3609 Views (as of 05/2023)
  1. Christian Lopez
  2. https://sites.lafayette.edu/lopezbec/
  3. Lafayette Collegue
  4. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  5. Lafayette College, Pennsylvania State University, Carnegie Mellon University
  1. Omar Ashour
  2. https://sites.psu.edu/ashour/
  3. Associate Professor
  4. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  5. Pennsylvania State University, Behrend College Penn State
  1. Conrad Tucker
  2. https://www.meche.engineering.cmu.edu/faculty/aipex.html
  3. Arthur Hamerschlag Career Development Professor
  4. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  5. Carnegie Mellon University

Leveraging Virtual Reality to Connect Learning and Integrate Course Knowledge...

NSF Awards: 1834465

2020 (see original presentation & discussion)

Undergraduate, Graduate

The Connected Learning and Integrated Course Knowledge approach (CLICK) is intended to provide an integrative learning experience by leveraging Virtual Reality (VR) technology in the Industrial Engineering (IE) curriculum. Integrative learning is described as the process of creating connections between concepts (i.e., skill and knowledge) from different resources and experiences, linking theory and practice, and using a variation of platforms to help students’ understanding. In the CLICK approach, the integration is achieved by VR learning modules that serve as a platform for a common theme and include various challenges and exercises from multiple courses across the IE curriculum. Moreover, the modules provide an immersive and realistic experience, which the authors hypothesize will improve how the students relate what they learn in a classroom, to real-life experiences. The goals of the CLICK approach are to (i) provide the needed connection between courses, therefore improve students’ learning, and (ii) provide the needed linkage between theory and practice through a realistic representation of systems using VR.

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Discussion from the 2020 STEM For All Video Showcase (18 posts)
  • Icon for: Christian Lopez

    Christian Lopez

    Lead Presenter
    Lafayette Collegue
    May 4, 2020 | 01:48 p.m.

    WELCOME!

    We are excited to be part of the 2020 NSF Video Showcase! We invite you to view our project video and post any questions or comments you have here.

    https://clickapproach.com/

     
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    Discussion is closed. Upvoting is no longer available

    Omar Ashour
  • Icon for: Karl Kosko

    Karl Kosko

    Higher Ed Faculty
    May 4, 2020 | 04:31 p.m.

    Nice project! I appreciate the integration of virtual setting with the content students are learning. Immersive learning is very much the future of education.

     
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    Omar Ashour
  • Icon for: Christian Lopez

    Christian Lopez

    Lead Presenter
    Lafayette Collegue
    May 4, 2020 | 04:59 p.m.

    Hi Karl, thanks for taking the time to look at our video. We agree that immersive technologies will play a big role in the future of education. As technology advances, the hardware becomes more accessible and the software more sophisticated and aligned with the user needs. We just need to ensure we make the most out of it while avoiding pitfalls.

     
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    Karl Kosko
  • Icon for: Mercy Mugo

    Mercy Mugo

    Facilitator
    Senior Research Analyst and Grants Specialist
    May 5, 2020 | 03:23 p.m.

    I like the idea of virtual contextualized learning. What are some of the challenges you've encountered in your project especially related to the use of technology? I'm also curious if you've explored student experiences in different cohorts (those that went through the traditional tours vs. virtual simulation). 

     
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    Omar Ashour
  • Icon for: Christian Lopez

    Christian Lopez

    Lead Presenter
    Lafayette Collegue
    May 5, 2020 | 05:49 p.m.

    Hi Mercy, thanks for taking the time to look at our video. Some of the challenges we have faced are with regard to student learning how to use the equipment. While younger generations are more tech-oriented than older ones, VR still something new to a lot of students; hence, it takes a while to get comfortable with it and understand how to interact with the virtual environment. We hope that with new advancements in technology the way users interact with the virtual environment will become more intuitive (e.g., now you do not need to use controllers to interact with virtual objects in the Oculus VR headsets).

    We have conducted some initial tests to compare control and intervention groups, with some positive results on motivation. We will be publishing the results of our findings in ASEE: “The CLICK Approach and its Impact on Learning Introductory Probability Concepts in an Industrial Engineering Course,” 

  • Icon for: Paul Seeburger

    Paul Seeburger

    Higher Ed Faculty
    May 6, 2020 | 12:53 a.m.

    I am new to your project, so my observations are based only on what I saw in your video and what I could view on your project website.  To me, the VR experience shown in the video looked more like a lab activity than a tour of an actual industry to see the real equipment.  What variety of VR experiences have you created as part of this project so far?  Are some modules more like industrial tours?  And others more like lab activities?

    I really like the idea of students being able to "experience" something closer to a real-life industrial environment in 3D!  It looks like it would be fun to "play" with, especially if it has some focused purpose (and perhaps some competition is involved?  Gamification?)

    But, as you pointed out above, the limitations on the technology at this point still make it challenging for students to have an experience that matches what they would get in a real facility.  In particular it seems to me that it would be much harder to take notes, look up information, do calculations (like using Mathematica or MathLab, etc) while using a VR simulation. What thoughts do you have on these things?

    Thanks so much for sharing your innovative project!

  • Icon for: Christian Lopez

    Christian Lopez

    Lead Presenter
    Lafayette Collegue
    May 6, 2020 | 07:35 a.m.

    Hi Paul, thanks for taking the time to look at our video. We still working on developing multiple VR modules, so as of now we only have this “drill manufacturing”. However, we are working on using Reinforcement Learning to Automatically Generation new Virtual Environments (see reference at the end of the video).

