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This article reports on the intrapersonal, interpersonal and ecological factors that shaped the professional identity (PI) construction of five ESL Malaysian pre-service teachers (PSTs) during microteaching classes and teaching practicum.

The study is qualitative in nature aiming to give voice to ESL PSTs and allow them share their personal experience while constructing their professional identity. The semi-interview data were supported by observation data to validate what PSTs report in their interview. The researchers chose junctural points in the PI construction journey to follow the developmental line of PI growth and to live the experience with the participant. The project was a co-construction of knowledge and enabled a more comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon.

This inquiry revealed that PI is dynamic and changing constantly as one reinterprets and reevaluates self and interact and react to the various intrapersonal, interpersonal and ecological factors in their context. At the intrapersonal level, lack of practical experience and intrinsic motivation and sense of low self-efficacy created a perception of low PI in the beginning of the simulated practice. The findings also show that supportive interpersonal relationships developed within a facilitating context such as the simulated teaching class smoothed the emergence of high PI. However, when the interpersonal relationships and ecological context in the practicum settings were challenging, they hindered PI development and led to a PI crisis.

The article offers recommendations to enhance the pivotal role of teaching practice during PSTs' journey of becoming.

This study was conducted in one of the understudied contexts in regards of PI construction. It captured a holistic view of the PI construction. It showed that the interplay of interpersonal and intrapersonal factors, in addition to ecological factors, is not isolated from each other. On the contrary, they were like a cycle circumscribing the PSTs and impact their PI construction. Hence, the authors believe that the study contributed with a comprehensive understanding of pre-service PI construction.

The purpose of this paper is to reflect the multi-level mentoring practices of a Teacher Education Program in Greece and the mentors’ perceptions on them. The mentoring practices of the specific Program are unique in Teacher Education in Greece; and therefore, the paper examines the extent to which they are considered as capable of developing in mentors and mentees specific skills that contribute to the development of student-teachers’ professional identity.

The case study is based on qualitative research and 32 interviews with mentors of the specific Program who report their experience. Six mentees have also been asked to provide the researchers with comments, so as to observe whether their answers confirm the mentors’ perceptions.

The different types of mentoring of the specific Program are perceived as able to enhance the mentors’ and the mentees’ professional development and self-confidence as well as to the latters’ improved transition and engagement to the Program. The authors also contribute to the fostering of the mentees’ experiential learning and to the capitalization of knowledge in Teacher Education. The EES teacher mentoring is considered of important adding value to the formation of student-teachers’ professional identity, according to the mentors interviewed. Mentees comments were found to confirm the mentors’ perceptions.

The conclusions of the paper are of significant value, since multi-level mentoring as a holistic approach to teacher-candidates’ experiential learning and professional development examined in a single paper is rather rare. Moreover, the Program of the paper’s case study follows this multi-level innovative approach, which includes EES teacher mentoring, and which is of considerable adding value, according to the mentors and the mentees interviewed. It could, therefore, constitute a paradigm for other Teacher Education Programs in Greece and in other countries.

Simulation technology has been used as a viable alternative to provide a real life setting in teacher education. Applying mixed-reality classroom simulations to English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) teacher preparation, this qualitative case study aims to examine how pre-service teachers (PSTs) practice culturally and linguistically responsive teaching to work with an English learner (EL) avatar and other avatar students.

Using an embedded single case study, three PSTs’ teaching simulations and interviews were collected and analyzed.

This study found PST participants made meaningful connections between theory and practices of culturally and linguistically responsive teaching, particularly by connecting academic concepts to students’ life experiences, promoting cultural diversity, using instructional scaffolding and creating a safe environment. Nevertheless, they needed further improvement in incorporating cultural diversity into content lessons, creating a challenging and supportive classroom and developing interactional scaffolding for ELs’ language development. The findings also show that while PST participants perceived simulation technology as very beneficial, expanding the range of technological affordances could provide PSTs an opportunity to undertake a full range of critical teaching strategies for ELs.

