Assessing Pedagogical Balance in a Simulated Classroom Environment

Abstract

SimSchool, an online simulator that has been used to enhance teacher preparation since 2003, models different types of students and provides virtual practice sessions for teachers to assign tasks and interact with students. In this paper the authors: 1) examine changes in pre-service teacher perceptions of teaching confidence and teaching experience resulting from simSchool use, and 2) report findings from recent studies of a new proposed measure for simSchool data, pedagogical balance. Pedagogical balance is a difference score that measures pre-service teachers’ self-reported levels of confidence minus experience which indicates a level of alignment in self-evaluation when balancing one’s perceptions of capabilities and experience. Findings from two studies show that pre-service teachers significantly (p \textless .05) improve pedagogical balance, and increase awareness of effective teaching skills through simSchool training.