SBIR Phase I: Tablecraft, A Next Generation Introductory STEM Platform

这个SBIR一期项目致力于为中学生创造一个全课堂的虚拟现实（VR）体验，让他们以互动的方式接触科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）主题，作为现有课程的补充。在沉浸在自己的3D虚拟树屋实验室的同时，学生将能够加入其他学生实验室，共同探索各种下一代科学概念，如周期元素及其属性。这得益于面向教师的桌面和VR界面，使得管理整个班级的学生同时参与VR活动成为可能。通过使用经济实惠的独立VR头显，并将VR提升到目前一个学生一次的用例之外，该项目将开拓备受期待的虚拟实地考察市场，用于真实的学习环境。这与美国国家科学基金会（National Science Foundation）的教育研究领域（Education Research Area）一致，该领域旨在实现美国STEM教育在所有水平和所有环境下的卓越表现，因为课堂vr的价值在于其为更多学生提供更有效学习环境的独特能力。所提议的活动的智力价值是什么？该项目团队将开发一款沉浸式多人虚拟现实（VR）学习游戏，用于真实的课堂使用。该项目将利用围绕自主目标构建的模块化游戏设计的优势，测试一个教室管理系统，该系统允许整个班级的学生在虚拟现实内外进行协作。当沉浸在个人3D虚拟环境中时，学生将能够加入属于其他学生的虚拟空间，以完成老师在班级层面设定的共同目标。该项目还寻求通过将通用学习设计框架应用于增强中学生与STEM主题的关系和内容知识的本地目标，进一步发展学习游戏的一般领域。这使得该项目成为教育VR内容设计和交互方案的试验台。在第一阶段的研究中，项目团队将检查学生是否能够理解如何在很少或没有外部帮助的情况下玩游戏，教师是否能够将产品与他们的课堂环境相结合，教师可以管理多大的小组，同时保持学生的任务，学生与主题的关系是否发生变化，以及教师和学生是否将完全实现的产品视为潜在的有效学习工具。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This SBIR Phase I project is dedicated to creating a whole-classroom virtual reality (VR) experience for middle school students to be exposed to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) topics interactively as a supplement to the existing curriculum. While immersed in their very own 3D virtual treehouse lab, students will be able to join other student labs and collaboratively explore a variety of Next Generation Science Concepts, such as the Periodic Elements and their properties. This is facilitated by a teacher-oriented desktop and VR interface that makes it possible to manage an entire class of students simultaneously participating in VR activities. By leveraging the use of affordable standalone VR headsets, and elevating VR beyond its current one-student-at-a-time use case, the project will be pioneering the highly anticipated market of virtual field trips for use in authentic learning environments. This is aligned with the National Science Foundation's Education Research Area, which seeks to achieve excellence in U.S. STEM education at all levels in all settings, because the value of classroom-VR rests on its unique ability to provide more effective learning settings to more students. What is the intellectual merit of the proposed activity? The project team will develop an immersive multiplayer virtual reality (VR) learning game for authentic classroom usage. The project will apply the advantages of a modular game design built around self-directed goals to test a classroom-management system built to allow an entire class of students to collaborate in or outside virtual reality. While immersed in individual 3D virtual environments, students will be able to join virtual spaces belonging to other students, in order to accomplish shared goals set by the teacher at a class level. The project also seeks to further the general field of learning games, by applying the Universal Design for Learning framework to its local goal of enhancing middle-schoolers' relationships to and content knowledge of STEM topics. This permits the project to be a test-bed for educational VR content design and interaction schemes. In Phase I research, the project team will examine whether students are able to understand how to play the game with minimal or no external help, whether teachers can integrate the product with their classroom environment, how large of a group a teacher can manage while keeping students on-task, whether student relationships to the subject matter change, and whether teachers and students see the fully realized product as a potentially effective learning tool.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.