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The purpose of this paper is to propose the use of a virtual reality (VR)-based approach to improve teacher education and life-long professional development. Through constant training in real-life based situations but within a safe three-dimensional virtual school environment, teachers are given the opportunity to experience and learn how to react to different types of incidents that may take place in a school environment.

The current paper presents the design cycle that was followed for the implementation of the VR teacher training system. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated with a case study that aimed to promote teachers’ understanding of student’s problematic situations related to substance use. As part of the experimental investigation, the impact of the VR system on participants’ emotions and mood states is evaluated through Electroencephalogram (EEG) measurements, heart rate (HR) recordings and self-reported data.

Results indicate significant changes to participant’s negative emotional and mood states, suggesting that the scenario and the VR experience had a strong impact on them. Moreover, participants’ HR was increased during the experiment, while the analysis of the EEG signal indicated that the participants experienced a stressful situation that could justify the change in their negative emotions and mood states.

The proposed VR-based approach aims to provide an innovative framework to teacher education and the related training methodology. In the long-term, the proposed VR system aims to form a new paradigm of teacher training, an alternative safe method that will allow user-teachers to learn through trial and error techniques that reflect real-life situations within a three-dimensional school space and without the risk of harming real students. To the best of our knowledge this is one of the first systematic attempts to use a VR-based methodology to address real teachers’ needs. The development of the VR application is linked to both strong theoretical foundations in education derived from the literature but also from real teachers’ problems and requirements derived from an extensive literature analysis, survey and interviews with experts including teachers, school counselors and psychologists. The VR tool addresses specific teachers’ competences as outcome, after an extensive documentation of existing Teachers’ Competence Models and significant guidance by experts who pointed specific competencies of primary importance to teachers.

Over the years, game-based learning approaches have been adapted in teaching and learning both to engage and motivate students during learning activities. Game technology, such as serious and simulation games, have been used as a new generation of training educational tools enhancing students’ learning and academic performance. An important aspect in the evaluation of those methods is that it focusses particularly on cognitive learning outcomes, ignoring the significance of other processes including emotional aspects in game environments that also contribute significantly to learning, performance and motivation. The purpose of this paper is to present the empirical evidence of a research related to the emotional experiences of pre-service teachers, after the implementation of a simulated classroom environment during the semester.

SimSchool classroom simulation was used for the training of pre-service teachers in classroom and for behavior management issues. The research took place at the Democritus University of Thrace (DUTH) and the School of Pedagogical and Technological Education (ASPETE), in Greece. This study aimed to gain insights related to the emotions that pre-service teachers experienced during the simulated activities.

The results indicated that participants from DUTH experienced more negative and less positive emotions during the game including anxiety, nervousness, disappointment, insecurity, inability to deal with simSchool activities, defeat, dissatisfaction, fatigue, fear and stress. Moreover, the results revealed that ASPETE’s participants experienced more positive and less negative emotions during playing with the simulation, including excitement, motivation and satisfaction.

The related research on the use of games in teacher training is still at its infancy, the current research aimed to address teacher training through a simulated classroom environment and investigate the emotional experiences of pre-service teachers during simulated activities.