ABSTRACT
Virtual reality simulation is taking center stage as a next generation environment for teacher professional learning. A virtual reality simulation tool allows pre-service teachers to take risks, build confidence, and refine their pedagogy in a safe environment that does not place real students at risk. Studies of mixed reality environments have been conducted to measure teaching performance, including type and pacing of feedback in the classroom (Brandenburg, Donehower, & Rabuck, 2014) and pedagogical aspects of teaching using constructivist principles through mixed reality in physical education (Neutzling, Richardson, & Sheehy, 2016). In this chapter, we will explore the potential and possibilities of using virtual reality simulation in a physical education teacher education program. An important aspect of virtual reality simulation is the need to create a context of suspended disbelief in which the participant engages ‘in the moment’ with the avatars. Suspended disbelief is the idea that the participant in the simulation is responding as if the avatars are real students/principals with real needs. We will share how one physical education teacher education program has embedded virtual reality simulation throughout their curriculum. The faculty used the virtual rehearsal method in the Mursion simulator to allow pre-service teachers to practice pedagogical skills needed to teach using student-centered approaches to learning; to practice positive proactive steps to behavior management with increasingly off-task students; and to develop needed skills for job interviews. The virtual reality simulation created “problems to be solved,” that required pre-service teachers to integrate their understanding of learners, their content, and their pedagogy. We will share the most salient impacts of using virtual reality simulation and explore how to craft simulations that are aligned with course outcomes. Finally, we will discuss the potential role that virtual reality simulation could play in pre-service teacher development and in K-12 physical education.
Today you have to know more, you have to update what you know more often, and you have to do more creative things with it. (Friedman, 2016, p. 205)
