SLATE: AN INSTRUCTIONAL PLANNING SIMULATION

Abstract

As any good teacher knows, but few student-teachers can grasp, planning effectively for lessons to come is a complex and subtle matter involving a bewildering number of circumstances, not all of which come readily to mind at any one time. Bringing the realities of this complexity home to student teachers is a perennial problem for teacher-training. In a progress report on his development of an innovative computer-managed game designed to provide this practice, Ascroft describes the simulation of a teacher's task - having 25 students (with individual differences) learn 11 subject matter units in 15 lesson periods; the range of decisions on principle from which the player must choose; and the verdicts given by the computer on the basis of which the player proceeds. A trial conducted with practising teachers has given encouraging indications that the work is on the right track.