How virtual students are helping teacher training

For the past seven years, CJ, Ed, Kevin, Maria and Sean—digital avatars created by researchers at the University of Central Florida—have been helping teachers sharpen their instructional skills and learn how to better engage their own students.

As part of a simulated classroom called TeachLivE, the virtual middle schoolers are controlled by a team of “interactors” in Orlando and display all the possible personalities and behaviors that teachers might encounter in their own classrooms—even falling asleep or texting during a lesson if the teacher hasn’t come prepared. The technology, now in place in 50 universities across the country, allows both current and future teachers to practice routines and teaching strategies without negatively impacting a real student’s educational experience.

But teachers aren’t the only ones who can learn in a simulated classroom environment. For example, in the Alexandria City Public Schools, one of three districts working in partnership with TeachLivE, middle and high school students with autism will interact with the avatars to practice social skills. And a new adult avatar named Stacey will stand in as a potential employer so older students with intellectual disabilities can rehearse for job interviews. Stacey can also act as a parent to help teachers prepare for conferences.

In the School District of Osceola County in Florida, Stacey is playing another role—that of a reluctant teacher named “Ms. Adkins” who is not willing to open her classroom to a coach. As part of three-day instructional coaching series, both district and school-level coaches recently worked with Ms. Adkins in the simulator to improve the way they give feedback to teachers. Their goal was to get invited back into the teacher’s classroom for another observation and coaching session.

Cherie Behrens, a faculty member at University of Central Florida who led the training, also modeled coaching strategies with Ms. Adkins for the other coaches. She says that compared to traditional role-playing, TeachLivE “blows everything out of the water,” because the feedback from the avatar is more realistic and the learner has to change his or her behavior “in the moment.”

“Being in the hot seat was a challenge, but what challenges you, grows you!” one coach responded after the experience.

Carl Wallace, a district resource specialist in Osceola County, says Ms. Adkins was extremely convincing.

“When you talk with that avatar, that is a person who knows education,” he says, adding that the simulated coaching sessions are a great tool for helping coaches and even teacher leaders learn how to develop a rapport with the person they are coaching. “Just because you’re a great teacher with students doesn’t mean you’re the best leader with adults.”

Published in collaboration with Impatient Optimists

Author: Linda Jacobson is a freelance education writer based in Southern California.

Image: Joy Cheng, a foreign exchange student from Taipei, Taiwan, listens to her junior high science teacher at Grant-Deuel School in Revillo, South Dakota February 13, 2012. REUTERS/Jim Young