2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Teacher Moments, a teaching simulation platform funded by two NSF grants in the Divisions of Research on Learning (# 2037983) and Computer and Information Science and Engineering (# 1917668), has been used to help teachers practice facilitating argument-based discussions and moderating design discussions. We present two research studies in which Teacher Moments has been used to help pre-service teachers practice facilitating argument based discussions and provide an opportunity for teachers to practice facilitating a difficult discussion on genetic engineering.

First, Teacher Moments has been used to help pre-service math and science teachers practice facilitating argument based discussions. In an on-going research study, pre-service teachers are provided with an online practice suite of virtual reality, avatar-based, and Teacher Moments simulations. As pre-service teachers engage in scenarios through Teacher Moments, they practice encouraging students to form arguments, discuss and critique their logic with peers, and communicate their reasonings. Furthermore, the Teacher Moments simulation is being used as pre/post assessment to evaluate and measure the knowledge gained through the online practice suite of simulations.

Second, Teacher Moments has been used to create a choose-your-own-adventure style simulation in which a high school teacher facilitates a discussion with students about the ethics of genetic engineering. In this design, the simulation participant selects teacher dialogue options in speaking to students as a way to practice different kinds of facilitation styles and techniques. In a pilot study on this simulation, we found that participants with less teaching experience more frequently chose teacher dialogue choices that kept the teacher in control of the conversation as compared to more experienced participants who tended to center the students and their ideas in the conversation. This design suggests a way for novice teachers to practice facilitating difficult discussions with students and could be used as a way to train instructors to become more comfortable with introducing difficult discussions into STEM classrooms.

In these two studies, we show that the design in this teaching simulation platform can be used to train STEM teachers in the facilitation of classroom discussions and argument based discussions between students.