Gamifying Mixed-Reality Simulations

• In Event: Playful Practice Spaces: Innovative Approaches for Next Generation Teacher Education

Abstract

Overview
Research shows that using mixed-reality simulations in teacher education programs, through which pre- and in-service teachers practice new techniques by teaching student avatars, holds a lot of promise. Just four ten-minute mixed-reality simulation sessions led to an increase in student teachers using the technique practiced in their field work (Straub, et al. 2014). However, re-conceptualizing this virtual environment as a gaming platform instead of as a simple rehearsal space allows student teachers to explore and experiment with different techniques instead of just mimicking them. Because every teacher is unique, as is every class, it is essential for teachers to have pedagogical flexibility. To do so, teachers must have more than just semantic knowledge of teaching; they must have conditional knowledge in order to know when and how to apply various teaching strategies. Conditional knowledge is developed through experiential learning and, I would argue, experimental learning as well.

Frameworks
While many have written about using games as teaching tools, David Williamson Shaffer’s (2006) case-studies that use “performance before competence” (Cazden, 1981) to develop what he calls “epistemic frames”, or expert knowledge, gets at the root of what distinguishes a game from an intelligent tutoring system. While an intelligent tutoring system teaches, tests, and adapts, games involve players learning while playing the game. They do so by positing hypotheses, testing those hypotheses, and revising those hypotheses. Playful practice spaces are made for just such experimentation. As such, designing mixed-reality sessions where students are given an initial game-state in the form of a scenario (such as “During a class discussion on climate change, CJ takes Kevin’s cell phone out of his backpack and discovers he has been taking pictures of her cleavage and sending them to his friends. The argument that ensues disrupts the class discussion to the point that the teacher must address it”) and a goal state (in this case, being able to return to the climate change discussion) allows students to experiment with different techniques to try to achieve the goal. It is this experimentation with various scenarios that allows student teachers to develop conditional knowledge based on experiences. A primary means of learning is experiential learning (Brown, 2000; Bransford, et al., 2000).

Challenges
The biggest challenges were time and money. Student teachers expressed that they wanted to be able to practice teaching a full fifty-minute lesson by themselves; however, the amount of class time and the money this would take was prohibitive. Instead, the class made the most of teaching for ten-minute segments.

Insights
What was equally important to the experiences themselves was the debriefing afterwards. In fact, the “after action review” became a playful practice space in and of itself as student teachers discussed alternative approaches that time did not allow them to explore. Mistakes such as accidentally flirting with a student avatar or crying became learning opportunities that provided fodder for intense discussions in ways that bringing up those topics in the abstract would not.

Author

• Janna Jackson Kellinger, University of Massachusetts - Boston