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The Learning Assistant (LA) model was designed to facilitate the innovative use of active learning in large lecture courses by training and integrating undergraduate near-peer instructors called Learning Assistants (LAs). We analyze the LA model in the context of the course learning activities, their influence on student outcomes, and students’ expectations for the course. We used results from a large-scale survey to model expectations, course activities, and outputs in the form of course satisfaction and final grades, and drew from interviews, classroom observations, and student focus groups to make sense of the model results. Quantitative results revealed a small positive effect of LAs on final grade when only LAs were input into the statistical model. However, when the influence of students’ perceptions of their professor, their teaching fellow (TF), and their own study habits were included, the effect of LAs was mitigated. Qualitative results showed that while undergraduates reported that they felt more comfortable asking LAs questions about course material, many still focused on grades over conceptual understanding. LAs championed small group work more than their teaching partners, but the effectiveness of the LAs to encourage group work was linked to the TF’s approach to teaching. Results suggest that the expectations of the students, teaching staff, and the course activities and assessments can impact the effectiveness of the LA model.

Education reform calls for portraying science as a process of inquiry and argumentation grounded in the epistemic traditions of a domain. While experimentation is a core scientific investigation st...

Purpose This study isolates the effect of immersion on players’ learning in a virtual reality (VR)-based game about cellular biology by comparing two versions of the game with the same level of interactivityand different levels of immersion. The authors identify immersion and additional interactivity as two key affordances of VR as a learning tool. A number of research studies compare VR with two-dimensional or minimally interactive media; this study focuses on the effect of immersion as a result of the head mounted display (HMD). Design/methodology/approach In the game, players diagnose a cell by exploring a virtual cell and search for clues that indicate one of five possible types of cystic fibrosis. Fifty-one adults completed all aspects of the study. Players took pre and post assessments and drew pictures of cells and translation before and after the game. Players were randomly assigned to play the game with the HMD (stereoscopic view) or without the headset (non-stereoscopic view). Players were interviewed about their drawings and experiences at the end of the session. Findings Players in both groups improved in their knowledge of the cell environment and the process of translation. Players who experienced the immersive stereoscopic view had a more positive learning effect in the content assessment, and stronger improvement in their mental models of the process of translation between pre- and post-drawings compared to players who played the two-dimensional game. Originality/value This study suggests that immersion alone has a positive effect on conceptual understanding, especially in helping learners understand spatial environments and processes. These findings set the stage for a new wave of research on learning in immersive environments; research that moves beyond determining whether immersive media correlate with more learning, toward a focus on the types of learning outcomes that are best supported by immersive media.

A primary affordance of virtual reality (VR) headsets is to give the user spatial presence or the illusion of being in the virtual environment. Although considerable research connects VR to spatial presence, spatial awareness, and spatial ability, little is known about how users develop spatial presence in VR learning environments. This study addresses that gap by exploring spatial presence experience construction in a VR educational game and investigating whether users’ knowledge, game experience, and VR experience impact the establishment of spatial presence. In this study, 56 high school students played an immersive 3D VR cell biology game where players search for clues within a virtual cell to diagnose the cell. Findings suggest that players’ perceptions of spatial presence are linked to how they allocate their attention during the game, their level of interest in cellular biology, and their visual-spatial acuity, but are not linked to their game experience, VR experience, or prior knowledge of the content area. These results indicate that well-scaffolded, engaging virtual environments can foster spatial presence among users, regardless of prior knowledge or experience, and gives practitioners clues about how to design VR learning environments.

Practice is essential for learning. However, for many interpersonal skills, there often are not enough opportunities and venues for novices to repeatedly practice. Role-playing simulations offer a promising framework to advance practice-based professional training for complex communication skills, in fields such as teaching. In this work, we introduce ELK (Eliciting Learner Knowledge), a role-playing simulation system that helps K-12 teachers develop effective questioning strategies to elicit learners' prior knowledge. We evaluate ELK with 75 pre-service teachers through a mixed-method study. We find that teachers demonstrate a modest increase in effective questioning strategies and develop sympathy towards students after using ELK for 3 rounds. We implement a supplementary activity in ELK in which users evaluate transcripts generated from past role-play sessions. We have tentative evidence that a combination of role-play and evaluating conversation moves may be more effective for learning. We contribute design implications of using role-play systems for communication strategy training.

