**5. Pursuing professional development for student teachers using virtual reality (VR) technology**

At INN University, I have also been involved in a project in which student teachers in the five-year master's program engage with virtual reality (VR) technology. Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs a computer-generated environment to stimulate the physical presence in an imaginary world—in our case, a classroom. The project was developed by a team of teacher educators at INN University in collaboration with in-service teachers at one of the schools in the area and a local company working with different types of VR style technology [2]. The purpose of the project is to advance the professional growth of prospective teachers, developing skills and knowledge with regard to home-school cooperation.

In the project, the student teachers use VR headsets to simulate their role as a professional in-service teacher, leading a conversation on social and academic learning with a student and her parent. In the Norwegian context, such a developmental talk is a central part of the school's communication with the students' homes. In Norwegian schools, in-service teachers are obliged to conduct planned and structured conversations with parents and students at least two times a year [30]. These conversations are initiated by the school and provide an opportunity for addressing the students' academic progress and social development. However, for student teachers, there are few opportunities to rehearse such a developmental talk as part of their education. Instead, in teacher education, issues within the field of home-school cooperation are most often introduced on a theoretical level, meaning that the student teachers read relevant research literature on their own and attend lectures on home-school cooperation, regulations, laws, and practices.

In order to activate the student teachers' engagement in their own process of learning, the VR project is designed as a "flipped classroom" practice [2, 3]. As noted by Burnett and Merchant [14], the introduction in recent years of digital tools has contributed to a radical change in teacher education pedagogy, for example, through the emergence of flipped classroom methodologies. Typically, a flipped classroom approach involves an initial stage, during which concepts, perspectives, and literature are introduced by the teachers, a middle stage, during which the students work independently, and a final stage, during which the students reflect upon the work they have conducted using the experiences and perspectives from the two first stages. As such, a flipped classroom practice stands in contrast to teacher-oriented education by allowing the students to work more independently, with their teachers acting merely as guides, mentors, or facilitators [3, 7]. In this way, the flipped classroom resonates with the principles of student-centered learning, emphasizing students' engagement and active participation through technology-based learning activities.

In the VR project, the student teachers are placed in a work-related situation using VR headsets to encounter two virtual characters: Emilie, a student in the lower secondary school, and her father. Emilie is portrayed as a rather quiet and shy student who works hard in school but still performs on an average level, academically. She has several friends in school. As such, Emilie represents a type of student that many prospective teachers will meet in their future work.

In the simulation, Emilie and her father sit at a table in a classroom, while the student teacher is located behind a desk in front of the two, much as in a real-life scenario. The characters move and talk as they would in an advanced videogame; for example, Emilie may show signs of being embarrassed when the student teachers ask her questions, and the father may get upset when holding the school responsible for his daughter's education. The conversations are limited to pre-produced statements and answers designed as responses to the kinds of questions asked by the student teachers. Based on the strategy the student teacher selects, a facilitator (often a teacher educator or a trained peer) chooses the type of response Emilie or the father will give. In all the different manuscript scenarios, the simulation is programmed so

*Perspective Chapter: Enhancing Student Teachers' Professional Development through Active Learning DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.112399*

that the father sometimes interrupts the conversation, asking questions or posing comments directed either to the teacher or to his daughter. The simulation ends with either an accepted solution or with a situation in which the father is dissatisfied with the school.

After the simulation, which can last from three to five minutes, the student teachers gather for a group discussion, sharing their experiences in both leading the conversation and watching their peers perform the VR simulation. Here, they are also given the opportunity to draw on the theories and perspectives to which they were introduced before entering the simulation, including theories on home-school cooperation, communication theory, and perspectives on teacher professionality.

As a parallel to both Dewey's [6, 7] and Freire's [4, 5] work, the project was carefully designed so that the student teachers' process of learning and professional development is guided by the team of teacher educators. Burnett and Merchant [14] argued that, by itself, the integration of digital devices and technologies in education makes very little difference with regard to enhancing student-active learning; rather, it is what teachers do with technologies that matter. On this basis, in both the first phase (where theoretical concepts are introduced) and the third phase (where experiences are discussed), the team of teacher educators takes a leading role.

