Welcome to SimAULA!

Imagine a classroom where you can learn how to teach or practice to teach more effectively. Imagine teaching in a friendly, safe and controlled environment that meet your needs and allow you to experiment on different teaching strategies and techniques on virtual students that behave as real. Imagine being able to design authentic learning experiences based on your own daily work experiences. 

Would you like to test your lesson before implementing it into your classroom and identify any possible mistakes? Would you like to maximize the academic performance of your classroom via constant training? Would you like to maximize your teaching expertize and enhance your self-efficacy, self-esteem and confidence?

SimAULA can help you enhance your classroom and behavior management skills within a safe and fun virtual classroom environment. During the game you are the teacher and you will have the opportunity to experience a rich variety of real-life classroom situation scenarios. You have the ability to decide the topic for your lesson, the methods and strategies to be used, the time and equipment for your lesson. SimAULA is a challenging game offering endless possibilities for development through constant practice and reflection. 

SimAULA will help you understand the factors that can affect positively or negatively the performance of your students improving your teaching effectiveness. Additionally, through practice you will enhance your classroom management skills and learn to understand the needs of your students in order to adjust your lesson to their learning needs.

Your decisions during the game will have an impact on the students’ performance and motivation. You will have to take the appropriate course of action in order to retain the attention of your class and deal with problematic behaviors. At the end of the game you will receive your performance and feedback based on the decision you made during the game.

Introduction

The last few years, the rapid development of technology revolutionized the educational process and introduced new and innovative ways of teaching and learning. Today, education is considered to be a key factor for economic growth, job-creation, productivity and prosperity and thus, investment in skills and competencies is a top priority in the European agenda. However, the transformation of the educational systems cannot be achieved without the contribution of teachers.

Regardless the implementation of technology in education and the use of new and innovative tools and strategies the teacher still remains the key wheel of education. European Unions’ strategic framework ‘Rethinking Education’ (2012a), requires high-quality and well-trained teachers that will help the learners develop the 21^st century skills and competences needed for a sustainable and prosperous future in the labour market. According to the European Commission (2012b), the initial teacher education cannot equip teachers with all the necessary skills and competencies. Undoubtedly, today teachers face enormous and constantly changing challenges and ‘need a strong commitment to training’ (European Commission, 2012a: 11) as it is essential to revise and strengthen their professional development throughout their career.

Computer-based approaches in teacher learning

Computer-based learning is not a new phenomenon but it is an integral part of the teaching and learning process in many training programs in fields such as medicine, military, police and business. Computer-based learning promotes the active participation of learners within a simulated environment that offers a realistic, authentic, engaging and interactive learning experience.   

There is a growing demand for the use of computer-based methods in teacher training due to their ability to provide realistic environments that represent real-life situations that would be impractical or impossible to undertake in the physical world. The traditional teacher training curriculum overemphasizes to the theoretical pedagogical knowledge offering limited practical experience. As a result teachers are in many cases unable to confront the difficulties relative to classroom and behavioral management issues. The use of serious games can address the lack of practice in teacher training and bridge the gap between theory and practice.

Moreover, teachers’ practice has an impact on student learning and therefore it is essential to train teachers in a safe and controlled environment, with room for error since the mistakes within the virtual environment limit the possibility of harming real students. Moreover, teachers have the ability to learn by experimentation, reflect on their decisions and their impact on students’ performance and re-play the game using different teaching strategies.

SimAULA: Serious Gaming in Teacher Training  

SimAULA in incorporated into the Inspiring Science Education Academy within the Open Discovery Space (ODS) portal, as a training tool for teachers and pre-service teachers that allows practice in a safe and fun environment. SimAULA is a serious game that offers teachers a virtual classroom learning environment designed to offer real-life situations during the different scenarios that might arise in a real classroom. The user takes the role of the teacher in the virtual classroom and is required to make effective decisions relative to the organization of the lesson, classroom management and management of student problem behaviors.    

SimAULA allow teachers to ‘learn by doing’ within a friendly environment, where they can play, experiment, make mistakes and learn thought reflection. The use of SimAULA in teacher training will reduce the anxiety related to errors and failure. The learner does not have to worry about the consequences of his/her mistakes as in a real classroom setting where mistakes can have a negative impact not only to the performance of the students but also to the career, self-esteem and self-efficacy of the educator.

SimAULA is available both for windows and Mac. The SimAULA game support the English language but there will be a version translated to Greek.

Useful link: SimAULA training activity

References

European Commission (2012a). Rethinking Education: Investing in skills for better socio-economic outcomes, COM(2012) 669/3.

European Commission (2012b). Supporting the Teaching Professions for Better Learning Outcomes. Strasbourg, 20.11.2012. SWD (2012) 374 final.