This study examines how different roles and background knowledge transform players’ dyadic conversations into spatial dialogues in a virtual cellular biology game. Cellverse is a collaborative virtual reality (VR) game designed to teach cell biology. Players work in pairs, assuming the role of either a Navigator, with reference material and a global view through a tablet, or an Explorer, with a more detailed interactive view of the cell through a VR headset and hand controllers. The game is designed so players must collaborate in order to complete the game. Our results show that roles influenced their reference perspectives at a level of statistical significance. Furthermore, players with high prior knowledge tried to reduce their partner’s mental effort by giving spatial information from their point of view, thus producing fewer occurrences of spatial unawareness. Results of this study suggest that designers can build in different roles and leverage different background knowledge to prompt effective partnerships during collaborative games.

With schools and educational centers around the country moving from in-person to emergency remote learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic, education faces an unprecedented crisis (Hodges et al., Educause Review 27, 2020). This case study presents the efforts and impact of Full STEAM Ahead (FSA) launched by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in response to the pandemic to support remote collaborative learning for K-12 learners, parents, and educators. We present two FSA initiatives: (1) weekly themed packages with developmentally appropriate activities for K-12 remote learning and (2) Full STEAM Ahead Into Summer (FSAIS), an online summer program for middle school Massachusetts students, specifically targeting students who are at risk for “COVID Slide.” (Institute-wide Task Force on the Future of MIT Education-Final Report: http://web.mit.edu/future-report/TaskForceFinal_July28.pdf?) Our operative theory of change is that we can improve K-12 remote collaborative learning experiences through developing and sharing a curriculum that exemplifies the minds-on and hands-on approach advocated by MIT, strategically leveraging existing structures and projects within MIT, and establishing partnerships with the local and international community. We gauge the effect of these efforts on contributing members of the MIT community and targeted learners by analyzing data gathered through participant surveys and artifacts such as the website, packages, modules, and student projects created during the summer programs. Our findings indicate that existing structures and resources – with community building – facilitated the achievement of our goal to develop and distribute problem-based learning activities and that interaction and community building were central in meeting those goals. This work contributes to the knowledge base regarding emergency online learning and the development of effective university outreach efforts.

Group work can engage students in active learning, yet students often resist working with peers in class. We investigated the impact of five minimally structured, easily implemented group work strategies used during weekly problem-based discussion sections in two introductory chemistry courses through student surveys and quiz score analyses. Students reported increased interaction with their classmates as a result of group work but did not feel more prepared for the weekly quiz. Interestingly, students’ performance on the weekly quizzes was anticorrelated with the strategy they felt prepared them best for the quiz. Students at the introductory level appeared unable to “self-assess” what helps them learn. However, group work strategies with greater interaction between students were associated with higher quiz scores. Furthermore, we found that implementing specific strategies over time resulted in more collaboration than simply instructing students to work together. These results are consistent with previous work that highlights the importance of student interaction in learning and suggest that positive interdependence can be created among students even in a less structured collaborative environment.

Interactive simulations allow preservice teachers to connect education theory and pedagogy in scaffolded environments. We created digital simulations with scenarios from in-person simulatio...

This study explores how players engage in problem solving during a cross-platform collaborative learning game about cellular biology. We tested the game with 8 pairs of students: 2 pairs of middle school students, 2 pairs of high school students, and 4 pairs of students in a biotechnology workforce program. Players took on one of two roles: An Explorer in virtual reality head mounted display and a Navigator using a tablet. Players took on one of two roles: An Explorer in virtual reality head mounted display and a Navigator using a tablet. Videos of 40-minute game play sessions for 8 pairs of players were transcribed and examined for patterns of game play based on stages of collaborative problem solving (CPS) developed by Fiore et al (2017). Players' discussion during gameplay was analyzed and visualized through Epistemic Network Analysis. Results suggested that players engaged in two-way communication using biology terms throughout the game, and that communication styles were linked to roles. After initial orientation, players moved through multiple cycles of clue finding and discussion that followed similar patterns even in groups with different knowledge levels. These results suggest that collaborative problem solving can be initiated through roles in a serious game and documented through participants' conversation during a serious game. Future research will focus on whether the game can be used to learn, practice, and improve players' CPS skills.

