Designing Responsive Physical Learning Environments to Promote Student Engagement and Learning

本项目由美国国家科学基金会改善本科STEM教育计划：教育与人力资源（IUSE:EHR）资助，旨在通过为开发促进学生学习的适应性物理环境奠定基础，为国家利益服务。除了教学、社会和文化因素可以影响学生的学习，物理学习环境也可以显著影响学生的表现和参与。物理学习环境包括光照和空气温度、质量和运动。创造一个促进所有学习者参与的物理学习环境的一个主要挑战是，在相同的条件下，学生可以感受到不同程度的舒适。不幸的是，目前室内环境设计的灵活性有限，因为物理环境通常被视为静态的建筑特征。例如，在现代建筑设计和智能建筑控制中，系统工作以保持固定的温度，而不管居住者的感知变化。因此，目前的方法错失了利用个人环境变化来提高人类表现（包括学习）的机会。在这个项目中进行的研究将开始利用个人环境变化的过程。具体来说，该项目将研究学生参与的水平和参与的变化，这可能与物理学习环境的特征有关。正如设想的那样，拟议的工作有可能通过告知学习空间的设计来提高学生的参与度和学习，从而促进知识和影响教育。在初步数据的基础上，该项目的主要目标是更全面地了解学生参与与物理学习环境之间的关系。为了实现这一目标，研究小组将在模拟学习环境中改变空气温度、照明和空气运动等条件。学生将自我报告他们的舒适程度，研究小组将调查这些数据与学生在评估中的表现和自我报告的参与度之间的相关性。该团队还将使用现有的、经过验证的工具来测量学生的参与度和情绪状态。该研究的这一方面旨在验证初步数据，该数据表明学生的参与度与学生在物理环境中的舒适度相关。它还将提供数据来评估学生参与对多种物理环境因素的敏感性。接下来，再次以初步数据为基础，该团队的目标是使用计算机视觉收集数据，并开发基于面部特征、姿势和手势行为的算法，以进行实时互动预测。最后，该项目将评估个人短期环境刺激的有效性，如增加气流和热变化，作为提高学生参与度的干预措施。该项目分三个阶段实施，旨在提高人们对建筑环境和学生参与之间复杂关系的认识和理解。研究结果将试图描述环境刺激在提高学生参与度方面所起的作用，从而为下一代智能教室的设计提供信息。NSF IUSE:EHR计划支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生STEM教育的有效性。这是探索和设计层的一个参与式学生学习项目。通过参与学生学习轨道，该计划支持有前途的工具和实践的创建，探索和实施。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。

With support from the NSF Improving Undergraduate STEM Education Program: Education and Human Resources (IUSE:EHR), this project aims to serve the national interest by laying a foundation for developing adaptive physical environments that promote student learning. In addition to the teaching, social, and cultural factors that can influence students' learning, the physical learning environment can also significantly affect student performance and engagement. The physical learning environment includes lighting and air temperature, quality, and movement. A major challenge for creating a physical learning environment that promotes engagement for all learners is that students in the same set of conditions can feel different levels of comfort. Unfortunately, current indoor environmental design has limited flexibility because the physical environment is typically treated as a static building feature. For example, in contemporary building design and smart building control, the systems work to maintain a fixed temperature, regardless of variations in occupants' perceptions. Thus, the current approach represents a missed opportunity to leverage personal environmental variations to improve human performance, including learning. The research that will be conducted in this project will begin the process of leveraging personal environmental variations. Specifically, the project will examine levels of student engagement and variations in engagement that may be associated with features of physical learning environments. As conceived, the proposed work has potential to advance knowledge and impact education by informing the design of learning spaces to increase students' engagement and learning.Building on preliminary data, the major goal of the project is to more fully understand the relationship between student engagement and the physical learning environment. To achieve this goal, the research team will vary conditions such as air temperature, lighting, and air movement in simulated learning settings. Students will self-report their comfort, and the team will investigate correlations of these data with student performance on assessments and self-reports of their engagement. The team will also employ existing, validated instruments to measure student engagement and mood states. This aspect of the study is designed to validate the preliminary data, which suggests that student engagement correlates to student comfort in the physical environment. It will also provide data to assess the sensitivity of student engagement to multiple physical environmental factors. Next, again building on preliminary data, the team aims to use computer vision to collect data and develop algorithms using facial characteristics, posture, and gestural behaviors for real-time engagement prediction. Lastly, the project will assess the effectiveness of applying personal short-term environmental stimuli, such as increased air flow and thermal changes, as interventions to enhance student engagement. Executed in three phases, this project aims to advance knowledge and understanding of the complex relationship between the built environment and student engagement. Findings will seek to describe the role environmental stimuli play in improving student engagement to inform the design of next-generation smart classrooms. The NSF IUSE:EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. This is an Engaged Student Learning project in the Exploration and Design tier. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising tools and practices.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.