Making With Understanding: Using Augmented Reality to Support Peer Teaching in Makerspaces

该项目将开发和研究增强现实能力的知识交流工具，以加强对Makerspace等非正式学习空间中的协作学习的支持。Makerspace提供了修补物理和数字工具的机会，并促进了对兴趣驱动的、基于探究的学习的参与。在这种情况下，学习者相互非正式地教授STEM概念，这对协作和学习有直接影响。许多物理现象，如磁，基本上是肉眼看不见的(例如，人们看不到电线中的电流，或电机周围磁场的形状)。这一限制给makerspace和其他地方的学习和协作带来了挑战。如果看不到这些内容，新手将很难理解更有知识的同行提供关于不可见变量的解释。在makerspace中，这一限制导致学生主要专注于做(即组装一个工作原型，或修复其他学生的问题)，而较少关注理解(即，理解为什么会发生某事，或向知识较少的同龄人传授潜在原因)。为了调查这些问题，该项目将开发并经验性地测试AR启用的体验和工具，以将肉眼不可见的现象增强到MakerSpace中建立的物理对象中。学习工具将涉及开发用户生成的交互式可视化和注释，将具有不可见变量的物理对象连接起来，以促进协作和知识转让。增强现实(AR)使设计活动成为可能，在这些活动中，学习者可以将隐藏的力量以全息覆盖的形式“看到”，同行可以通过在他们正在讨论的物理对象上创建全息表示来进行交流。最终的成果将在Maker Spaces中进行测试，并整合到一门关于教育中的数字制造的课程中。其目标是开发知识转移工具，使学生从仅仅做事情转变为实际理解复杂系统是如何工作的。将生成一个开源工具包，以便世界各地的人们可以使用和/或扩展数字工具包。该项目的更大目标是通过为学生提供更有效的沟通和学习工具，加速知识转移和STEM学习，并有可能将误解转化为对复杂科学概念的正确理解。该项目将开发AR功能，以一对一同行知识交流为目标。研究将调查它们在实验和生态环境中对沟通、协作和学习的影响。该项目将进行几项连续的研究。在研究的第一阶段，该项目将调查在AR模拟存在和不存在的情况下，传统制造者空间中的知识转移行为是如何发生的，并确定哪些新功能可以在AR工具包中实现，以支持和改进知识交流。这项研究活动将要求参与者理解一个简单的电路，该电路向扬声器发出不同的频率。在第二阶段，该项目将研究知识转移的有效性，当涉及到制造空间的典型活动时，例如调试复杂的电子系统。在与参与者面对面进行初步研究后，研究将把参与者安排在不同的房间(每个房间都有更专门的设备)，在那里他们将远程互动，构建或理解一个系统，其中一个参与者的组件与另一个参与者的组件相连。这将有助于评估新的AR工具在改进知识转让方面是否有效。在最后一年，该项目将通过将该技术整合到制造者空间，并将其纳入哈佛教育研究生院教授的为期4个月的数字制造课程，对该系统的有效性进行生态评估。在研究结束时，该项目希望更深入地了解哪些学习工具或功能在更开放的生态有效性背景下是有价值的，如何有效地将这些AR工具集成到现有的Maker空间中，以及它们如何被学生在正式的学习环境中使用并可以补充课堂教学。该奖项反映了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。

The project will develop and investigate Augmented Reality-enabled knowledge exchange tools that enhance the support of collaborative learning in informal learning spaces such as makerspaces. Makerspaces offer opportunities to tinker with physical and digital tools, and promote engagement in interest-driven, inquiry-based learning. Within this context, learners informally teach STEM concepts to each other, which has a direct impact on collaboration and learning. Many physical phenomena, such as magnetism, are largely invisible to the naked eye (e.g. one cannot see the flow of electricity in a wire, or the shape of magnetic fields around a motor). This limitation creates challenges for learning and collaboration in makerspaces and elsewhere. Without seeing this content, a novice will have difficulties understanding when a more knowledgeable peer offers explanations about the invisible variables. In makerspaces, this limitation causes students to focus primarily on doing (i.e., assembling a working prototype, or fixing other students' problems) and less on understanding (i.e., grasping why something is happening, or teaching the underlying reasons to less knowledgeable peers). To investigate these issues, the project will develop and empirically test AR-enabled experiences and tools to augment invisible phenomena to the naked eye into physical objects built in the makerspace. The learning tools will involve the development of user-generated interactive visualizations and annotations that connect physical objects with invisible variables, to facilitate collaboration and knowledge transfer. Augmented reality (AR) makes it possible to design activities where learners may "see" hidden forces as holographic overlays, and peers may communicate by creating holographic representations on the physical objects they are discussing. The final deliverable will be tested in a maker spaces and integrated into a course about digital fabrication in education. The objective is to develop knowledge-transfer tools that will move students from merely doing to actually understanding how complex systems work. An open source toolkit will be generated so that people around the world can use the digital toolkit and/or expand upon it.The larger goal of this project is to accelerate knowledge transfer and STEM learning, by providing students with tools for more efficient communication and learning, and which can potentially transform misconceptions into correct understandings of complex scientific ideas. This project will develop AR features that target one-on-one peer knowledge exchanges. The research studies will investigate their impact on communication, collaboration and learning in experimental and ecological settings. The project will conduct several successive studies. In the first phase of the research, the project will investigate how knowledge-transfer behaviors occur in traditional maker spaces under the presence and absence of AR simulations and determine what novel features can be implemented in an AR toolkit in order to support and improve knowledge exchange. The study activity will require participants to understand a simple electric circuit that generates different frequencies into the speaker. In the second phase, the project will research the effectiveness of knowledge transfer when involved in an activity typical of makerspaces, such as debugging complex electronics systems. After doing preliminary research with participants face-to-face, the research will locate participants in separate rooms (each room containing more specialized equipment), where they will remotely interact in constructing or understanding a system where the components of one participant are connected with the components of the other participant. This will allow for evaluating whether the new AR tools are effective in improving knowledge transfer. In the final year the project will ecologically evaluate the effectiveness of the system by integrating the technology into a maker space, as well as including it into a 4-month class on digital fabrication taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. At the end of the research, the project expects to have a deeper understanding of what learning tools or features are valuable in a more open-ended ecologically-valid context, how to effectively integrate such AR tools in existing maker spaces, and how they are used by students in formal learning environments and can complement classroom pedagogy.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.