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With the growing use of mixed reality teaching simulations in teacher education there is a need for researchers to examine how preservice teacher (PST) learning can be supported when using these simulations. To address this gap the current study explores how 47 PSTs used an online teaching simulation to facilitate a discussion focused on argumentation with five student avatars in the MursionTM mixed reality simulated classroom environment. We assessed PSTs' performance in the simulation using rubric-level scores assigned by trained raters and then compared the scores to PSTs' survey responses completed after their discussion asking them to self-report their goals for the discussion, how successful they thought they were across five dimensions of facilitating high-quality, argumentation-focused discussions, and their overall perceptions of the mixed reality teaching simulation. Findings suggest that PSTs' understanding of the discussion task's learning goals somewhat predicted their success in facilitating the discussion and that PSTs' self-assessment of their performance was not always consistent with raters' evaluation of the PSTs' performance. In particular, self-assessment was found to be most consistent with raters' evaluations for those PSTs with higher rater-assigned scores and least consistent for those with lower rater-assigned scores. The implications of these findings are as follows: (1) researchers should be cautious in relying on PST self-report of success when engaging in mixed reality teaching simulations, particularly because low performance may be obscured, (2) teacher educators should be aware that reliance on self-report from PSTs likely obscures the need for additional support for exactly those PSTs who need it most, and (3) the field, therefore, should expand efforts to measure PSTs' performance when using mixed reality teaching simulations. 

Preservice teachers (PSTs) need to be able to use ambitious teaching practices to help support their students’ productive engagement in scientific practices such as analyzing and interpreting data or using evidence-based reasoning to support their claims. Approximations of practice are one way in which teacher educators can support their PSTs to develop their skills in enacting ambitious teaching practices. In this study, we report on the use of a suite of three online, simulated approximations of practice where secondary PSTs practiced facilitating discussions focused on engaging students in argumentation. Using information from both PSTs’ and teacher educators’ perspectives, we examined their main takeaways from each simulation experience, how learning from one simulation was used to prepare for the next simulation, PSTs’ perception of the simulations’ authenticity, and their views about whether they would recommend using this online suite of simulations in future teacher preparation courses. Findings suggested that teacher educators and PSTs alike noted a variety of main takeaways, including understanding the importance of planning and asking good questions. Furthermore, they recommended the suite for use in future teacher education courses. Implications of the work for productively integrating online simulations into teacher education settings are discussed.