SBIR Phase I: Blending Real and Virtual Worlds in Chemistry Education

这个SBIR第一阶段项目将确定旨在提高学生动手科学实验学习的创新的可行性。目前，美国学生在科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）学科的糟糕表现限制了他们的职业选择。该项目的目的是为学生提供在高中科学课程中取得成功的最佳机会，以便他们可以在STEM领域追求有价值的高薪职业。为此，该项目将开发技术，将无缝地融合动手实验与虚拟世界，通过给实验室活动一个真实的世界背景吸引学生。这些虚拟世界将使学生沉浸在他们可以发展和磨练批判性思维技能的环境中。这种混合现实方法的设计是基于学习和参与的基础理论。通过测试高中的创新，该项目将确定混合现实方法是否是一种可行的方法，以满足学校从基于内容的教学转向基于技能的教学的日益增长的需求。通过这样做，该产品将改善学生的学习，并为需要STEM专业知识且是美国经济重要组成部分的行业提供熟练的劳动力。该项目将开发技术，通过整合虚拟世界来改变传统的动手科学实验，将实验的科学概念置于现实世界背景中。通过让学生参与真实的探究，让学生像真实的科学家一样行事，新技术将为学习体验提供支架，使学生能够练习批判性思维技能。随着学生的进步，他们在每个阶段的表现将被发送到他们的老师在真实的时间。这使教师能够立即识别学生可能对特定科学概念或技能有困难。该产品的可行性将在高中进行测试，以确定这种新方法是否能让学生参与学习，以及新技术是否能帮助教师在实践实验中实现提高批判性思维的目标。批判性思维将通过强调科学方法来增加，该产品将使学生获得必要的知识，收集数据，分析和解释数据，形成和测试假设，根据收集的数据在必要时完善假设，并传达他们的发现。通过融合真实的和虚拟世界，学生将能够可视化实验的内部运作，从而产生更准确和复杂的理解。

This SBIR Phase I project will determine the feasibility of an innovation aimed at enhancing student learning in hands-on science experiments. Currently, US students' poor performance in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) disciplines is limiting their career options. The aim of this project is to provide students the best possible opportunity to succeed in high school science courses so that they may pursue rewarding, well-paid, careers in STEM fields. To that end, this project will develop technologies that will seamlessly blend hands-on experiments with virtual worlds that engage students by giving laboratory activities a real world context. These virtual worlds will immerse students in environments wherein they can develop and hone critical thinking skills. The design of this blended reality approach is based on foundational theories of learning and engagement. By testing the innovation in high schools, this project will determine whether a blended reality approach is a feasible way to meet the growing demand that schools move from content-based to skills-based instruction. In doing so, this product will improve student learning and deliver a skilled workforce to industries that require STEM expertise and are vital components of the US economy.The project will develop technologies that will transform traditional hands-on science experiments through integration of virtual worlds that place science concepts of experiments in real-world context. By engaging students in authentic inquiry and enabling students to act like real scientists, the new technologies will scaffold the learning experience such that students can practice critical thinking skills. As students progress, their performance at each stage will be sent to their teachers in real time. This allows teachers to immediately identify difficulty students may have with a specific science concept or skill. The feasibility of the product will be tested in high schools to determine whether this new approach engages students in their learning, and whether the new technologies help teachers meet their goals of increasing critical thinking during hands-on experiments. Critical thinking will be increased by emphasizing the scientific method where the product will enable students to acquire requisite knowledge, collect data, analyze and interpret data, form and test a hypothesis, refine the hypothesis, if needed, according to collected data, and communicate their findings. By blending real and virtual worlds, students will be able to visualize the inner-workings of an experiment so as to engender more accurate and sophisticated understanding.