms of supporting pre-service teachers' questioning and discussion skills? It was noted that the pre-service teachers could try new things and "make mistakes." I am wondering what this means. Are there right/wrong ways to engage with the avatars? Is it focused on specific content (math?)? I think teachers' abilities to ask meaningful and effective questions and to facilitate classroom discussions is quite complex (and something that many teachers continue to work on throughout their careers). How does this provide support in doing so? (And I hope I don't sound "challenging", I'm just not familiar and am curious about how it works!) Thanks for sharing your work!
Corey Nagle
Faculty Associate
Cynthia-
Thank you for your questions and your interest! I will begin to answer your questions and some of my colleagues may share their perspectives as well. Based on the initial review of data, this process of engaging in experiential deliberate practice in the asynchronous and synchronous platforms has had a positive impact on pre-service teachers' questioning and discussion skills. Skills were scored using Domain 3b of the Danielson (2013) rubric. Participants engaged in teaching the avatars three times (baseline prior to intervention, after the asynchronous module on questioning, and then the final experience after the asynchronous module on facilitating discussions). Teaching sessions were recorded, randomized, and then scored by independent scorers familiar with the rubric in order to determine if the participants improved in the areas of questioning and facilitating discussions.
The content was primarily science (a scenario on the water cycle), but the focus was on questioning and discussion skills. While there is not a "right" way to interact with the avatars, participants were provided with feedback after each teaching session and the asynchronous activities that overviewed research-based strategies for improving questioning and discussion skills, such as Webb's (1997) Depth of Knowledge for higher-level questioning and other skills for engaging all students to ask and answer questions and respond to each other in discussions. Participants reported that they appreciated having multiple opportunities to teach and improve without the potential for "hurting real students," so there was less perceived risk by participants and therefore an increased comfort level in trying new or different skills and strategies. "Making mistakes" in the context of the avatar teaching experiences would be asking too many low-level questions or not engaging all of the students.
I agree that teachers continue to work on questioning and discussion techniques and that implementation requires a number of strategies to meet the needs of particular students and groups of students. The approach in our study allows pre-service teachers to engage in initial experiences and practice with feedback and learning that provide a foundation for continued growth. The avatars provide a safe space for practice that can then be broadened as the participants engage in real classroom events through field experiences, student teaching, and their teaching careers. We did not expect students to reach a "distinguished" level on the Danielson (2013) framework or to master questioning and discussion skills from this experience. The purpose was to explore if the use of the synchronous and asynchronous virtual simulation platform could positively impact participants' questioning and discussion skills.
I hope this helps clarify the project and answers some of your questions. If you have any follow-up questions, I would be happy to respond.
Cynthia Callard
Cynthia Callard
Executive Director and Faculty
Thank you so much for your thorough and informative response, Corey. Sounds like a great project to support pre-service teachers as they begin to try out and build their questioning and discussion skills!
John Pecore
Professor
Cynthia, Thank you for commenting. I would add that we while the project highlighted in the video focuses on elementary education majors teaching a science lesson on the water cycle, we also had a group of students teaching an algebra lesson. I will also add that we are seeing positive results in students advancing at least one or two levels in the independent rater scorings of the simulation videos using the Danielson (2013) rubric. additionally, a key factor in improvement, according to participants, seems to be feedback.
Cynthia Callard
Cynthia Callard
Executive Director and Faculty
Thank you for your response, John. Really interesting, and it seems to have strong potential to be a supportive tool to impact practice for pre-service teachers.
Heather Howell
I noticed you are looking at transfer between the simulated setting and the classroom; how are you measuring the transfer? It is super exciting to hear you're looking at this as its greatly needed in the field!
John Pecore
Professor
Heather. Thank you for the question. We use the Danielson (2013) rubric to score participants videos. The same rubric criteria is used by our program in student teaching and by the district, where most of our students teach, to evaluate teachers.
Melissa Demetrikopoulos
Chair; External Evaluator for Noyce , IUSE, and ITEST projects
Hi everyone,
Thanks for the wonderful discussion.
You can view a related video by this team at
https://multiplex.videohall.com/presentations/2037 Online Deliberate Practice of Questioning and Discussion Techniques 2021
take care,
Melissa
Further posting is closed as the event has ended.