In a simulation, however, this can be done. Simulation is a way to recreate reality in a controlled environment. This is how, for example, doctors, pilots and firefighters get the necessary training before being put in real-life situations. Why not teachers too?
Together with colleagues from computer science, Marcus Samuelsson and Gunnel Colnerud apply for funding to develop Sweden’s first simulation for teachers. They secure the money and create a text-based and a sound-based simulation that work something like an interactive radio drama.
Participants are grouped in pairs and play the role of Robert, a teacher with fifteen years of experience. For example, they might be told that it is Tuesday morning, the first lesson of the day, and two pupils are missing. What should Robert do? Once they have chosen an option, they hear the pupils’ reactions. The two participants can think over and discuss how they react and why they make the choices they make – and go back, try other options and repeat the process until they are satisfied.
First in Europe to use virtual simulation
In the simulation, a teaching student meets one to eight pupils in the form of avatars with different personalities. One of them is shy, one is very task-focused, one interrupts all the time. The program is dynamic, and pupils react differently to the teaching student’s leadership. Afterwards, the student receives immediate feedback from teachers with specialist skills, which is difficult to accomplish in a normal classroom.
The immediate response to their actions is very much appreciated by the teaching students. Unlike on their placements, it is possible to choose the situations in which they are trained. In the simulation, they are challenged on central aspects of teaching. It takes place in a permissive environment where mistakes can be made without anyone – pupil or avatar – getting sad or hurt.
LiU is at the forefront when it comes to simulation in teacher education. One study has shown that three hours of simulation training contributes as much to the feeling that you can teach as three weeks of placement training. This feeling is important to have, not least when the teacher is to work with sensitive issues such as the Holocaust, freedom of expression or hate speech. These are subjects that quite a few new teachers avoid because they do not feel safe teaching about them.
And there is no doubt that pupils deserve teachers who have been able to test and train, get to know their own reactions and reflect on what they could do differently. Just as air passengers want the pilot to have spent many hours in a flight simulator before flying a real aircraft.