Gaming: A Platform for Teacher Training

Practice what you teach. That's the slogan that appears at the top of every page of ClassroomSim.com, the home of teaching simulation games. More than just a clever play on words, the slogan encapsulates the simple idea: The more practice teachers get in front of the classroom, the better they'll be.

Ever since the release of SimCity in 1989, simulation games have been a major presence in the world of video gaming. From social games like the SimCity spin-off The Sims, to more exotic titles that let you portray amusement park moguls, alien gods or medieval warlords, the entertainment value of simulations is readily apparent. But what about simulators value as educational tools? Can they be used to teach skills that will translate to the real world? Of course they can -- they've been doing it for years.

Flight simulators -- which have been used in one form or another practically since the birth of powered flight -- are an obvious example of the positive educational benefits of simulations. Who wouldn't want a trainee pilot to log a few hundred hours on high-tech simulator before actually taking to the skies with a plane full of passengers? Flight simulators are routinely employed at every level of flight training, from single engine planes to space shuttles.

And it's not just pilots using simulators. Engineers and architects use them to analyze and correct structural flaws before their projects ever leave the drawing board. Movie directors can now visualize and map out complicated special effects sequences before a single frame of film has been exposed. And the medical profession has a long and illustrious history of using simulators: from ancient clay and stone models of the human form, to the highly sophisticated, three-dimensional computer models used in modern medical schools. Though having medical students operate on human cadavers is macabre, it is also a particularly effective form of simulation.

Which brings us to the field of education. Surely something so important to the present and future well-being of our entire society deserves to reap the rewards of technological advancement. And that's where Dr. Ruby K. Payne and aha! Process, Inc. come in.

Dr. Ruby K. Payne is an author, speaker and publisher with over 30 years of experience in education. Starting in 1972, Dr. Payne worked in the public school system as a teacher, department head, principal and administrator, and gained a reputation for her work with students from impoverished backgrounds. Her book, A Framework for Understanding Poverty, is considered by many to be a seminal work on education and its relationship to poverty and has sold over a million copies since it was published in 1995. In that same year, Dr. Payne founded aha! Process, Inc. -- named for the "aha!" moment that she often saw on people's faces when explaining her philosophies -- to further her mission "to positively impact the education and lives of individuals in poverty throughout the world."

The organization has grown to the point that it now includes 25 employees, over 75 presenters, and has certified more than 7,000 people as trainers in Dr. Payne's Framework techniques. She has written or co-authored over a dozen books, including Working with Students: Discipline Strategies for the Classroom -- the book that serves as the inspiration for, and companion to, the Classroom SIMs. In fact, by the end of 2005, one of the few things that Dr. Payne hadn't done was help design a video game; that changed after a chance meeting at a party in December of that year.

Nancy Sturm was named "science teacher of the year" for the state of Iowa in 1993, where she taught sixth grade for 13 years. In 1994, following a move to West Virginia, she took on a position as CEO of the Challenger Learning Center in Wheeling and served in that capacity for more than 10 years. During that time, she helped train crews for other Challenger centers opening up across the country, and developed and authored much of the Learning Center curriculum.

While at the Challenger Center, Sturm developed and authored a program that uses digital technology and connectivity to allow students who might not have easy access to a Challenger Center to take part in the simulations. These programs, called "e-Missions," allow the Challenger Center to reach students in every corner of the world.

Eventually, Sturm left the Challenger Center and took a position as the education technology advisor to the governor of West Virginia, and in that capacity, at a Christmas party at the Governor's Mansion in 2005, she met Dr. Payne. According to Sturm, she and Dr. Payne spent the entire party sitting in a corner, talking about education and the various projects that they were involved in. At some point in the evening, the idea of a video simulation game for teachers was first discussed.

Inspired by her work with simulations and her research into gaming, Sturm thought it would be a good idea to develop a game for teachers. "The research indicated that teachers were only looking at games as entertainment, and not an educational component -- since most of them had no first-hand experience of gaming."

In a post on aha! Process' blog titled "Why Not Simulations? Break The Barriers" dated June 12, 2007, Sturm shared some of her thoughts on the use of simulations in education:

Simulations are not just another in the long line of passing fads in education technology; rather, they are a real key to helping our students understand the world...

Teachers need to be reminded that simulation is how today's real scientists work. Many other professionals actually learn their job skills through simulated learning environments as well. Most teachers have never experienced simulations as learners and are therefore unaware of their power and importance.

Dr. Payne had also been intrigued by the possibility of using digital technology and gaming in education.

