Realistic rehearsal and reflection through Teacher Moments
““Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.”
Benjamin Franklin
Laila Richman is the associate dean and associate professor at the College of Education at Towson University. She describes her experiences using simulations developed by MIT’s Teaching Systems Lab called Teacher Moments.
I began my career as a special education teacher and quickly learned the importance and value of practice opportunities to promote learning. As a teacher educator and associate dean, I have worked alongside faculty to increase the opportunities for preservice teachers not only to learn about teaching, but to also practice teaching skills in education courses. I believe that it is important that all of our candidates have multiple opportunities to practice teaching in safe and low-threat environments so they can receive feedback and develop fluency in their practice before working with students in the field. Doing this not only improves their practice, but ultimately improves our practice as well. We have learned so much about our own instructional practices as we have worked to implement these structured practice opportunities into our curriculum. Our goal is to ensure multiple practice opportunities for candidates throughout the program, both as part of the teaching curriculum as well as part of our assessment system.
I heard about the INSPIRE program during a talk at AACTE in March of 2018 given by Meredith Thompson, a research scientist at MIT’s Teaching Systems Lab. She discussed a simulation called Teacher Moments, and gave a demo during the talk. Since we had already been working on simulations, I was interested in how these simulations could be useful in our program.
I had two main interests in learning more about these practice spaces. The first interest is in improving our preparation program through the use of simulation, practice-based learning opportunities. I currently oversee our Mursion (TeachLive) simulation lab and am interested in other types of simulation learning as well. At my institution, we have adopted the High Leverage Practices from TeachingWorks and these types of learning technologies can assist our candidates with the very critical practice component involved. As the associate dean, I have a unique opportunity to support faculty development and implementation of such technologies across departments.
Teaching is complex and many simulations attempt to replicate that complexity. What appeals to me about Teacher Moments was that it is focused on an interaction between a teacher and either a student or a parent. It is app based, so students can do it on their phone for homework. They don’t need to go into a lab. Students log in, read an information/ background to the simulation, answer a few questions about what they think might happen during the conversation, and then start the simulation. During the simulation, students either read text or watch a video that is broken into “bite size” pieces — the character in the simulation has a line, and then the participant is prompted to respond verbally. These responses are captured so the student can review and listen to them at the end of the simulation.
I chose two Teacher Moments to use with a class: one about a parent who was advocating for her child with special needs, and another about a parent who didn’t value school. Both of these simulations are based on Syracuse professor Ben Dotger’s book I had no idea, a book with simulation for teacher education. I chose those because I was intrigued by this quasi-simulation that it offered, particularly the parent who didn’t value school, as it had a video in the recording. I wasn’t teaching that semester, so these simulations were easier for me to insert into a colleague’s class, connected with the topic of communicating and working with parents. I was curious — what happens when they record themselves, listen, and they get that feedback?
The implementation went fairly well. The first time, we had some technical glitches. I did it during class time and we had some problems with the app recording the students’ responses. But the second time went much smoother because I did it as homework and then I came in to lead the debrief and discussion. The simulations gave them enough substance and content that I could have a really rich discussion with this group, even as a visiting speaker in the class who the students didn’t know that well. It really spoke to the ability of the content and the tool to make them think and reflect on their practice. The conversation lasted the whole class, and even slightly over time both times, because they had so much to share and offer.
Across both administrations, approximately 71% of students agreed that the activity provided a realistic approximation of a situation they may experience as a teacher. Specific things they liked about Teacher Moments included:
- the real-life scenario
- it puts you on the spot, but it’s very realistic
- I like how it was very realistic and gives you real practice
- I liked the practice, especially with a resistant parent
- I loved this activity and thought it was extremely beneficial, especially for new educators
Ultimately, I’d like to include tools such as Teacher Moments into a “continuum of practice opportunities” for our programs that would support implementation of the High Leverage Practices. The only concern I have is around the technical glitches. I was fortunate that I was able to work with the team at the Teaching Systems Lab throughout my implementation of the tool, and we were able to resolve many of the issues the second time. A feature I would like to see added to the tool is to allow students to access their own transcripts and review them as well.
Practice spaces can be incredibly powerful for both learners and instructors. Practice and feedback is important in helping teacher candidates develop their teaching skills. Many other fields such as medicine and aviation utilize “practice” spaces to help build proficiency and evaluate readiness. The work of teaching is equally complex and critical, and as such warrants the same focus on opportunities for practice. I believe careful thought should be put into how, where, and when practice spaces are utilized. I also feel it is important we evaluate learner outcomes when utilizing these spaces.
