Virtual pupils make for more confident teachers
2021-06-22
(Press-News.org) Teacher training students who practised teaching virtual pupils developed greater confidence in their teaching ability, according to a study from Linköping University. In the long term, simulation can make the students better prepared for their workforce debut.
Teacher training programmes often have difficulty offering their students sufficient teaching practice for their future profession. Many teaching graduates feel unprepared when they start working, and some decide to change career path, despite good employment prospects caused by a teacher shortage.
A group of researchers at Linköping University investigated whether teaching virtual pupils could make teacher training students better prepared for teaching in a real classroom.
"By teaching virtual pupils, the students felt that they were better prepared and had more confidence in their ability", says Marcus Samuelsson, associate professor at the Department of Behavioural Sciences and Learning at Linköping University.
The results of the study were recently published in the Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, JTATE.
The researchers compared three different teaching methods, and the effects of these on the teaching students' belief in their ability to teach. The students were divided into three groups, and then taught a mathematics class to real pupils, to their student peers, or to virtual pupils.
The students' efficacy beliefs in their teaching ability was measured before and after the training.
The results showed that training with virtual pupils was more efficient than training with real pupils. Three hours of training with a simulator increased the students' confidence in their ability just as much as three weeks of training with real pupils. Compared to training with their student peers, training with virtual pupils led to considerably higher efficacy beliefs in teaching ability.
The advantage of virtual training is the ability to get direct feedback, from the virtual pupils, from the student peers who take part in the virtual classroom and from the two teachers in attendance. Training with virtual pupils made it possible to discuss classroom management and different mathematics teaching situations, when they arose, in a way that cannot be done over the heads of real pupils, and which the teacher training students are not used to.
"Virtual pupils cannot replace encounters with real pupils. Our study is quite small, but in the future I think we will see more simulations as a complement in teacher education" says Marcus Samuelsson.
The study calls for more research that studies pre-service teachers in virtual classrooms in various school subjects.
INFORMATION:
About the virtual classroom:
Each student taught five virtual pupils in a virtual classroom for a total of three hours. The virtual pupils were guided by a simulation specialist who gave feedback on the mathematics content and the classroom management of the teaching students. The teaching was conducted with support of the TeachLivE simulation software.
[Attachments] See images for this press release:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2021-06-22
Wouldn't it be amazing if printed images can look three-dimensional (3D)? Unfortunately, conventional prints like photographs display two-dimensional (2D) images with a fixed appearance as they contain only intensity and colour information. These prints are unable to display a 3D image because they lack directional control of light rays, hence resulting in the loss of depth information.
To address this problem, a team of researchers from the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) used a nanoscale 3D printing technique to create high-resolution light field prints ...
2021-06-22
A research team led by Professor Jang-Sik Lee of Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) has successfully developed the halide perovskite-based memory with ultra-fast switching speed. The findings from this study were published in Nature Communications on June 10, 2021.
Resistive switching memory is a promising contender for next-generation memory device due to its advantages of simple structure and low power consumption. Various materials have been previously studied for resistive switching memory. Among them, halide perovskites are receiving much attention for use in the memory because of low operation voltage and high on/off ratio. However, halide perovskite-based ...
2021-06-22
People who have contact with other social groups are more likely to be committed to social justice. However, an international study led by the University of Zurich has shown that for this to be the case, power relations and discrimination must be actively addressed and group-specific needs must be met. It is important that disadvantaged group members, such as racial minorities and LGBTIQ+ individuals, are given a voice, and that those who belong to advantaged groups do not feel labeled as biased.
People who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against because they belong to a particular group often join forces with other disadvantaged people to fight together for better rights. Prominent examples of such political engagement are the women's rights movement, Black Lives ...
2021-06-22
Rather than levelling inequality, as the Great Depression did, the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated inequalities around the world allowing some wealthy investors to benefit from the crisis and make a fortune on the misfortune of others.
During March to December last year, U.S. billionaires increased their wealth by over one-third, to one trillion dollars, while millions of Americans faced deep financial hardship.
New research from Copenhagen Business School has examined how American "shadow banks"- which are less regulated and include private credit intermediaries such as private equity, venture capital, and hedge fund firms - have invested in ways that extract profit from the misfortunes of frontline workers, struggling companies, ...
2021-06-22
People who have experienced childhood trauma get a more pleasurable "high" from morphine, new research suggests.
University of Exeter scientists compared the effects of morphine on 52 healthy people - 27 with a history of childhood abuse and neglect, and 25 who reported no such experiences in childhood.
Those with childhood trauma liked morphine (an opioid drug) more, felt more euphoric and had a stronger desire for another dose.
Those with no childhood trauma were more likely to dislike the effects and feel dizzy or nauseous.
"There are high rates of childhood trauma in people with addictions. Our findings ...
2021-06-22
Warm mix asphalt (WMA) is gaining attention in the asphalt industry as an eco-friendly and sustainable technology. WMA reduces energy consumption while simultaneously minimizing vapors and greenhouse gas emissions during the production of asphalt mixtures in comparison to conventional asphalt. However, high moisture susceptibility and ageing of asphalt make WMA less durable on the roads.
To address both issues in WMA technology, a team from the Energy Safety Research Institute (ESRI) at Swansea University and Braunschweig Pavement Engineering Centre (ISBS) at the Technical University of Braunschweig have discovered ...
2021-06-22
Listening to music while running might be the key to improving people's performance when they feel mentally fatigued a study suggests.
The performance of runners who listened to a self-selected playlist after completing a demanding thinking task was at the same level as when they were not mentally fatigued, the research found.
The study is the first to investigate the effect of listening to music playlists on endurance running capacity and performance when mentally fatigued.
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh used two tests to study how listening to music affected the running performance of ...
2021-06-22
Skoltech researchers and their colleagues from Russia and Serbia have reviewed almost a thousand patents held by some two hundred organizations involved in the New Space economy. The analysis helped draw a comprehensive picture of technology trends in the field. The paper was published in the journal Progress in Aerospace Sciences.
"New Space" is a loosely defined term that encompasses the recent flurry of space-related activities coming from smaller actors rather than a handful of space-faring nations. Put somewhat simply, while the Apollo missions were more traditional, SpaceX, Rocket Lab (launching small satellites from New Zealand) or LeoLabs (a space junk tracking company) are undeniably parts of a new and different ...
2021-06-22
In 2020, as many states of emergency were declared around the world during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic as there were in the entire previous decade. The influence of neighbouring countries on each other, weak democracies and poor pandemic preparedness are some of the explanations, according to research from the University of Gothenburg and Stockholm University.
A state of emergency is a situation in which a country's ordinary laws and rights are suspended and authorities are given increased powers. A state of emergency is declared by the government of a country, often as a result of war, civil unrest or natural disasters. The introduction of a curfew is ...
2021-06-22
Protected Satellite Communications (SatComs) exhibit specific characteristics such as security, intelligence, anti-jamming, and nuclear disaster survivability. They constitute one of the key research topics in modern communications. Currently, the United States is using the latest Advanced Extremely High-Frequency (AEHF) system to provide protected communications. Other countries are also employing their own protected SatCom systems to meet future operational requirements. Furthermore, in the modern intelligent age, many intelligent-related technologies are introduced into the protected SatCom ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Virtual pupils make for more confident teachers
