Designing an intelligent teaching simulator for learning to teach by practicing

Learning to teach is difficult for prospective teachers because of the complex nature of the work of teaching. Practicing (Lampert in J Teach Educ 61(1–2):21–34, 2010), interacting with the practice of teaching from a first-person perspective, may give them a unique experience in learning to teach. Computer-based simulators in which the apprentice teacher can interact with virtual students may be used to create that kind of experience. In this paper, we show how to apply techniques in artificial intelligence to design an intelligent learning environment. We show how to model the apprentice’s decision making and resources that can help him or her improve the practice of teaching.