IUSE: EHR: Assessing Virtual Reality Field Experiences for Enhanced Learning in the Geosciences

虚拟现实(VR)为学生提供了一个新的机会，让他们参与到地学领域的体验中，这是众所周知的支持学生学习的领域。然而，目前还不清楚如何设计出与真实世界的实地体验具有可比性的VR体验。这一试点项目旨在开发将虚拟现实融入地球科学教育的最佳实践，并支持在大学课堂上采用这些实践。该项目包括：(1)实践社区；(2)虚拟现实活动图书馆；(3)比较不同类型虚拟现实体验的效果的课堂试验；(4)让地球科学界参与确定和传播在课堂上使用虚拟现实的最佳做法的讲习班。该项目旨在影响来自不同机构的至少13名教师参与者和300多名本科生。除了这种直接影响，随着虚拟现实在教育中的作用扩大，这项工作还有可能改善地球科学或其他STEM课堂上大多数学生的学习结果。在实践社区中整合行业合作伙伴将支持教师在使用虚拟现实作为教学技术方面的发展，并帮助虚拟现实技术的开发商在构建新的虚拟现实创新时考虑教育需求。实践社区的启动将涉及来自13所试点大学的参与者的合作，其中包括研究型大学、主要是本科院校和一所大型社区学院；其中3所机构是为少数族裔服务的。加入这些学术机构的还有三个主要的行业合作伙伴，它们正在为教育VR体验创造技术(Adobe、Unity和ThingLink)。实践社区将由科学教育资源中心网站的一个新部分提供支持，该网站将提供平台，分享教学方法，贡献VR活动和教案，并促进社区成员之间的联系。学术合作伙伴将在300多名学生中研究VR体验的有效性。这些研究将评估体验的现实性、互动性和可获得性如何影响学习结果，以及相对于与每种体验相关的实施挑战(开发和交付)的学生体验。实践社区将确定一套设计地球科学虚拟现实实地经验的最佳做法，并将通过两个社区讲习班传播这些做法。这项研究的主要结果将是一系列使用虚拟现实技术学习地球科学的最佳实践的记录。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Virtual reality (VR) presents a new opportunity for engaging students in geoscience field experiences, which are known to support student learning. However, it is not clear how to design VR experiences that have comparable results as real-world field experiences. This pilot project aims to develop best practices for integrating VR into geoscience education and to support adoption of those practices in college classrooms. The project includes: (1) a community of practice; (2) a VR activity library; (3) in-class trials to compare the effectiveness of different types of VR experiences; and (4) workshops to engage the geoscience community in determining and disseminating best practices for VR use in classrooms. The project aims to affect at least thirteen faculty participants from different institutions and more than three hundred undergraduate students. In addition to this direct impact, the work has the potential to improve learning outcomes for most students in a geoscience or other STEM classroom as the role of VR in education expands. Integration of industry partners in the community of practice will support faculty development in the use of VR as a teaching technology and help developers of VR technology to consider educational needs as they build new VR innovations.Initiation of the community of practice will involve collaboration of participants from thirteen pilot universities including research universities, primarily undergraduate institutions, and a large community college; three of the institutions are minority serving. Joining these academic institutions are three major industrial partners that are creating technologies for educational VR experiences (Adobe, Unity, and ThingLink). The community of practice will be supported by a new section of the Science Education Resources Center website, which will provide the platform for sharing pedagogy, contributing VR activities and lesson plans, and promoting networking among community members. Academic partners will study the effectiveness of VR experiences among more than three hundred students. These studies will evaluate how realism, interactivity, and accessibility of the experience affect learning outcomes, as well as the student experience relative to the implementation challenges (development and delivery) associated with each experience. The community of practice will define a set of best practices for the design of VR field experiences in the geosciences, and these practices will be disseminated through two community workshops. The key result of the study will be the documentation of a set of best practices for the use of VR for learning in the geosciences.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.