Engage, Explore, Enact: Teachers’ Designs for Immersive Media

• In Event: Of Bodies and Minds: Immersive Physical Sensor Technologies and STEM Learning

Abstract

Immersive displays allow for exploration of three-dimensional spaces. They have been shown to support factual and conceptual learning (Heimlich, Sickler, Yocco, & Storksdieck, 2010; Jacobson, 2011; Lantz, 2011; Limniou, Roberts, & Papadopoulos, 2008; Schloss, Jacobson, Handron, & Hampshire; Sumners, Reiff, & Weber, 2008). Little is known about how teachers might design immersive learning experiences or incorporate immersive displays into their teaching. It is uncommon to explicitly support teachers to learn how to design (Akerson, Hanson, & Cullen, 2007; Akerson & Hanuscin, 2007; Basista & Mathews, 2010; Blanchard, Southerland, & Granger, 2008; Capps, Crawford, & Constas, 2012; Johnson, 2007; Johnson, Kahle, & Fargo, 2007), yet it is important to include teachers in design process because the success of implementation is in their hands (Keys & Bryan, 2001). We investigated conditions that support teachers’ designs for a digital dome.

Participants included teachers enrolled in courses that included instruction on design process, paired with opportunities to designs for digital dome (see Table 1 in document version). Participants engaged in ideation related to teaching with the dome; two teachers co-designed with computer scientists and enacted their designs with students. Cohort 1 participants began their designs for immersive media prior to experiencing it. Their initial designs were unrealistic, requiring significant modification to the media, (thus violating the constraint), or incorporating the media simply as a means to engage students. Later, the teachers visited the dome. Cohort 2 participants experienced the dome as learners, then ideated users.

Data include audio/video-records, artifacts, and reflections, and were coded using a grounded approach, resulting in a simple coding scheme: Engagement (for motivational reasons); Experimental (changing conditions); Exploratory (exploring inaccessible spaces without a-priori goal); and Enactive (places learner in charge of inquiry) (see Table 2 in document version).

Before visiting the dome, teachers struggled to propose feasible, worthwhile uses of the immersive, interactive media; after visiting the dome, they were able to generate ideas about how they would like to use it. While some of their ideas still violated the constraint, their suggestions were no longer non-consequential, and included exploratory uses. This aligns to findings that highlight the importance of having understanding of the materials greatly improves design plans, (Anning, 1994), allowing designers to shift from hypotheticals to practical (Koehler, Mishra, Hershey, & Peruski, 2004; Svihla, 2009, 2010). Those who experienced the dome as learners displayed sophisticated notions of the affordances of the technology, proposing to use it for enactive (become a scientist) means. In the two enacted designs using the dome, a challenge for the teachers was to consider how to leverage the technology in ways that supported inquiry- they did this well, but it was not easy for them to judge ahead of time whether it would work. Results of student learning are presented elsewhere (Svihla, Dahlgren, Kvam, Bowles, & Kniss, 2013; Svihla, Kvam, Dahlgren, Bowles, & Kniss, 2013).

Author

• Vanessa Svihla, University of New Mexico