This research contributes to broadening the realm of mixed-reality technology by applying it to ESOL teacher education and has implications for both ESOL teacher educators and simulation technology researchers.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of computer based business simulations in higher education as innovative tools of teaching and learning to enhance students' practical understanding of real business problems. Whether the integration of business simulation technologies will enable significant innovation in teaching and learning and will significantly enhance the quality and efficiency of traditional management teaching and learning methods is to be examined.

Previous research has established that simulations can be an effective integrative learning mechanism for the student participant seeking to understand management concepts, techniques and practices. A number of prominent training institutions have adopted simulations in order to increase business acumen, financial literacy and build competency.

The research carried out seems to confirm that simulations can be powerful, engaging, dynamic and effective teaching and learning tools. The immersive worlds of simulations can be designed to replicate actual economic, market and business events where students experiment in real time with alignment and commitment surrounding complex corporate strategies, business models and initiatives.

To achieve the required convergence of the business curriculum, the paper suggests that a broad‐based integrative approach needs to be adopted to overcome the silo effect of supply driven disciplinary models, which have traditionally prevailed in business education.

This paper aims to examine three distinct aspects of authenticity that pre-service teachers (PSTs) experience when they engage with virtual classroom environments to develop their content-intensive instructional practice – task authenticity, student avatar authenticity and performance authenticity – and their perceptions about the usefulness of the simulated teaching experience to support their learning.

This paper explored these conceptions of authenticity and usefulness within a larger research study whose goal was to develop virtual environment tools to help elementary PSTs learn how to engage in one ambitious teaching practice: facilitating discussions that engage students in argumentation. To examine these aspects of authenticity and usefulness, this paper used a general qualitative deductive analysis approach to examine data from 104 interviews with 26 case study teachers and examined patterns in PSTs’ perceptions within and across interviews and authenticity aspects.

While these PSTs strongly value the utility of these tools to support their learning, findings point to variation in their perceptions of authenticity. Findings showed that most PSTs perceived the tasks as an authentic representation of the work of teaching. However, their perceptions of task authenticity did not always align with their perceptions of avatar or performance authenticity.

This paper argues that these three aspects of authenticity relate to, but expand upon, the broader notions of presence and plausibility noted in the literature on virtual environments and should be taken up more directly in future studies of users’ perceptions of virtual environments both within and outside of educational contexts.

This study investigates how debrief conversations unfold during virtual coaching sessions that provide embedded opportunities to practice teaching within a mixed reality simulation (MRS). We examine how teacher and coach topical episodes function (agreeing, explaining, clarifying, probing, recapping, reflecting and suggesting) to activate reflection as part of virtual coaching.

Grounded in Vygotsky's sociocultural theory and the belief that learning is collaborative and impacts how pre- and in-service teachers construct knowledge, this exploratory case study draws on insights from 15 graduate students (5 pre-service teachers (PSTs) and 10 in-service teachers (ISTs)) who participated in virtual coaching with embedded practice opportunities. Data sources were video recordings and transcripts of 15 virtual coaching sessions, and one-on-one postcoaching interviews. Coding categories were determined through the constant comparative analysis method.

Findings indicate that an MRS provides an immediate context for reflection, which guided the debrief conversations. Additionally, functions occurred with varying frequency among PSTs and ISTs, and across both groups, probing questions often led directly to reflecting and recapping the shared simulation context.

This study had a small sample (n = 15) and the use of an MRS, while widely used, is not necessarily a scalable practice.

In times of remote teaching, like during corona virus 2019 (COVID-19), opportunities to simulate clinical experiences become vital. With a limited research base, learning how teachers engage with and learn from simulated experiences is a key to creating rich learning opportunities for teachers.

It is widely recognised that people with intellectual disabilities receive a poorer quality of healthcare than their non-disabled counterparts. Training for healthcare professionals in intellectual disability is often scant or non-existent. The purpose of this paper is to explore the usefulness of employing actors with intellectual disabilities as simulated patients in the assessment of trainee psychiatrists.

