Institute for Community Health and Wellbeing

TeachLive Press Release

“Today we are going over homophones,” Paige Ramer, special education credential student, said to a group of middle school students. “What is the difference between there, their and they’re?”

One student had his hand way up. Another student sat and looked disinterested. Another was distracted.

None of them were real.

Ramer was not in a classroom, but was teaching virtual students in a studio, along with a small group of her fellow credential classmates and two of her professors. She was using cutting-edge software called TeachLive, a “mixed-reality” environment where educators-in-training can practice teaching before a classroom of virtual young persons programmed to act like real students—boredom, distractions and all—and receive instant feedback from professors.

CSUN was the 13th university in the country to use TeachLive, utilizing it since 2012. Special education professor Sally Spencer said TeachLive has changed the way credential students are learning how to teach, providing a needed bridge between coursework and student teaching.

“We have, for about 100 years in education, had the same model for education,” Spencer said. “Students take classes and learn about teaching, and then we throw them in the fire. It’s a sink or swim model. They get tossed into teaching with real kids and there aren’t a lot of opportunities for feedback. They definitely can’t do things over again – they have only one shot to get it right.

“But [TeachLive] helps isolate and pinpoint teaching behaviors that are effective or ineffective, and gives teachers-in-training a chance to practice them until they get them right before going out into a real classroom. Learning to teach is no longer done in the abstract.”

CSUN teacher candidates using TeachLive stand in front of an eight-foot screen where the virtual kids appear. The children all have distinct personalities and interact with the teacher in real time, giving students like Ramer a life-like classroom experience. Professors interject during the sessions to give the teachers on-the-spot pointers.

 “[In the sessions], professors will stop us and tell us to do things like move around and point during lessons, not just read out loud to the students, or tell us to reword phrases,” Ramer said. “By having that kind of discussion, it makes us more aware of how important it is to plan. We constantly have to be aware of how we are speaking. But once we get those steps down, we improve dramatically and the [virtual] students even respond to us in a better way.”

Spencer said the software also helps her students build confidence and gain classroom management skills.

“One of the great advantages is that we get to control the behavioral levels of the [virtual] kids,” Spencer said. “If the new teacher is not too confident, we set the behavior levels low so they can focus on teaching. We turn up the behavior levels as they get more confident so they get to experience teaching and managing behavior at the same time.”

The sessions are done not only in front of the professors, but other credential students. Ramer said it is a positive experience to support and learn from each other.

“It was a daunting thing to begin with, we were all very nervous going up in front of everybody,” Ramer said. “But we are very supportive of each other and we always try to talk to each other before the TeachLive sessions. And afterward, we say what we liked about each other and discuss what we might include in our own lessons. We understand each other’s feelings and it gets a little bit easier as the semester goes on.”

Learn More about there Special Education Literacy Clinic HERE