The NSF Public Access Repository (PAR) system and access will be unavailable from 8:00 PM ET on Friday, March 21 until 8:00 AM ET on Saturday, March 22 due to maintenance. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Explore Research Products in the PAR It may take a few hours for recently added research products to appear in PAR search results.
Title: Impacting Culturally Responsive Teaching Strategies by Decreasing Bias Through Simulation Experiences
Simulated teaching environments have been used for more than two decades and are likely to continue to expand to meet the demands of teacher development programs. In this study, the self-reported changes in culturally-responsive teaching perceptions of ten classroom teachers serving more than six hundred students are reported. This paper includes first year findings from a program designed to use artificial-intelligence (AI) based algorithms to reduce implicit bias in teaching. Findings from this study include significant pre-post increases for self-efficacy related to culturally responsive teaching as well as instructional self-efficacy. These findings add credibility to the contention that a key innovation of using simulation programs for teacher professional development is that it provides teachers and teacher trainees many learning trials with simulated students, thereby increasing teacher confidence and competence, and which in turn will improve student learning. Findings set the stage for measuring the impact on student perceptions of learning and cultural engagement intended to support teachers in recognizing and ameliorating their own implicit biases. more »« less
Knezek, Gerald; Christensen, R(
, Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE))
Cohen, J; Solano, G
(Ed.)
Assessment of the impact of teacher professional development is seldom accomplished by asking their students. This study addresses whether self-reported changes in teacher practices align with their students’ perceptions of changes in teaching practices. Participants were 39 teachers from two US states that completed at least 15 teaching sessions totaling more than 3.5 hours of teacher professional development (practice teaching) inside the simulated teaching environment of simSchool. The goals of the professional development were remediation of implicit bias in teaching practices and fostering equity in teaching. Pre-post surveys were completed by the teachers before and after the professional development sessions. Concurrent pre and post surveys were administered to 800 of the teachers’ G3-12 students. This study presents the results of examining whether teacher-reported changes in their teaching practices can be shown to align with changes reported by their students.
Knezek, Gerald; Christensen, R(
, Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE))
Cohen, J; Solano, G
(Ed.)
Assessment of the impact of teacher professional development is seldom accomplished by asking their students. This study addresses whether self-reported changes in teacher practices align with their students’ perceptions of changes in teaching practices. Participants were 39 teachers from two US states that completed at least 15 teaching sessions totaling more than 3.5 hours of teacher professional development (practice teaching) inside the simulated teaching environment of simSchool. The goals of the professional development were remediation of implicit bias in teaching practices and fostering equity in teaching. Pre-post surveys were completed by the teachers before and after the professional development sessions. Concurrent pre and post surveys were administered to 800 of the teachers’ G3-12 students. This study presents the results of examining whether teacher-reported changes in their teaching practices can be shown to align with changes reported by their students.
Christensen, Rhonda; Knezek, Gerald; Norton, Samantha(
, Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE))
Bastiaens, T
(Ed.)
Thirty-four students from a career and technical education high school course focusing on teacher education participated in simulation-based teaching exercises within simSchool. Pre and post Likert-style self-reported appraisals on seven scales in the areas of culturally responsive teaching, empathy and technology attitudes are being gathered from all participants. Preliminary findings revealed that a surprisingly strong relationship exists between culturally responsive teaching self-efficacy and cognitive empathy, to the point where empathy can be said to account for more than half of culturally responsive teaching self-efficacy. In addition, females were found to be higher on empathy than males.
Christensen, Rhonda; Knezek, Gerald; Norton, Samantha(
, Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE))
Bastiaens, T
(Ed.)
Thirty-four students from a career and technical education high school course focusing on teacher education participated in simulation-based teaching exercises within simSchool. Pre and post Likert-style self-reported appraisals on seven scales in the areas of culturally responsive teaching, empathy and technology attitudes are being gathered from all participants. Preliminary findings revealed that a surprisingly strong relationship exists between culturally responsive teaching self-efficacy and cognitive empathy, to the point where empathy can be said to account for more than half of culturally responsive teaching self-efficacy. In addition, females were found to be higher on empathy than males.