The development of a structured clinical exam “station” designed to assess the ability of trainee psychiatrists to communicate with a simulated patient played by an actor with an intellectual disability is described. The paper also assesses the potential benefits of this kind of assessment and the experience of actors and examiners taking part in this process.

The station was found to perform well in discriminating between candidates of various abilities and was well received by actors, examiners and observers. The station is now routinely used in the formal assessment of trainee psychiatrists.

The use of people with intellectual disabilities in training and assessment appears to be advantageous in terms of improving knowledge, attitudes and skills amongst healthcare professionals and gives increased opportunities for people with intellectual disabilities to undertake valued social roles.

Few institutions currently employ actors with intellectual disabilities as simulated patients as part of their training programmes and as a result there is little in the way of literature on this subject. This paper describes an alternative approach to teaching and assessment which falls in line with recommendations from the Department of Health to involve service users in the training of healthcare professionals.

There is a curiously static quality to the debate about management education. For example, over 20 years ago Lord Franks was commissioned to report on whether one or more business schools should be founded in the UK. His recommendation (for two schools) was based on an analysis which referred to the need for more managers who were competent to respond to a rapidly changing environment, the accelerating pace of technological innovation, and the growing international competition facing British business. This list sounds nothing if not contemporary.

University teaching involves delivering resource intensive subjects that have practical components, such as a science laboratory, hospitality practical, computer laboratory, or simulated clinical setting. Teaching practical subjects in the non-traditional, virtual classroom requires careful decisions about the methods of teaching that kind of knowledge. The outbreak of the COVID-19 virus and the subsequent hurried closure of the traditional campus that disrupted in-person teaching, led many higher education lecturers and professors who teach practical subjects to reflect deeply on their practice by thinking how to replicate the teaching of virtual culinary classes when students are not on campus. In an outcome-based learning dispensation, students’ learning outcomes precede consideration of the mode of delivery or the structure of teaching content. This chapter reflects on a case study involving the teaching of subjects in hospitality and culinary arts through gamification, both of which having learning outcomes grounded in practice. The chapter explores the seemingly impossible world of taking practical based subjects and making them work in an online space. It describes and offers a measure by which to justify a pedagogy for teaching the practical in a virtual context. The chapter offers important initial conceptualisations that challenge assumptions of virtual meaningful learning design for practical module delivery.

The changing clinical landscape in psychiatry, both before and after the pandemic, has impacted students’ direct contact with psychiatric patients. It is imperative, therefore, that medical education keeps pace with evolving clinical pathways to ensure that clinicians are always appropriately trained not just for common presentations but also for low-prevalence, high-risk situations. Simulated-based training is well established. However, it is not without its limitations, many of which could be overcome with the use of virtual simulation. This study aims to analyse the use of virtual simulation within medical education to train clinicians in psychiatric assessments.

A scoping review was undertaken with a comprehensive literature search of the six most relevant online peer-reviewed databases, including PubMed, PsycINFO, CINAHL, Medline, EMBASE and Cochrane. All published papers in English that discussed simulation in teaching psychiatric assessments were included.

Virtual patients can be used for educational, diagnostic and therapy purposes attributable to advances in speech-recognition technology. Virtual simulations are well received and positively affect clinicians’ knowledge and skill development. Educational faculties should consider using virtual simulation technologies to improve learning outcomes. Further studies should enhance the fidelity and quality of virtual assessment simulation situations, mainly focusing on the virtual patient’s empathy, gesturing and body language to enable this evidence-based tool to be used effectively and efficiently for the benefit of future patient care.

The changing clinical landscape in psychiatry, both before and after the pandemic, has impacted students’ direct contact with psychiatric patients. This scoping review has reviewed the use of virtual simulation-based education to train clinicians for psychiatric assessments. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this work has not been conducted before.