Equity-Focused Coaching Using Mixed-Reality Simulations

• In Event: Equity-Focused Coaching Supports in Virtual Environments

Abstract

During the global pandemic as teacher candidates (TCs) had fewer opportunities to interact with classroom teachers and students in real settings, mixed reality simulations (MRS) provided them a virtual learning space to practice teaching. The use of immersive simulations in virtual K-12 classroom environments creates an opportunity to structure coaching and practice in one context. This paper describes one university’s work using a MRS program, Mursion, with TCs and the coaching practices used during the teaching simulations.

The researchers drew on two coaching approaches as they worked alongside their TCs using MRS. First, the behavioral approach (Knight, 2009) guides coaches in looking closely at TCs teaching behaviors and practices to offer positive reinforcement or corrections. Within virtual simulations, coaches can pause TCs teaching practices and offer refinements to these practices. Additionally, the coaches in this study also drew on an equity-focused coaching framework (Aguilar, 2020) that highlighted the culturally relevant and sustaining (Ladson-Billings, 1995; Paris & Alim, 2017) practices the TCs were working towards.

In this study, TCs in their semester prior to clinical teaching participated in additional coaching sessions outside of but connected to their coursework. Using MRS in this context provided TCs with confidence-building experiences prior to stepping foot in the classroom with students. In these coaching sessions that used virtual simulations, the coaches were focused on determining new and innovative ways that shifted a typical one-on-one coaching model (e.g., coach and TC) towards a more dialogic and inclusive session that drew on the knowledge and expertise of a small group of TCs. To do this, the coaches developed a split page note-taking template to encourage peers in watching and provided feedback for each other as they tried on various teaching scenarios using MRS.

While the split page note-taking device was deemed a cognitive overload by most of the TCs in these coaching sessions, the researchers did find that peer feedback was essential to the TCs’ learner as it allowed for both support and recommendations in a safe space. Focusing on the peers’ coaching inside these sessions, the researchers also found that these sessions offered opportunities for TCs to practice academic language in an authentic way as they noticed and named specific, culturally relevant teaching strategies as their peers participated in the simulations. Overall, the findings suggest that these simulated spaces provide opportunities for coaches and peers to support TCs in identifying multiple ways to approach problems of practice in teaching and continue to center issues of equity and justice in the classroom.

As teacher education and the field of coaching continues to move towards a space of hybridity, equity-focused coaches will also continue to find ways to leverage technology to support TCs as they learn to teach. Virtual simulations allow coaches to focus TCs’ practices on culturally relevant and sustaining practices as well as draw on the knowledge and experiences of their peers. Working together, coaches and TCs will continue to innovate new practices that move the needle on equity-focused teaching.

Authors

• Veronica L. Estrada, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley

• Criselda Garcia, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley