ITSpotlight is designed to keep the campus up to date on ITS activities and services.
SIUE's Virtual Practice Lab
Posted March 7, 2018
By: Niki Glick
Last month, I sat in on a classroom simulation where SIUE education majors practiced their teaching skills using SIUE's Virtual Practice Lab, formerly known as TeachLivE. The early education majors were teaching a group of 7-year-old "students" the definition of a new word. But the "students" in this simulation were actually adult actors in some other location, trained to emulate real elementary children: disrupting class by falling asleep, talking to their neighbors, and struggling to understand the definition of the word they were learning.
Dr. Susanne James, assistant professor of special education and communication disorders, was quoted in an SIUE news article saying: “We’re approximating what it’s going to be like in a classroom setting. We allow our pre-service and in-service teachers to try new teaching strategies in a way that’s less threatening and offers immediate feedback.” The Virtual Practice Lab can also be used by teaching students to practice communicating with parents in preparation for parent-teacher conferences.
Teachers aren't the only ones who can benefit from the technology, however. The Virtual Practice Lab might be used by nursing students practicing bedside manner or psychology students working to improve their therapy skills, for example. The applications are only limited by your imagination.
To explore options on how students in your discipline might benefit from this tool, contact Instructional Design and Learning Technologies (IDLT) at 618-650-5500 or email idlt_center@siue.edu.
