Developing Educational Software In An Undergraduate Lab ? Serving Education On Two Fronts At Vrupl

Educational software can have a profound and widespread positive impact on the world, particularly if it is made freely available and widely distributed. At the same time, providing a laboratory where undergraduate students can work on large complex software projects beyond the scope of ordinary homework assignments can provide immeasurable benefits to those students by providing them opportunities to work together with others to meet long-term goals. This paper will discuss how one such laboratory, the Virtual Reality Undergraduate Project Laboratory, VRUPL, serves education on two fronts by developing large-scale virtual reality educational simulations in an undergraduate research laboratory, and distributes the resulting products free of charge. PEDAGOGICAL BACKGROUND The work presented in this paper is based upon three important pedagogical foundations: 1. Dale Edgar’s Cone of Learning: Students retain more knowledge for a longer period of time when the information is presented through multiple delivery channels, particularly when one or more of those channels involves active participation. In 1969, Dale Edgar conducted a now famous study in which students were taught using a variety of different teaching mechanisms, and tested two weeks later to see how much they had retained after that time[1]. He found that after 2 weeks we tend to remember only 10% of what we read, 20% of what we hear, and 30% of what we see, but up to 50% of what we both hear AND see. One of the benefits of educational simulations is that they reinforce material that students have already received through assigned reading or classroom lectures by adding an additional delivery channel for the material. In addition to passive delivery channels, things get even better when active participation is included – Edgar found that we retain up to 70% of what we say and up to 90% of what we say and do. The deeper and more active a student's participation, the better their retention. Doing the real thing is better than watching a simulation, which is still better than merely hearing or reading about it. In terms of the work of this project specifically, virtual reality is designed to produce a very immersive, participatory experience, much more active than a textbook, and the students who are developing the software also have much more active involvement than traditional reading and studying. 2. Learning and Teaching Styles: The learning methods that are most effective for any particular learner varies with the individual, and determines their personal learning style. For example, some students learn very well through verbal communication channels such as textbooks and traditional lectures, while others are more visually oriented and need to see pictures, diagrams, movies or other visual representations for most effective learning. There are also corresponding teaching styles, and when the latter does not match well with the former, it can be difficult for that particular student to learn. Felder and Silverman addressed learning and teaching styles, and developed five dimensions along which they are defined [2, 3]. In particular, virtual reality based educational simulations specifically address the needs of the following types of learners: • Visual learners learn best from pictures, diagrams, videos, and other visual input. VR is inherently full of 3D computer graphics which directly addresses the needs of visual learners. • Global learners need to see the big picture and how all the parts fit together before any of the individual parts make sense, but often get more understanding of the overall subject once all the pieces are in place. VR helps with this because it is possible to see all of the components and issues of a complex situation and how they inter-relate, as opposed to focusing narrowly on one small sub-topic at a time. • Active learners learn best when they can actively participate, in a discussion, experiment, or play. VR is inherently an interactive environment, in which students actively manipulate objects and observe the reactions of the overall system. • Sensory learners learn best through sensory input, such as sights, sounds, and smells, as opposed to intuitive learners who are better suited to handle internal concepts, thoughts, and ideas. VR appeals to the sensory learners who are presented with dynamic 3D sights, spatially located sounds, and possibly haptic, tactile, olfactory, or other sensory feedback. • Inductive learners observe phenomenon and then infer the underlying principles that must explain them, as opposed to deductive learners who start with fundamental theories and then deduce how they apply to practical applications. Humans ( e.g. babies ) tend to naturally learn inductively, whereas classroom presentations traditionally take a more deductive approach. VR addresses the needs of inductive learners by allowing them to directly observe the effects caused by their actions. Felder and Silverman conclude that teaching methods in engineering typically fail to address the learning styles of many engineering students, who tend to be visual, active, sensory, inductive, and often global, while traditional methods tend to be verbal, passive, intuitive, deductive, and sequential. VR addresses this gap, by delivering an experience that is highly visual and active, and which gives global learners an opportunity to see the overall picture of the subject in a larger context. 3. Experiential Learning: In addition to the benefits of delivering education through multiple delivery channels, and addressing students' optimal learning styles, Kolb found additional benefits to be gained by learning through experience. [4] Someone reading about a house fire or an auto accident in the newspaper, for example, will only remember the details for a short while; Someone who experienced the fire or the auto accident (and survived), however, will remember that experience for the rest of their lives. VR provides the opportunity to deliver educational experiences that would not be possible through any other means, such as exploring the microscopic pores of a catalyst pellet, entering a chemical reactor while it is operating, or surviving a laboratory explosion and repeating the experience in order to ascertain the cause of the explosion. ( Note: Virtual experiences will never compare to real experiences, and should not be used as a substitute for the latter when the latter is available. The authors do not promote replacing traditional hands-on experiments with virtual ones, but rather supplementing them with experiences that are too hazardous, inaccessible, or otherwise impossible to achieve without simulation. ) In terms of the students developing the software, they also receive a much more experiential education, through the active participation in software development. The simulations developed for this project require at least one full semester and often more to complete, which provides the students with a much more significant project to work on than traditional classroom homework assignments. THE VRUPL LABORATORY This section describes the physical and human resources of the VRUPL lab, as well as how the lab operates.