In the first phase, the prospective teachers work individually and in groups with the concepts introduced in a traditional in-class lecture on home-school cooperation, an online lecture on communication, and in a podcast on relevant scientific models, including an experiential and student-centered model of learning. In this part of the project, we emphasize an active connection to the learning material with the student teachers' previous knowledge and experiences about home-school cooperation [6, 7]. In this phase, the team of teacher educators constantly assesses the extent to which the student teachers are able to utilize and apply their knowledge independently [2]. In the second phase, which involves the actual VR simulation, the student teachers test their newly acquired skills and knowledge, and, in the third and final phase, they come together and discuss and analyze their experiences with the team of teacher educators. In this final phase, our team of teacher educators draws on Freire's [4, 24] transformative perspective on education. Aiming to enhance the professional development of the prospective teachers, the teacher educators attempt to discern the connections between the student teachers' prior knowledge and their interpretations of the VR simulation in a way that may advance and even alter their understanding of their professional role.

## **6. Conclusions**

In this chapter, I have discussed the use of student-centered approaches in teacher education, drawing on two examples from my own practice as a teacher educator. In both examples, student teachers are provided hands-on practice opportunities to build the skills and knowledge important for their future work as teachers. Hence, the examples illustrate the teaching approaches designed to increase student engagement and enhance reflections on the professional role of teachers.

In analyzing the two examples in light of Dewey's [6, 7] and Freire's [4, 5] work on student engagement, I have attempted to demonstrate how these examples may hold the potential for altering the roles of the student teacher and the teacher educator compared to their roles in traditional teacher-oriented education. While conventional teacher-oriented approaches to teaching and learning often position the learners

as passive interpreters of the knowledge that is selected and presented to them by the teacher, student-active learning methods aim to increase the engagement of the student without reducing the significance of the teacher. In the two examples, student teachers are seen as active co-constructers of knowledge, not as objects to be equipped with pre-determined knowledge. In a similar vein, the role of the teacher educator is neither to provide the learners with information, nor to be a passive facilitator who leaves the students to discover and develop skills and knowledge on their own [2]. Rather, by leading the process of learning in a planned and structured way, teacher educators may take an active role in constructing and developing knowledge in collaboration with the student teachers.

The study of student-centered approaches in teacher education should not overlook the risk of student-centered learning becoming a buzz-phrase that draws attention away from important educational discussions regarding the purpose of education. As noted by Biesta [31], Hultberg and Heiret [32], and others, a progressive, student-centered approach to teaching and learning fits well with the skills-oriented and neoliberal policy encouraging competitive individualism in education. As such, a student-centered approach in school and teacher education "risks neglecting knowledge about the social conditions that students act within" [32]. For example, to take real action on climate change, students need to know the underlying causes of the climate crisis and not simply to develop the practical skills to act.

Against this background, it is important to emphasize that incorporating collaborative, interactive, and participatory approaches in teacher education should give prospective teachers opportunities to engage in reflexive and critical thinking. Future research should further investigate how student-centered approaches in teacher education can empower student teachers "with greater understanding of complex situations rather than to control them with simplistic formulas or cookie-cutter routines for teaching" [33]. Thus, for student teachers, being prepared for work in a complex school environment includes developing an understanding of the underlying properties of a problem and a critical awareness of one's social reality through reflection and action. As I have demonstrated in this chapter, a combination of Dewey's practical and experience-based approach and Freire's transformative perspective may be helpful in this regard. Enhancing student teachers' professional development through active learning means advancing their participation and engaging them in their own learning. Likewise, it also implies the fostering of a critical consciousness with which student teachers can apply their knowledge and skills in pursuit of social justice. As highlighted in this chapter, the teacher educator's guidance is crucial for developing this professionality in the active learning classroom.
