EAGER: Cyberlearning: Towards Virtual Worlds that Afford Knowledge Integration Across Project Challenges and Disciplines

网络学习和未来学习技术计划资助的工作将有助于设想下一代学习技术，并推进我们对人们如何在技术丰富的环境中学习的了解。人们已经做出了许多努力，利用虚拟世界来教授在课堂上难以理解或不切实际的科学概念。这个项目研究了一个重要的问题：如果一个学生在同一个虚拟世界中学习不同的科学主题，他们在虚拟世界中更长期、更深入的参与是否能帮助他们对不同的主题建立更综合的理解？如果是这样，这将有助于人们为学习建立更有效的虚拟世界，也将有助于深入了解学习者如何发展对科学的综合或分散的理解。该研究将包括整合EcoMUVE生态学习虚拟世界与来自基于项目的探究科学项目“生活在一起”的化学课程。一项利用中学课堂进行的定性探索性研究将以图形世界理论和基于案例推理的编码特异性为基础，研究与迁移相关的过程。定性研究将侧重于在虚拟世界中产生强烈和持续的情感参与的条件，这种参与在事实之后产生的记忆，以及这些记忆在相关但不同的课程活动中被触发的方式。用轻便的相机直接观察学习者；访谈和挑战被设计成记忆探针；以设计为基础的研究策略将用于研究认知过程类型的设计原则，这些认知过程是迁移和知识整合的基础。该项目的更广泛影响将是告知教育工作者和技术人员如何更好地设计长期的、基于问题的科学主题参与，并支持转移和综合理解。

The Cyberlearning and Future Learning Technologies Program funds efforts that will help envision the next generation of learning technologies and advance what we know about how people learn in technology-rich environments. Many efforts have been made to use virtual worlds to teach science concepts that are either inaccessible or impractical in the classroom. This project examines an important question: if a student learns different science topics in the same virtual world over time, will their longer-term, deeper engagement in that virtual world help them build a more integrated understanding of the different subjects? If so, this would help people build more effective virtual worlds for learning, and would also help provide insight into how learners develop either integrated or fragmented understanding of science.The research will include integration of the EcoMUVE ecology learning virtual world with chemistry curriculum derived from the Project-Based Inquiry Science project Living Together. A qualitative exploratory study using middle school classrooms will examine processes related to transfer, grounded in the theory of figured worlds and encoding specificity in case-based reasoning. The qualitative study will focus on conditions that generate intense and sustained emotional engagement in the virtual world, the memories generated by this engagement after the fact, and ways that these memories are triggered in related but different curricular activities. Observation of learners, directly and with lightweight cameras; interviews and challenges designed to be memory probes; and design-based research strategies will be used to work towards design principles for the types of cognitive processes that underly transfer and knowledge integration. The broader impact of the project will be to inform educators and technologists how to better design for long-term, problem-based engagement in science topics and to support transfer and integrated understanding.