Robb Lindgren

Emboldened by Embodiment: Six Precepts for Research on Embodied Learning and Mixed Reality

The authors describe an emerging paradigm of educational research that pairs theories of embodied learning with a class of immersive technologies referred to as mixed reality (MR). MR environments merge the digital with the physical, where, for example, students can use their bodies to simulate an orbit around a virtual planet. Recent research supports the idea that body activity can be an important catalyst for generating learning, and new technologies are being developed that use natural human physicality and gesture as input. However, existing research on embodied learning technologies has been disparate, driven largely by specific technical innovations and constraints, and often lacking a clear focus on establishing their efficacy in educational contexts. On the basis of the unique characteristics of these technologies and on their own experiences conducting research in this area, the authors put forth six precepts for embodied learning technology researchers that pertain to the rationale, design, and execution of empirical studies.

Spatial Learning and Computer Simulations in Science

Interactive simulations are entering mainstream science education. Their effects on cognition and learning are often framed by the legacy of information processing, which emphasized amodal problem solving and conceptual organization. In contrast, this paper reviews simulations from the vantage of research on perception and spatial learning, because most simulations take a spatial format and the pedagogical intent is to promote learning. Four learning effects help clarify the positive and negative aspects of current simulation designs: picture superiority, noticing, structuring, and tuning.

Enhancing learning and engagement through embodied interaction within a mixed reality simulation

Computer simulations have been shown to be effective instruments for teaching students about difficult concepts, particularly in the STEM disciplines. Emerging interface technologies are expanding the modalities with which learners can interact with these simulations, but the effects of these new interactions on conceptual understanding and student engagement have not been examined in great depth. We present here a study where middle school students learned about gravity and planetary motion in an immersive, whole-body interactive simulation, and we compared their learning and attitudes about science with students who used a desktop version of the same simulation. Results of the study indicate that enacting concepts and experiencing critical ideas in physics through whole-body activity leads to significant learning gains, higher levels of engagement, and more positive attitudes towards science. Mixed reality technologies allow for embodied interaction with science content.Whole-body interaction enhances learning of physics concepts.Compared to traditional simulations, embodied interaction leads to higher engagement.Whole-body interaction with simulations increases positive attitudes toward science.

Constructivism in an age of non-constructivist assessments

Constructivism is a theory of knowledge growth and lifelong development built on a philosophy of pragmatism (Dewey, 1916). In the context of formal education, it is frequently used as pedagogical label for sensemaking activities including discovery, inquiry, exploration, and handson learning (Duffy & Jonassen, 1992). It is often set in opposition to shaping behavior, where external reinforcements regulate learning, as well as direct instruction, where students are told or shown what to do. Constructivism writ large has fared relatively well in education. Lillard and ElseQuest (2006), for example, found that Montessori education leads to better academic and social skills. Russell, Hancock, and McCullough (2007) found that participation in undergraduate research experiences, regardless of specific mentoring styles, increased student interest in pursuing advanced degrees in science. However, constructivism writ small—constructivism applied to single lessons or instructional units—has not fared as well. Klahr and Nigam (2004), for example, demonstrated that explicitly telling young children the control of variables strategy led to improved learning compared to having the children simply conduct experiments without guidance. Similar findings have led some scholars to the conclusion that constructivist pedagogies are inconsistent with cognitive architecture because they withhold information that can be readily told or demonstrated (e.g., Kirschner, Sweller, & Clark, 2006). This conclusion cannot be completely warranted, given what we know, for example, about the generation effect (Slamecka & Graf, 1978). Given pairs of synonyms, people will remember a word better if they explicitly have to generate missing information, as in the case of FAST: R_P_D versus reading FAST: RAPID. Nevertheless, their analysis does lend itself to the question, “Wouldn’t it be more efficient to simply tell students what they are supposed to do and know?” Some of the discrepancy between the outcomes of constructivism writ large and constructivism writ small has to do with the nature of the assessments that are used to evaluate pedagogical effectiveness. Constructivist pedagogies writ281 ISSN 1436-4522 (online) and 1176-3647 (print).

Embodiment and embodied design

Author(s): Abrahamson, D; Lindgren, R | Abstract:

Video Collaboratories for Research and Education: An Analysis of Collaboration Design Patterns

Web-based video collaboration environments have transformative potential for video-enhanced education and for video-based research studies. We first describe DIVER, a platform designed to solve a set of core challenges we have identified in supporting video collaboratories. We then characterize five collaboration design patterns (CDPs) that emerged from numerous collaborative groups who appropriated DIVER for their video-based practices. Collaboration design patterns (CDPs) are ways of characterizing interaction patterns in the uses of collaboration technology. Finally we propose a three-dimensional design matrix for incorporating these observed patterns. This representation can serve heuristically in making design suggestions for supporting a broader constellation of user groups than those spanned by our observed CDPs.

Using badges for shaping interactions in online learning environments

In this paper, we describe an online course management system (titled Adventures in Emerging Media) designed to allow students to choose their own pathways through learning content (a choose-your-own-adventure online course). In addition to providing students with additional agency and narrative prompts, we also used badges, or achievements, to promote specific types of student behaviors. This study provides data collected from approximately 200 students enrolled in this online digital media course in which badges were used to incentivize targeted student behaviors, such as taking an exam within a certain timeframe or responding to student work with especially helpful feedback. In addition to a brief analysis of relevant achievement assessment data, we also describe our approach to the mechanics of achievement design and show some of the elements of design and layout used to incorporate the achievements into a learning management system.

Generating a learning stance through perspective-taking in a virtual environment

Emerging media technologies such as virtual environments present a unique opportunity to examine the effects of perspective-taking on processes of human learning. In these environments it is possible for learners to immerse themselves in a unique visual perspective-such as that of a competent actor-and experience the ways they allocate their attention as they perform critical tasks in a domain. This study investigates whether the opportunity to experience a first-person perspective of actions in a virtual world simulation benefits learning compared to a third-person, disembodied perspective of those same events. Measures of performance within the simulation and post-assessment activities including a diagramming task indicate significant advantages for participants who received the first-person perspective. These participants had a better memory for the important tasks and task-related elements of the simulation; they committed fewer errors and exhibited less help-seeking behavior than participants with a third-person perspective. Results are described in terms of a virtual environments ability to generate a learning stance through person-centered perspective-taking, and potential implications for the design of instructional computer technologies are discussed.

Learning from digital video: an exploration of how interactions affect outcomes

The sinking costs of producing digital video and its growing presence on the Internet suggest that it has potenial for use in web-based learning technologies. However, there have been few investigations into how the kind of interaction one has with video impacts subsequent learning. In this in-progress study participants are asked to watch video of an expert taking apart a toaster and describing how it works. The recorded event is the same for all participants, but the event is presented in one of three different modalities: (1) digital video shot from a free-standing camera (2) digital video shot from a free-standing camera that has been annotated in a video markup application called DIVER and (3) digital video shot from a head-mounted camera. A number of different assessment tasks are used to characterize the quantity and type of learning that is supported by a particular mode of video interaction.

Organized mischief: comparing shared and private displays on a collaborative learning task

We describe a study in which students in two science classes worked on a collaborative learning task using either a shared display or individual displays. The purpose is to inform how display interactions support group collaboration and individual learning when using media technologies. We examined individual learning outcomes as well as behavioral differences between students using the two display types. Preliminary results indicate collaborating with a shared display may result in more effective task organization and subsequently higher conceptual understanding.