Engaging our school teachers: An augmented reality (AR) approach to continuous professional development.

Abstract

Currently, trainee teachers in the UK learn about behaviour management strategies from a theoretical perspective at university, through discussions with their school mentors, and by trial and error at their school placement. Existing literature mainly focuses on these issues from the ‘adult’ viewpoint, not the voice of the child. This paper reports on work-in-progress developing a range of Augmented Reality (AR) resources, drawing upon co-design research workshops with children from a Year 6 class (aged 10) in a UK Primary School. Our research informs approaches to classroom management by encouraging reflection and analysis of ‘critical incidents’ identified by the pupils, and explored by trainee teachers in workshops through the medium of AR, giving a reality previously uncaptured in more traditional approaches. Our final resources will be a set of Open Education Resources (OER), offered to the wider community for reuse/ repurposing for educational settings through a Creative Commons (cc) licence.