"I was very interested in the gaming idea for training because we have a 30 to 40 percent turnover of new teachers within five years in the teaching profession," said Payne.

"New teachers almost always get the poor and hard to teach children. The issue I was trying to solve was how to get these new teachers on board faster so that they could be more successful sooner."

She was convinced that the answer could be found in digital technology, "The new teachers are Generation Y and they are not enamored with the traditional methods of teacher preparation or staff development. So I was looking for an electronic format. I had no background in it, but the value of it was immediately apparent to me."

After finding the traditional method of teaching educators how to deal with discipline -- reading about it, observing other teachers in the classroom, and then summarizing what they had learned, it was decided that the game should focus on this area.

"In our online survey, new teachers identify discipline and working with parents as the two biggest issues the have," says Dr. Payne.

Nancy Sturm elaborated saying, "New teachers were not being given opportunities to be dropped into virtual learning environments where they would have the opportunity to practice different types of discipline strategies."

By building the Classroom SIM game, she felt that they could improve the way that schools of education are preparing teachers to deal with classroom management and discipline.

The Classroom SIMs debuted with Discipline Strategies 6-8, focusing on problems typically encountered in sixth through eighth-grade classrooms. At present there are five different Classroom SIM games available for download from the aha! Process' Web site. They are divided according to grade levels: K-2, 3-5, 6-8 and 9-12. In addition to these, there is a new game that is specifically focused on working with parents, with more titles on the way.

Sturm points out that the content of the games is pulled directly from Dr. Payne's book on classroom discipline strategies, "We took this research-based book, and took all of the content out of it and literally just dropped it into this game. Each game has about 125 discipline events coded into the program. If you download the game focusing on grades three through five, what you would get is discipline events that would happen in normal third grade through fifth grade classrooms. So, you might have kids cheating, you might have a student get sick, you might have a parent call and complain, you might have a student get into your grade book or your computer."

The events that occur in the game range from minor -- a student dropping his pencil -- to much more severe incidents, including physical violence and even bomb threats. When one of these events takes place, the player as the "teacher" has to decide if it's just a normal occurrence or something more disruptive.

"The teacher has to first identify what's worthy of taking away their teaching time ... If you try to solve a normal event in the game, you're penalized, because you shouldn't be wasting your time on that," says Sturm.

When a disruptive event has been identified, the player is given choices of how to deal with it. Once the player makes their choice, they see an immediate assessment at the bottom of the screen. Three gauges monitor the happiness, behavior, and academic performance of the classroom. Every event is scored according to how it is resolved, although, as Sturm is quick to point out, there isn't necessarily one correct answer.

"In the real world ... we'd like to think we always have the perfect response to things, but in reality our personality is a factor, the student's personality is a factor, and how we feel about the student is a factor."

One of the major advantages of using simulations for teaching is the opportunity for immediate feedback. According to Nancy, the importance of this should not be underestimated. "In the game, when you do something good, the principal will knock on the door and hand you a note that says, for example, 'Janet's parents really appreciate the way you handled that incident with respect.' And if you show disrespect towards the students in solving something, then the principal might knock at the door and say 'Janet's parents called and they really don't appreciate the way you handled that.' So there's instant feedback based on your choices. But the beauty of it is that you don't have 30 real kids sitting out there while you make these mistakes."

Get in the game

Upon downloading a Classroom SIM title, a seasoned gamer might feel a rush of nostalgia. The interface and graphics have a distinctly cartoonish and, in terms of the gaming world, old-fashioned look. The visuals are definitely a far cry from the hyper-realistic, fully immersive environments of many modern games. Even the background music has an "old school" flavor to it, and might remind an experienced player of their childhood adventures with the Mario Brothers. While this might have been a conscious design decision, it was more likely a simple economic necessity: flashy visuals are expensive to produce and often require special operating systems.

As the game begins, a clock starts counting down the minutes until the player's first class and the students begin to file into the room. During this time, the player can click on any individual and read their profile to learn more about them. The profiles contain information on the students' interests, their likes and dislikes, their parents, and what role they tend to play in the class: leader, entertainer, arguer, etc. Like the discipline events, these roles are taken directly from Dr. Payne's book, Working with Students. While the class is settling in, the player has the opportunity to establish a set of classroom rules and guidelines, chosen from multiple options. These will be referenced when dealing with discipline events and, again, there is not necessarily a single, "correct" choice. The player must also become familiar with the student handbook, which contains the rules established by the school administration. Failure to follow these guidelines can result in the player's score being reduced.

