Classroom Simulations with Harvard’s Agile Teacher Lab
Harvard Graduate School of Education / KID smART
Sean Glazebrook & Aminisha Ferdinand
In addition to teaching this year, I have had the opportunity to work on a contract between KID smART and Dr Rhonda Bondie’s Agile Teacher Lab/Reach Every Reader at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. The Agile Teacher Lab is focused on using a VR software called Mursion to simulate a classroom environment. Teachers from all over the world can log in using Zoom and are presented with an instructional coach named Bennett who guides them through the process of teaching to a group of middle school students.
Teachers take professional learning courses before using the software in order to prepare them to focus on certain pedagogical techniques. Once a teacher logs on to a Mursion simulation, they deliver a short lesson plan to a classroom full of entirely interactive students who respond with a variety of realistic, calibrated behaviors and academic answers.
The twist in all this? As a simulation specialist, I control all aspects of the classroom. Utilizing voice modulation software, an IR tracker to realistically showcase my movements, and a series of hotkeys and shortcuts I switch between acting as each individual student as well as Bennett, the instructional coach.
This work is highly complex and requires complete concentration and quick thinking. It’s fascinating work in part because of my background – I draw equally on my professional training as an actor and my many years of experience as an instructional coach. When a teacher delivers a certain instruction, for example, I must quickly process that instruction in character as a given student (or students!). I react not only realistically in character but with a small ‘push’ as I use my instructional coaching knowledge to send a subtle signal to the teacher that their directions should perhaps continue to build (or stop building!) in a certain direction.
This type of training became absolutely invaluable during the pandemic. So many teachers were forced throughout the past year and a half to teach through a screen to students either in a classroom or at home. The Agile Teacher Lab simulations provided instructors with multiple, carefully crafted opportunities to practice their online teaching techniques as well as many pedagogical moves that would be perfectly at home in an in-person classroom.
The response from teacher participants has been overwhelmingly positive, with many instructors connecting with the realism of the simulations as well as the targeted, specialized instructional coaching that they receive after their lessons. It’s exciting, challenging work!