Hodges, Charles B.; Akcaoglu, Mete; Allen, Andrew; Doğan, Selçuk(
, Proceedings of the 53rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education)
Teacher self-efficacy (SE) has been observed to be an 'important construct for Computer Science (CS) teachers' professional development because it can predict both teaching behaviors as well as student outcomes" [1]. The purpose of the present study was to investigate teacher CS SE during a two-year federally funded professional development (PD) and curriculum development project for middle school teachers incorporating game-design and the Unity development platform. The research question investigated is: How does teacher self-efficacy for teaching computer science via game design with the Unity game development platform change during a year-long PD program? Investigations of teacher SE for teaching CS have resulted in some surprising results. For example, it has been reported that - There were no differences in self-efficacy based on teachers' overall level of experience, despite previous findings that teacher self-efficacy is related to amount of experience" and "no differences in self-efficacy related to the teachers' own level of experience with CS" [2], thus further study of CS teacher SE is warranted. Participants in this study were six middle school teachers from four middle schools in the southeastern United States. They participated in a year-long PD program learning the Unity game development platform, elements of game design, and foundations of learner motivation. Guided reflective journaling was used to track the teachers' SE during the first year of the project. Teachers completed journal prompts at four intervals. Prompts consisted of questions like "How do you currently feel about your ability to facilitate student learning with Unity?" and "Are you confident that you can implement the materials the way the project team has planned for them to be implemented?" Prior to beginning the project participants expressed confidence in being able to facilitate student learning after participating in the planned professional development, but there was some uneasiness about learning and using Unity. From a SE perspective their responses make sense, as all of the participants are experienced teachers and should have confidence in their general ability to teach. However, since Unity is a new programming environment for all of the teachers, they did not have the prior experience necessary to have a high degree of confidence that they could successfully use it with their students.
Christensen, Rhonda, and Knezek, Gerald. Impacting Culturally Responsive Teaching Strategies by Decreasing Bias Through Simulation Experiences. Retrieved from https://par.nsf.gov/biblio/10443682. EXCELLENCE AND INNOVATION IN LEARNING AND TEACHING .2 Web. doi:10.3280/exioa2-2022oa15077.
Christensen, Rhonda, & Knezek, Gerald. Impacting Culturally Responsive Teaching Strategies by Decreasing Bias Through Simulation Experiences. EXCELLENCE AND INNOVATION IN LEARNING AND TEACHING, (2). Retrieved from https://par.nsf.gov/biblio/10443682. https://doi.org/10.3280/exioa2-2022oa15077
Christensen, Rhonda, and Knezek, Gerald.
"Impacting Culturally Responsive Teaching Strategies by Decreasing Bias Through Simulation Experiences". EXCELLENCE AND INNOVATION IN LEARNING AND TEACHING (2). Country unknown/Code not available. https://doi.org/10.3280/exioa2-2022oa15077.https://par.nsf.gov/biblio/10443682.
@article{osti_10443682,
place = {Country unknown/Code not available},
title = {Impacting Culturally Responsive Teaching Strategies by Decreasing Bias Through Simulation Experiences},
url = {https://par.nsf.gov/biblio/10443682},
DOI = {10.3280/exioa2-2022oa15077},
abstractNote = {Simulated teaching environments have been used for more than two decades and are likely to continue to expand to meet the demands of teacher development programs. In this study, the self-reported changes in culturally-responsive teaching perceptions of ten classroom teachers serving more than six hundred students are reported. This paper includes first year findings from a program designed to use artificial-intelligence (AI) based algorithms to reduce implicit bias in teaching. Findings from this study include significant pre-post increases for self-efficacy related to culturally responsive teaching as well as instructional self-efficacy. These findings add credibility to the contention that a key innovation of using simulation programs for teacher professional development is that it provides teachers and teacher trainees many learning trials with simulated students, thereby increasing teacher confidence and competence, and which in turn will improve student learning. Findings set the stage for measuring the impact on student perceptions of learning and cultural engagement intended to support teachers in recognizing and ameliorating their own implicit biases.},
journal = {EXCELLENCE AND INNOVATION IN LEARNING AND TEACHING},
number = {2},
author = {Christensen, Rhonda and Knezek, Gerald},
}
Warning: Leaving National Science Foundation Website
You are now leaving the National Science Foundation website to go to a non-government website.
Website:
NSF takes no responsibility for and exercises no control over the views expressed or the accuracy of
the information contained on this site. Also be aware that NSF's privacy policy does not apply to this site.