Virtual reality (VR) technology has been steadily used for research purposes over the past few decades and is now gaining attraction in educational settings. Spatial understanding of learners is one of these research topics. Although there are plenty of studies focusing on VR and spatial abilities separately, there has not been a comprehensive review of papers that focus specifically on both VR and spatial ability. To address this question, an electronic search of articles from 2015 to 2019 was conducted that found 923 articles, 26 of which met the criteria of specifically discussing 'spatial abilities' and 'VR environments'. Eleven out of 26 articles reported the reason for using VR as a spatial assessment tool. The most frequently-mentioned spatial ability that was studied was mental rotation ability. This review revealed a special link between spatial ability and VR. VR can be both diagnostic and therapeutic for spatial skills; VR is an excellent tool for examining spatial ability in individuals and also individuals can enhance their spatial abilities through using virtual reality.

A key affordance of virtual reality is the capability of immersive VR to prompt spatial presence resulting from the stereoscopic lenses in the head-mounted display (HMD). We investigated the effect of a stereoscopic view of a game, Cellverse, on users’ perceived spatial presence, knowledge of cells, and learning in three levels of spatial knowledge: route, landmark, and survey knowledge. Fifty-one participants played the game using the same game controllers but with different views; 28 had a stereoscopic view (HMD), and 23 had a non-stereoscopic view (computer monitor). Participants explored a diseased cell for clues to diagnose the disease type and recommend a therapy. We gathered surveys, drawings, and spatial tasks conducted in the game environment to gauge learning. Participants’ spatial knowledge of the cell environment and knowledge of cell concepts improved after gameplay in both conditions. Spatial presence scores in the stereoscopic condition were higher than the non-stereoscopic condition with a large effect size; however, there was no significant difference in levels of spatial knowledge between the two groups. Most drawings showed a change in cell knowledge; yet some participants only changed in spatial knowledge of the cell, and some changed in both cell knowledge and spatial knowledge. Evidence suggests that a stereoscopic view has a significant effect on users’ experience of spatial presence, but that increased presence does not directly translate into spatial learning.

We analyze the state education agency policy guidance concerning remote learning published by all 50 U.S. states by the end of March 2020. We find several areas of consensus, including cancellation of testing, recommendations to continue some form of remote learning, attention to digital and non-digital options, and a concerns for providing a fair and appropriate education for students with disabilities. The primary area of policy divergence that we found regarded the purpose of continuous learning during a pandemic: whether to pursue forward progress in standards-aligned new material or whether to pursue skills review and enrichment learning. We recommend that states continue to emphasize equity, consider the particular challenges of home-based learning, and produce concise communications for multiple target audiences.

Purpose The California State University Library successfully improved its library’s hours, including introducing 24-hour access, thanks in part to an assessment process that helped the University Library to develop a partnership with the students. The paper aims to discuss this issue. Design/methodology/approach In order to understand the need for expanded operational hours, students’ were surveyed on their satisfaction with current library hours, suggestions on how best to meet their actual hour needs, and interest in 24-hour access. Efforts to solicit student input included involving the student government in promoting the survey and reviewing its results, a decision that later had a major impact on the success of the project. Findings The survey identified days with problematic hours and which hours student suggested changes to that would best fit most students’ needs. In response to the findings, the library immediately implemented incremental changes that fit within current library resources. The survey’s most significant finding was that 94 percent of students wanted 24-hour study in the library. Originality/value An unexpected benefit of the library making immediate, incremental changes was that students could see the results of their input and feel a sense of ownership. The findings also led to the library making 24-hour access a top priority. When university funding was not available, the university’s student government approached the library with a unique proposal to include funding for 24-hour library access in their proposed student fee increase. The student body showed its willingness to invest in the library by passing the fee increase. California State University San Marco’s library began 24/5 hours in Fall 2017.

