Using a Computerized Classroom Simulator to Prepare Educators of Gifted Students: Year 2 Update

1. Using a Computerized Classroom Simulator to Prepare Educators of Gifted Students: Year 2 Update Amber Ellison Tandra Tyler-Wood, Ph.D. Sita Periathiruvadi Department of Educational Psychology University of North Texas

2. Welcome! An Overview • What is simSchool? • Literature Review • Research Questions • Methods • Participants • Materials • Procedures • Results • Discussion

3. New teacher challenges Including students with disabilities Differentiating instruction Professional development Technology integration Adapt instruction Planning curriculum Assess students’ learning Classroom management

4. Traditional Practicum • Issues: • Limited exposure to certain group of learners • Difficulty in placing student teachers in schools • Difficulty to find mentor teachers Other issues: • New teacher challenges leading to attrition, • Severe shortage of special education teachers – need for “highly qualified teachers”, • increasingly diverse student populations.

5. Virtual Practicum Virtual practicum can replace the school practicum or serve as a pre-practicum program (Yoon, 2007). Simulations have a great potential to be used as a “Virtual Practicum” for new teachers and be incorporated as a part of teacher education programs. -> Safe environment to practice teaching skills without breaking “real students” ->instant feedback on students’ learning and practicum participant’s teaching. -> helps to move novice teachers -> seasoned teachers in a short time frame.

6. Flight Simulation http://io9.com/5288859/7-virtual-reality-technologies-that-actually-work

7. Simulations in Medical field http://io9.com/5288859/7-virtual-reality-technologies-that-actually-work

8. And now….Classroom Simulation Image from simschool.org

9. What is simSchool? • A web-based classroom simulation. • Pre-service teachers can work with: • Students with varying personality characteristics • Students with varying academic strengths and needs • Different levels of lesson tasks : recall, skill, strategic thinking and extended thinking

10. More Than Just a Game • SimSchool based on Five Factor Model of Personality (McCrae & Costa, 1996) • Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism (OCEAN) • Synthesizes theoretical frameworks of: • instructional leadership • interpersonal psychology, and • behaviorist teaching models • Provides a computer program which operates like a simulation game

11. Creating a student avatar

12. Creating a lesson task • Click to edit Master text styles • Second level • Third level • Fourth level • Fifth level

13. Setting up a Simulation

14. Sample Classroom Roster Each student has a profile that helps the teacher to find the best assignments.

15. Running a Simulation Laptop shows class profiles You click the bell to assign tasks or comments

16. simSchool Results Data you view after completing a simulation.

17. Why Research Simulations? • Online teacher education programs are HERE (Allen & Seaman, 2008) • Computerized teaching simulations are HERE • Approved by NCATE & TEA as pre-practicum experience • How can we leverage simulations to positively impact special populations?

18. What we know about simulations • Positive effects on learning, intellectual skills, cognitive strategies, critical thinking, problem solving, drawing conclusions, gaining computer literacy. (Akilli, 2007) • Understanding that alignment requires the simultaneous consideration of context, outcomes, instruction, adaptations, and assessment. (Girod & Girod, 2008) • Heightened awareness of the need to individualize and the challenges inherent. (Girod & Girod, 2008)

19. What we know about simSchool • SimSchool users working with simStudents with disabilities (Peak et al, 2009): • Higher perceived preparation for teaching. • Valued simulations and computer games more for education pre to post.

20. What we know about pre-service teachers • Teachers’ attitudes and expectations matter (Nicely, Small & Furman, 1980; Buttery, 1978; Whitmore, 1988, as cited in Megay-Nespoli, 2001) • Hold various misconceptions about giftedness (Megay-Nespoli, 2001), but can be remedied with specialized training. • Positive attitudes toward technology lead to use of technology in teaching (Scott & Rockwell, 1997) and as a tool for learning with students (Brosnan, 1998). (As cited in VanTassel-Baska & Johnsen, 2007)

21. Research Questions • Does simSchool participation effect opinions and beliefs about gifted education? • Do participants value computer games and simulations more after using simSchool? • What pre-existing characteristics best predict simulation outcomes?

