A Safe Space

Abstract

What if teacher candidates had the opportunity to practice research-based instructional strategies and the application of critical skills without fear of failure or harm to students? Would you be interested? One of the biggest challenges that teacher preparation programs face is a struggle to provide meaningful and realistic practice for pre-service teacher candidates. How do we provide practice in “real” settings with “real” students who demonstrate a depth and breadth of learning and behavioral challenges? How do we make practice sessions safe environments for both our teacher candidates and the students they serve? How do we provide needed experiences for candidates in a world where in-person learning may be curtailed by unforeseen circumstances? The purpose of this chapter is to examine the use of virtual reality simulations in education that provide scaffolded learning experiences for pre-service teachers in an online learning environment.