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

虚拟现实（VR）提供了一个新的机会，让学生参与地球科学领域的经验，这是众所周知的支持学生学习。然而，目前尚不清楚如何设计具有与现实世界现场体验相当的结果的VR体验。该试点项目旨在开发将VR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。项目内容包括：（1）实践社区;（2）VR活动库;（3）课堂试验，以比较不同类型的VR体验的有效性;以及（4）研讨会，让地球科学界参与确定和传播VR在课堂上使用的最佳实践。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。 除了这种直接影响外，随着VR在教育中的作用扩大，这项工作有可能改善地球科学或其他STEM课堂中大多数学生的学习成果。将行业合作伙伴整合到实践社区中，将支持教师在使用VR作为教学技术方面的发展，并帮助VR技术开发人员在构建新的VR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，这些大学包括研究型大学，主要是本科院校和大型社区学院;其中三个机构是少数族裔服务机构。加入这些学术机构的是三个主要的工业合作伙伴，他们正在为教育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，该网站将提供共享教学法的平台，提供VR活动和课程计划，并促进社区成员之间的网络联系。学术合作伙伴将在300多名学生中研究VR体验的有效性。 这些研究将评估现实主义，互动性和可访问性的经验如何影响学习成果，以及学生的经验相对于与每个经验相关的实施挑战（开发和交付）。实践社区将为地球科学领域的虚拟现实实地体验设计定义一套最佳实践，这些实践将通过两个社区研讨会进行传播。该研究的主要成果将是记录一套使用VR进行地球科学学习的最佳实践。该奖项反映了NSF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。

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.