22. Methods – Participants • Grad (n=32) • EDSP 5105 “Nature and Needs of the Gifted and Talented” • UG (n=51) • EDSP 3210 “Educational Aspects of Exceptional Learners” • Control (n=48) • Undergraduates

23. Materials – Opinions about Gifted Survey • Opinions about the Gifted and their Education scale (OGE) (McCoach & Siegle, 2007; Gagne & Nadeau, 1991) • Subscale 1: Support. • Subscale 2: Elitism. • Subscale 3: Acceleration. • Subscale 4: Self-Perceptions.

24. Procedures • OGE pre-assessment • Five video tutorials • Practice simulation to become familiar with program operation • Created a gifted student and work with this student in the simulated classroom • Answered discussion questions about their gifted student and simulation experience • OGE post-assessment

25. Repeated Measures ANOVAs • No significant differences pre-post between graduates, undergraduates and controls. • But, interesting data patterns emerged.

26. Repeated Measures ANOVA - Support Support Pre-Post

27. Discussion ISE Pre-Post

28. Value of Computer Games

29. Predicting Support for Gifted Education - Regression results

30. Discussion • Possible issue with developmental appropriateness of this activity? • Simpler activity with “create a student with a disability” was more effective for undergraduates. • Pre-service teacher lack of understanding about gifted education?

31. Feedback from Undergraduates “So my kid was a brat and was disruptive basically the entire time. I did not expect this behavior as I gave him high scores on agreeableness and other "good" qualities.”

32. Feedback from Undergraduates “I thought my gifted student was going to be the easiest student in my class. I was very wrong!! All she did was sit there and disrupt the other students and do homework from other classes.”

33. Contrasting Feedback from Graduates “My gifted student also exhibited disruptive behavior and more than I expected. I found individual task to be helpful and even though her response was negative, she seemed to improve slightly on intellect.”

34. Contrasting Feedback from Graduates “I believe that this is a student who has potential but he is suffering in a regular’s class he needs to be in a program where he could work at his own pace and were the assignments are more activities oriented and less lecture oriented.”

35. Contrasting Feedback from Disability Related Activity “He did not like the general class assignments because they involved involvement with other students. I did assign him individual tasks such as apply a formula, but I think that might have been too difficult for Jay.”

36. Contrasting Feedback from Disability Related Activity “And from the profiles my students are acting as expected. Many of them are distracted easily or don't want to work and their profile states that. Most of them say that they work well as a team so I put them in group assignments.”

37. Current Research Design • Administer Survey of Practices With Students of Varying Needs (National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented, 1995) • Tap into perceived skill level with special populations. • New Research Question • Does amount of gain pre-post simulation differ based on developmental level of participants?

38. Methods UG (n=50) EDSP 3210 “Educational Aspects of Exceptional Learners” Pre-Assessment SOP & OGE SimSchool Website Issues Post-Assessment (n=13)

39. Agree The regular curriculum will challenge all students if the teacher is interesting and exciting.

40. Agree Work that is too easy or boring frustrates a gifted child just as work that is too difficult frustrates an average learner.

41. Agree If a gifted student is doing poorly in spelling, it is necessary to deal with the weakness in spelling before presenting more advanced content in other areas.

42. Agree Gifted students should be encouraged to direct their own learning.

43. Disagree Gifted students can make it on their own without teacher direction.

44. Disagree An effective way to identify gifted students is to look for students with the highest grades.

45. Disagree Gifted students need longer assignments since they work faster.

46. Disagree Allowing gifted students to work on assignments that are different from the rest of the students is playing favorites and fostering elitism.

47. Disagree Removing special education and gifted students from the classroom for special classes is disruptive to the class schedule.

48. Disagree Working too hard in school leads to burn-out in gifted students.

49. Inconclusive Gifted students are easy to identify in the classroom.

50. Inconclusive In teaching gifted students, teachers should modify the content only, since all students need to use the same processes and can generate the same projects.