Project Prepare!: A Preschool Classroom Simulation to Foster Teachers’ Skill Development in Positive Teacher-Child Interactions

EasyChair Preprint no. 1003

Abstract

Project Prepare! is a professional development training program for preschool teachers that includes tutorials for knowledge development, web-based inter-active simulation for skill acquisition and practice, and in-class coaching and feedback. The interactive simulation is a first-person, interactive environment that places the teacher inside a typical preschool classroom populated with ten students represented as virtual, animated characters. The virtual children are diverse, eliciting a range of emotions, behaviors, and cognitive abilities. Several of the children elicit behaviors that are suspect for possible disabilities or at-risk for disabilities due to behavioral difficulties, delays in language and social communication skills, or delays in learning. The simulation allows the teacher to practice seven key teacher-child strategies that have been linked to positive affective, behavioral, and cognitive outcomes for young learners. There are over 14 scenarios that may be experienced with or without coaching from a simulated preschool director. Teacher interactions are scored, and when the preschool director coaching is activated, the teacher receives prompts, hints, and coaching feedback. When coaching is turned off, the teacher sees realistic responses to interactions that either diffuse or escalate problems in the classroom. The simulation can be used to facilitate meaningful training that supports typical interactions, natural consequences, and real-time feedback in the form of a simulated coach.

Keyphrases: Classroom Simulation, preschool teachers, Virtual Children

@Booklet{EasyChair:1003,
  author = {Ginger S. Watson and Yiannis E. Papelis and Peggy P. Hester and Lisa L. Morin and Sabra Gear},
  title = {Project Prepare!: A Preschool Classroom Simulation to Foster Teachers’ Skill Development in  Positive Teacher-Child Interactions},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint no. 1003},

  year = {EasyChair, 2019}}