Cells are central to the study of biology, yet many learners have difficulties understanding the abstract yet fundamental foundation of life. Research suggests that students' conceptions of cells are reinforced by current biology learning materials, which represent cells as two dimensional, highly ordered, and mostly empty. These models also inaccurately represent the number, location, and size of organelles. We examine the effect of an inquiry-based three-dimensional virtual reality (VR) game on high school students' mental models of cells. Students reported that the game was more interactive and engaging than traditional ways of learning about cells and attributed an improved understanding of cells to their game experience. Students' post drawings of cells depicted more types of organelles, increased density of organelles, and additional complexity than their pretest drawings, indicating a movement towards more accurate mental models of cells. However, students' scores did not improve on their factual knowledge about cells between the pretest and the post-game biology assessments. We discuss the implications of incorporating game-based approaches and new technologies such as VR into biology education.

In a design-based implementation study, we supported 11 teacher educators from diverse institutions across the country in implementing new approaches to practice-based teacher education. We observed that teacher educators proceeded through a developmental process in implementing new approaches, and we propose the Practice Based Teacher Education (PBTE) Engagement Ladder as a model of this process. Teacher educators proceed through stages of Adoption, Adaptation, and Redesign, as they shift from “off-the-shelf” implementations of PBTE approaches in individual lessons and units, towards more ambitious modifications of courses and eventually, program and curricula. This developmental process of teacher educator learning and change builds on prior research about teacher adoption of technology-enhanced pedagogies. We illustrate this developmental process through a series of case studies, and we conclude with a set of design hypotheses for promoting the adoption of PBTE approaches across the diverse landscape of teacher education.

Technological resources have expanded the goal of education from individual knowledge acquisition to include the development of critical thinking, communication, and collaboration (Griffin, McCaw, Care, 2012; Van Roekel, 2014). This shift requires a reevaluation of what students learn (e.g. content versus skills) and how students learn in formal education settings (Saavedra & Opfer, 2012). Thus, there is a critical need to find ways to create environments that enable embodied, enactive, extended, and embedded learning and develop critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity. MIT’s Education Arcade and the MIT Game Lab are exploring ways to meet this need by developing a cross-platform, collaborative educational game with a conceptual focus on cellular biology and a developmental focus on 21st century skills. To this end, we are creating learning environments that incorporate collaborative problem solving that are connected across different contexts.

Compared to other helping professions, teacher training typically lacks sufficient opportunities for novices to practice new skills. When teachers learn, they listen to people talk about teaching, or talk about teaching themselves, but they very rarely do the work of teaching. Games and simulations offer a promising framework to advance practice-based professional training for complex skills such as teaching. In this work, we built a role-playing simulation ELK to help teachers develop effective questioning strategies to elicit learner prior knowledge. We evaluate ELK with 76 pre-service teachers in two modes, one is more akin to the kind of human-human interaction that is germane to teaching but requires more human resources and one that can be done independently. We find that in both cases ELK raises awareness about student misconceptions and the importance of student thinking, and teachers demonstrate a modest increase in effective questioning strategies after three rounds of playing.

© 2019, © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This study focuses on an educational game titled Cellverse, a two-player cross-platform VR project intended to teach high school biology students about cell structure and function. In Cellverse, players work in pairs to explore a human lung cell and diagnose and treat a dangerous genetic disorder. Cellverse is being designed by the Collaborative Learning Environments in Virtual Reality (CLEVR) team, an interdisciplinary team consisting of game designers, educational researchers, and graduate and undergraduate students. Using a design-based research approach, we have enlisted the help of both subject matter experts and user testers to iteratively design and improve Cellverse. The objective of this paper is to share how user and expert feedback can inform and enhance the development of learning games. We describe how we gather and synthesize information to review and revise our game from in-game observations, semi-structured interviews, and video data. We discuss the input of subject matter experts, present feedback from our user testers, and describe how input from both parties influenced the design of Cellverse. Our results suggest that including feedback from both experts and users has provided information that can clarify gameplay, instruction, subject portrayal, narrative, and in-game goals.

