NTRODUCTION

Western Governors University employs a three-step developmental framework to support you through your preclinical and clinical experiences. This framework also helps to ensure you exit the program confident in your ability to meet the needs of your future students and school system. This assessment falls under step one of the three-step framework. In this task, you will engage in activities that will go toward preclinical hours of your Early Preclinical Experiences requirements.

In this task and others in this program, you will use Gibbs’s reflective cycle (Gibbs, 1988) as a framework to respond to observations and experiences. Gibbs’s reflective cycle encourages you to think systematically about the phases of an experience or activity, first describing the experience, then addressing how it made you feel, next evaluating and analyzing it, then drawing a conclusion, and finally considering how this experience will apply to your future practice.

In this task, you will interact with virtual students in a simulated classroom environment. The simulation will follow the scenario outlined in the “Scenario” section of this task, and your goal is to maintain positive interactions with each student. After your simulation, you will reflect on your experience and what you learned from it.

Every new teacher is a little nervous about the first time teaching in a classroom. This course and performance assessment provide one opportunity to practice in a simulated classroom environment to help lessen your nerves before you teach in a real classroom. Take your time in the simulated classroom, try new teaching techniques, and enjoy being a teacher. If you feel nervous or scared, that is expected and normal. In this classroom, you can say “pause” if you need time to think or if you want to start over and try teaching a different way. It is not expected that you will be a master teacher. You will not be submitting a recording of your experience, and you will not be evaluated on your success in addressing students’ needs and maintaining a positive relationship with them. Rather, you will be evaluated on your reflection and your ability to discuss strategies that could have been helpful and appropriate for maintaining a positive relationship with these virtual students using knowledge of individual student needs and circumstances. So take advantage of the time in the simulated classroom and see what you can learn about yourself as a teacher.

Note: The Mursion recording is to be used for WGU assessment only and should not be shared publicly.

SCENARIO

As the teacher during this simulation, you will introduce a homework assignment for students to write an essay about their family. You will prepare students for this homework assignment by having them spend the class time brainstorming three facts about their family that they might include in their essay. Students will then write these three facts down on a piece of paper. You will instruct students to complete this in-class prework independently and quietly.

During this activity, you will encounter the following students exhibiting behaviors that are indicative of their individual needs:

a student who is an English learner and needs additional guidance

a student who is disengaged and expresses disinterest in the assignment because the student is not close with family

a student who is in danger of failing because of responsibilities after school that make it difficult to complete homework assignments

Your goal is to maintain positive interactions and support students based on their unique needs and circumstances. As students react to your instructions, adjust your approach by implementing strategies that may help build positive relationships.

If at any time you feel like you need to take a quick break, just say “pause.” Then take a deep breath, and when you are ready to proceed with the simulation, say “start.”