    Something that is not shown in the video is that the user of the application can go “down” into the manufacturing floor and take a better look at the process. We are even planning to allow users to modify the speed of certain equipment for them to see the effects of this on the whole system.

    Real-life tours are the “ultimate” experience, but it would be extremely time-consuming to try to exactly replicate a real environment into VR (this is without considering the technological limitations of retina displays, haptic technology, etc). Our goal is to help takes students closer to this experience. Also, we have integrated some calculators and notetaking features into the modules. We are still working on improving them, but it will allow the user to take notes, perform calculations, etc.

  • Icon for: Jeremy Roschelle

    Jeremy Roschelle

    Facilitator
    Director
    May 6, 2020 | 12:03 p.m.

    Hi Christian and team,

    Nice video and I real like how you are connecting students to authentic environments through VR. But -- ouch -- pressing buttons on a calculator in VR seems painfully tedious. Have you considered synergies between non-VR scientific tools and VR immersion?

    Also, the approach reminds me of a connection to remote scientific labs -- here a lot of research has been done on the role of presence and other key factors. Have you seen research insights you could leverage from Remote Scientific Labs or from other existing research?

    thanks for the inspiring work!

    jeremy

     

  • Icon for: Christian Lopez

    Christian Lopez

    Lead Presenter
    Lafayette Collegue
    May 6, 2020 | 02:51 p.m.

    Hi Jeremy, thanks for taking the time to look at our video. The VR modules shown on the video is the one we are still developing. In the future iteration, the user will be able to use their own hand to interact with virtual objects (e.g., using Oculus Hand tracking)

  • Icon for: Gerhard Salinger

    Gerhard Salinger

    Facilitator
    Retired Program Officer
    May 6, 2020 | 01:00 p.m.

    This is an interesting approach but it seems as if the activity - using statistics - is burried in the VR.  I wonder if the VR can be used to provide the context and the calculation can be done as efficiently in real reality.  Are you aware of the work of the ATE Center, CAAVES.  Look at https://cecas.clemson.edu/cucwd/virtual-reality/.  

  • Icon for: Christian Lopez

    Christian Lopez

    Lead Presenter
    Lafayette Collegue
    May 6, 2020 | 02:53 p.m.

    Hi Gerhard, thanks for taking the time to look at our video. That is a very good point we could explore. It could help with students that are prompt to simulation sickness, but it might impact the "first-person"/immersive experience. 

  • Icon for: Paul Seeburger

    Paul Seeburger

    Higher Ed Faculty
    May 6, 2020 | 03:12 p.m.

    I agree with Gerhard.  This is what I was thinking about in my earlier post.  It seems that the calculations would be more efficient for students to handle in real-life (at least considering the limitations of today's VR technology), but the experiential aspect could certainly be valuable in the VR setting.

    Of course the issue with doing the calculations in real-life while making observations in VR is not very easy to do, since you'd have to switch the VR off and on again.

  • Icon for: Christian Lopez

    Christian Lopez

    Lead Presenter
    Lafayette Collegue
    May 6, 2020 | 03:18 p.m.

    Yes, this is definitely something we need to work on. The VR modules shown on the video is the one we are still developing. In future iterations, the user will be able to use their own hand to interact with virtual objects using the  Oculus Hand tracking. (e.g., like having a smartwatch calculator that expands on the VR environment).

  • Icon for: Paul Seeburger

    Paul Seeburger

    Higher Ed Faculty
    May 6, 2020 | 03:24 p.m.

    That sounds cool!  To be able to write or type naturally with your hand would make a huge jump forward in the usability of such a VR lab activity.  Needing to click on everything with a button and pointer positioned with the headgear is not very easy to do for very much time or for many calculations or notes.

  • Icon for: Orlando Ayala

    Orlando Ayala

    Researcher
    May 6, 2020 | 05:42 p.m.

    Hola Christian!

    What a great surprise to see your work here! We met at some SHPE conferences. It is a really cool the work you are doing! A couple of years ago I was thinking about using VR technology in some of my classes (and even in my research where visualization is key). What you present here is awesome and gave me some ideas on how to do it in my classes. For someone how does not know anything about VR (other than just wearing the VR headsets once or twice), how difficult is to create a VR module?

  • Icon for: Christian Lopez

    Christian Lopez

    Lead Presenter
    Lafayette Collegue
    May 6, 2020 | 08:52 p.m.

    Hi Orlando, nice you hear from you. Unfotutanelly, there still a lot of work to be done to make it easier to create VR content. For this project, we used Unity and a lot of hours of work just to create a "simple" module. There still a lot of additional hours of work to improve the module's usability.

    Nevertheless, there are some free resources out there that you could use to start implementing VR into your classes (e.g., Google VR Tour, Google Poly, SketcFab). If you would like to discuss more how to integrate VR into your classes lets talk. At my institution, I formed a group (CoP VR/AR) that aims to help faculty integrate VR/AR into their classes.

  • Icon for: Peter Dorofy

    Peter Dorofy

    Director of Science and Technology
    May 12, 2020 | 12:21 p.m.

    Hello Christian. Great project! We are doing something similar, please check out our video. We should definitely talk.

  • Icon for: Christian Lopez

    Christian Lopez

    Lead Presenter
    Lafayette Collegue
    May 12, 2020 | 12:36 p.m.

    Hi Peter, definitely, you can reach out to me at: lopezbec at lafayette dot edu

  • Further posting is closed as the event has ended.