Enhancing educator development through an online simulation

Abstract

This paper presents an approach to educator development through games and simulations. The goal of our project was to help pre-service teachers more effectively bridge the gap, between the theory and practice of teaching. Some criteria for success used were the facilitation a professional dialogue, evidence of an emerging understanding of content delivery and the articulation of workplace culture in the teaching profession. We discuss the theory underpinning of the design, the research approaches used and summarise the findings of our research. In particular, we explain how cognitive load theory was applied to the design of many features of this virtual learning environment. We also briefly summarise six years of research that has consistently found that the virtual learning environment of ClassSim provides an effective way of introducing pre-service teachers to their future work in classrooms.