When the bell rings and class begins, there is an immediate feeling of tension. Being stared at by 16 sets of eyes can be quite intimidating, particularly if the player is not a teacher. Intercom announcements, computer messages, phone calls and leaves blowing past the classroom windows serve as distractions to the teacher. Students shift in their chairs, drop things, make seemingly random comments, and generally behave the way that students actually do. And then, every once in a while, something genuinely disruptive happens. Perhaps it will be something as simple as a student not having finished their homework, or someone falling asleep, or throwing something at another student. Regardless of the severity, when the player identifies an event as disruptive, they will be asked to make a choice. Often the player can choose between implementing a one-time response to the event and using one of the established guidelines. The player will get immediate feedback on this choice and the "happiness," "learning," and "behavior" monitors at the bottom of the screen will be updated accordingly.

In the Easy and Medium modes of the game, discipline events take place one at a time, but in Difficult mode they occur faster and often overlap. According to Nancy Sturm, that's the reality of teaching. "Things move fast in the game, but that's the real world. In a classroom, you're not going to say 'OK, students, today each one of you can have one disruptive event. You're at 8:30, you're at 9:00,'" she jokes.

At four points during the game, corresponding to the quarters of a school year, players are given a review. They are shown all of the discipline events, identified and missed, that occurred in their classroom, as well as how they responded and the outcome of those responses. Bonus points are awarded for identified events, and those points can be used to buy things at the school store, including cups of coffee and telephone calling cards. Cups of coffee, just like for some of us in real life, are used to help the teacher make clear-headed choices; when faced with an array of possible responses to a discipline event, a cup of coffee eliminates several of the incorrect choices. Calling cards can be used to communicate with the student's parents, which can help resolve many tricky situations. The teacher can also use their bonus credits to purchase books on various subjects, which can be given to students with matching interests. Properly applied, these items can go a long way toward increasing the player's success.

Sturm estimates that there are currently between 1,500 and 2,000 teachers using the Classroom SIM games and Dr. Payne's book in the state of West Virginia alone.

"There are college professors that are using the content as part of the syllabus in their teacher prep programs. The Center for Professional Development offers it in every principal's training and teacher's training," says Sturm

In addition to offering the Classroom SIMs as downloads, Dr. Payne's company conducts workshops on their use. According to Sturm, this focus on using the Classroom SIMs in groups has been important to the project from the start.

"When we started putting this simulation together, we stuck to a model that I had used when I was at the Challenger Center which I called A Great S.T.A.R.T. -- Simulations To Activate Reflection and Transfer. Anytime you're dealing with simulations and gaming, in my opinion, you need to follow that model."

During the game, the player is scored on all of the events that take place in their classroom, how they responded, and the impact that response had on the class, and then given a summary at the end of each quarter. "This is the reflection piece that I'm talking about. When the game is over, the teacher would print that assessment and sit down with colleagues and say 'this is what happened, and this is how I handled it. And what did you do, and how did that impact learning and the behavior in your classroom?' So it's not so much teachers sitting in isolation playing this game on their own. It's teachers being dropped into a virtual environment where they feel safe, and they can practice their skills, and then be able to reflect with other teachers on 'how did you handle this and what would be the best way for me to do this the next time it happens in my classroom.' So we're really talking about reflection and transfer of skills."

One of the things that has become clear through aha! Process' training workshops is the difference in attitudes towards gaming held by younger and older teachers. Sturm noticed these differences right away. "When we first rolled this out, I did some training in Las Vegas. There were about 60 computers around the outside of the room. The difference in the body language of the younger and older teachers was amazing. The younger teachers went straight to the computers. The older teachers sat back and said 'I don't game. I'm not doing this. I don't know how to use a computer.' That was amazing to me."

A big part of the appeal of the Classroom SIM project is the possibility of educating teachers about the uses and benefits of using gaming and digital technology in their classrooms.

"Chances are very good these days that students will be gamers," says Sturm. "There is such a disconnect between what they're being taught in the classroom and how it's being delivered to them, versus things that are happening in their personal lives. The challenge is to close that gap and get educators on board with using a lot more digital technology."

And that is where a SIM game can help teachers practice what they teach.

Web Resources

• aha! Process, Inc.
• Classroom SIMs
• aha! Process Blog
• Challenger Center for Space Science Education
• Challenger Learning Center at Wheeling Jesuit University

*This story is from Converge magazine's Spring 2008 issue.