The assessment of learning in large online courses requires tools that are valid, reliable, easy to administer, and can be automatically scored. We have evaluated an online assessment and learning tool called Knowledge Assembly, or Knowla. Knowla measures a student’s knowledge in a particular subject by having the student assemble a set of arbitrarily sized scrambled fragments into a logical order using a web-based interface. Instructors can use Knowla to create assessments and grading criteria. Initial testing of the tool indicates that the measure is reliable and that students access critical thinking skills as they engage with the material. Additionally, testing demonstrates that Knowla can be used to assess learning gains in a subject area. Knowla also shows promise as a learning tool and has already been integrated into university courses.

Outdoor field trip experiences are a cornerstone of quality environmental science instruction, yet the excitement and distractions associated with field trips can overwhelm learning objectives. Augmented reality (AR) can focus students’ attention and help them connect the concept rich domain of the classroom with the context rich experiences in the field. In this study, students used an immersive virtual pond, and then participated in a field trip to a real pond augmented by mobile technologies. We are interested in understanding whether and how augmenting a field trip with information via handheld mobile devices can help students connect concepts learned in the classroom with observations during the field trip. Specifically, we are curious about how augmentation allows students to “see the unseen” in concepts such as photosynthesis and respiration as well as apply causal reasoning patterns they learned about in the classroom while using an inquiry-based immersive virtual environment, EcoMUVE. We designed an AR supported field trip with three different treatments: (1) a ‘visual’ treatment in which students were prompted to consider content or perspectives from EcoMUVE using videos and animations (2) a ‘text’ treatment in which students were prompted to consider content or perspectives from EcoMUVE using text and images, and (3) a ‘control’ treatment that did not specifically prompt students to think about content or perspectives from EcoMUVE. We used a mixed-methods research approach and collected data based on pre, mid, and post surveys; student responses to prompts captured in the notes and log files during the field trip; a post-field-trip survey; and performance on an in-class written assignment. On the field trip, we found that students in all three treatments more frequently referred to visible factors and direct effects than to invisible factors and indirect effects. There were few discernible differences between the text and visual prompted treatments based on responses in the notes and log files captured during the field trip. After the field trip, students exposed to the prompted treatments were more likely to describe invisible factors such as wind, weather, and human impacts, while students exposed to the control treatment continued to focus on visible features such as aquatic plants. These findings provide insights to designers who aim to support learning activities in outdoor and immersive learning environments.

It has been recently shown that thalamic nuclei can be automatically segmented using diffusion tensor images (DTI) under the assumption that principal fiber orientation is similar within a given nucleus and distinct between adjacent nuclei. Validation of these methods, however, is challenging because manual delineation is hard to carry out due to the lack of images showing contrast between the nuclei. In this paper, we present a novel gray-scale contrast for DTI visualization that accentuates voxels in which the orientations of the principal eigenvectors are changing, thus providing an edge map for the delineation of some thalamic nuclei. The method uses the principal fiber orientation computed from the diffusion tensors computed at each voxel. The three-dimensional orientations of the principal eigenvectors are represented as five dimensional vectors and the spatial gradient (matrix) of these vectors provide information about spatial changes in tensor orientation. In particular, an edge map is created by computing the Frobenius norm of this gradient matrix. We show that this process reveals distinct edges between large nuclei in the thalamus, thereby making manual delineation of the thalamic nuclei possible. We briefly describe a protocol for the manual delineation of thalamic nuclei based on this edge map used in conjunction with a registered T1-weighted MR image, and present a preliminary multi-rater evaluation of the volumes of thalamic nuclei in several subjects.

The assessment of learning in large online courses such as Massive Online Open Courses, or MOOCs, requires tools that are valid, reliable, and can be automatically administered and scored. We have developed and assessed a tool called Knowledge Assembly for Learning and Assessment, or KNOWLA. The tool measures a student's knowledge in a particular subject by having her assemble a set of scrambled phrases into a logical order. Initial testing indicates that KNOWLA is reliable, and can be used to measure learning gains. KNOWLA also shows promise as a learning tool.