Using "Teacher Moments" as an Online Practice Space for Parent-Teacher Conference Simulation in Preservice Teacher Education

The aim of this thesis is to investigate and improve the suitability of Teacher Moments as an online practice space for parent-teacher conference simulation in preservice teacher education. We evaluate Teacher Moments by means of a playtest conducted with students of a preservice education class for undergraduates in the Scheller Teacher Education Program (STEP) at MIT. We set out to answer 3 research questions. 1) How do users perceive the authenticity of parent-teacher conference simulations in Teacher Moments? 2) How do students’ reflections relate to the learning objectives after completing a parent-teacher conference simulation in Teacher Moments? 3) How do new users perceive the ease of use of Teacher Moments interface? Most of the preservice teachers in our study felt the simulation experience was authentic and the user interface was easy to use. The main themes we identified in the students’ reflections and class debrief were aligned with the simulation learning objectives.