Using Simulation to Support Novice Teachers' Classroom Management Skills: Comparing Traditional and Alternative Certification Groups

Drawing from research on situated cognition and the development of expertise and simulations in professional education, we designed two simulation tasks that provided novice teachers with repeated opportunities to deliberately practice managing a classroom under no-fault conditions. The simulations immersed novices in two perennial classroom management challenges: motivating students to learn and dealing with non-compliance. To understand how the simulations fit the developmental needs of teachers on different preparation paths, we piloted them with graduate students enrolled in traditional and alternative certification programs at the same university. Both group's initial definitions of classroom management emphasized teacher control of student behavior; later schema emphasized control and care. References to classroom management as teacher self-regulation appeared more often within the alternative certification group. Both groups selected controlling strategies for addressing the non-compliance simulation.