Non Task-Specific Training

Project OverviewIn this four-year project called Developing Preservice Elementary Teachers' Ability to Facilitate Goal-Oriented Discussions in Science and Mathematics via the Use of Simulated Classroom Interactions (GO Discuss), Educational Testing Service and Mursion developed, piloted, and validated a set of performance-based tasks delivered within a simulated classroom environment in order to improve preservice elementary teachers’ ability to orchestrate discussions. These tasks provided opportunities for preservice teachers in science and mathematics to facilitate discussions with five upper elementary student avatars (fifth grade) where the focus is on disciplinary argumentation within two content domains: fractions (mathematics) and structure/properties of matter (science). The overall goal of this research was to develop a validity basis for the use of such tools as formative assessment tasks that can be integrated within educator preparation programs to increase the amount, variety, and quality of clinical practice opportunities currently available to preservice elementary teachers. This specific data project includes materials for non-task specific simulation specialist training. A simulation specialist serves as the “human-in-the-loop” during each simulated discussion. The simulation specialist is trained to provide student responses and control the movements of the student avatars in the simulated classroom. The non-task specific training teaches simulation specialists about the five student avatars and their unique vocal and background profiles. We also provided training on specific guidelines, called simulation discussion guidelines, that include information on standard protocols we wanted all simulation specialists to follow during the discussions for how to respond to the teacher’s prompting (or lack of prompting) to engage the students in direct peer-to-peer interactions. The non-task specific training also included instruction on how to set up and use the various technology components, including how to video record the pre-service teachers’ discussion performances and how to use the shared workspace. The task-specific simulation specialist training for each task can be found in that task's respective data project. For a complete description of the broader “Go Discuss” project, including a list of files for each task, as well as to read the detailed Terms of Use, please start by reading the Data Overview file. Some files appear in different formats with identical content. This is intentional. ETS wants to encourage adaptation of the deposited materials (which might be easier to implement in Word documents), but also wants to ensure that images and math notations are rendered correctly for secondary users (best preserved in PDF).