Exploring teacher professional learning in a virtual environment
Chief Investigator
Dr Linda Ball- Phone number 8344 8528
- Email lball@unimelb.edu.au
- Find an Expert profile
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Location: Level: 03 Room: 346, 234 Queensberry St., Parkville
Project Details
The focus of this innovative project is on the design, development and trialing of a proof-of-concept virtual environment as a model for professional learning for teachers of mathematics. This project will establish a virtual classroom where participants can observe and explore teacher and student thinking. The virtual classroom will provide currently unavailable opportunities to immerse participants in a range of classroom situations, informed by research.
Participants can:
- view an individual student’s work
- ‘hear’ the thinking of a particular student (provides insight into student understanding)
- listen to a justification from the teacher for their choices
- complete tasks to demonstrate understanding of student thinking
- ask an ‘expert’.
The proof-of-concept project targets one mathematics topic (understanding decimal numbers) for in-service teachers; however the technology has the capacity to support many topics across a wide range of subject areas into the future.
Research questions
- Does a virtual environment enable teachers to explore the pedagogical issues involved in teaching a particular mathematics topic?
- What aspects of the virtual environment appeal to teachers the most, from a professional learning point of view, and why?
Researchers
Lynda Ball
Chief Investigator
lball@unimelb.edu.au
Professor Kaye Stacey
Chief Investigator
k.stacey@unimelb.edu.au
Dr Vicki Steinle
Chief Investigator
v.steinle@unimelb.edu.au
A/Professor Robyn Pierce
Chief Investigator
r.pierce@unimelb.edu.au
There are three Chief Investigators in other departments in The University of Melbourne:
Dr Shanton Chang (DCIS*), Ken Clarke (IBES*) and Brad Gathercole (IBES*).
* Department of Computing and Information Systems(DCIS), Institute for a Broadband Enabled Society (IBES)