Digital games and simulations incorporated in teacher education curricula is now found to encourage and support the creation of an ethically aware and critically engaging citizenship, developing teachers who are reflective and critical thinkers of ethics.

In “Using Digital Games to Develop Ethical Teachers”, an article from the recent release of Digital Simulations for Improving Education: Learning Through Artificial Teaching Environments (edited by Dr. David Gibson, University of Vermont, USA and Dr. Youngkyun Baek, Korea National University of Education, Republic of Korea) Columbia University (USA) professors Dr. Karen Schrier and Dr. Charles K. Kinzer create a set of recommendations for creating future games and simulations that teach ethics to educators using case studies of current commercial and explicitly educational digital games.

“Digital games and simulations might be an effective way to simulate classroom dynamics for preservice teachers, giving them an authentic context within which to practice and experience ethical dilemmas and critical thinking and decision making,” write Schrier and Kinzer. “They could also help in-service teachers reflect on their past experiences in the classroom context, encouraging them consider new perspectives, examine their methodologies, and reinviborate their connection to other teachers and the collective practice of teaching.”

Schrier and Kinzer acknowledge that there are still few games that enable deep ethical exploration, and encourages researchers for such games to be developed. Despite the challenges of creating ethical games, the authors hope that their research will motivate the conception and design of appropriate learning environments for the development of ethical teachers, equipping them to nurture ethically literate and critically reflective students, and shape an ethically engaged citizenship.

(Portions of this article are excerpted from Digital Simulations for Improving Education: Learning Through Artificial Teaching Environments edited by Dr. David Gibson and Dr. Youngkyun Baek.)