Exploring the potential of Augmented Reality for teaching primary school science

AUGMENTED REALITY

Basically this article is exploring about the usage of AR (Augmented Reality) in teaching young learners for science subject in primary school. This case study showed that students are more engaged in traditional way of teaching compare to the application AR in classroom teaching.

AR in formal education 

Shelton and Hedley believed that AR was very useful to teach undergraduate students especially on the subject that students could not get nay real world experience. The analysis showed that students creates a better understanding , challenged their misconceptions and build a new understanding when the students view the image from different perspective. The tool is quite expensive so they have substitute the head mounted display with a virtual mirror. Shelton acknowledge that students AR tools can visualize a concept and try to manipulate it and create a higher thinking skills. However, shelton mentioned that although there are quite some benefits about the AR tools but it suggested that further work need to done to create a better understanding for the users on how accordance and constraint of the interface and the virtual image compare to the traditional teaching method. So they have carried out research on using AR to teach about the earth, sun and day and night in a stimulated classroom context.

Methodology 

i will just give two examples of the methodology that is used in this research because if i mention about all the methodology it will take lot of space and it is difficult to explain in a simple form.

1. participants and teaching sessions

133 year five students ( 10 years old ) and teachers from 5 London primary schools teachers. Five teaching session were carried out with class size of 27 and two hours session length. Researchers will demonstrate the AR tech using two tiles. Each tile displayed with an animation fictional character. The children will in in front of the white board. Then the students will have the chance to choose a character and practice in front of the white board with the webcam. 

Once they familarised, the children will spilt into three groups of nine children. Four teaching session of 45 minutes will be taken place.

	First session	Second session
Group 1	AR with experience teacher	Traditional teaching with teacher A
Group 2	Websites	AR with own class teacher
Group 3	Traditional teaching with teacher B	AR with experienced teacher

      2. class teacher interview

Get feedback from children about class teachers in semi structured, audio recorded, telephone interview with the key questions below.



1.       What are the advantages/ disadvantages of using AR to teach about night and day?

2.       Your experience was with a group of children from your class. What are your views on managing a whole class using AR.?

3.       Do you think that there were any difference in the children’s mood and level of enjoyment compared to traditional teaching method?

4.       If AR was available in your classroom would you use it by itself to teach about earth, sun and moon or would you combine with other ways of teaching.

5.       If you had AR in your classroom would you adapt the content?

Result

The usuage of AR tools supprts the formal education. The students understand better about how the sun and earth gives rise to day and night using AR tools. However, they also found out that students were less engaged. There are few things that has been discoverd in thid research such as AR content must be in a flexible way so that teachers can adpat to the needs of the children. it also should ne possible to add or remove the elements and also must be able to change the speed of animation as well. Then, AR system need to be delivered to the curriculum material which means it should not overlap the curriculum. Children also should be able to explore AR content and should be carefully scaffold to have a maximized learning environment.  Lastly, The development of AR should be taken account of the nature and the constraints of the context. However, AR has the potential to engage and motivate the learners

Augmented Reality

 AR is a type of virtual reality that aims to duplicate the world's environment in a computer which means giving a sense of an illusion or virtual reality.  AR include elements of the real world and the virtual world at the same time where the virtual objects could be manipulated. The interaction that occurs between the virtual object will enhance the understanding.

AR has been used in many forms such as  aircraft assembly and architecture, simulation, navigation, military, medical procedures. AR  create a 3D render of a product, such as a car, or football boot. Moreover, it allows a person to see a product in  360 degree image.

Advantages of Augmented Reality in Learning

• allowing users to work at their own pace
• AR promotes ‘active’ teaching, maximizing the opportunity for interaction, encouraging critical response and the adoption of new perspectives and positions.
• AR allows students to actively involved in an experience, therefore learners will remember and retain the majority of the information presented to them. ( EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING)

Disadvantages of Augmented Reality in Learning

• It is very expensive tool to be installed in schools especially for goverment schools.
• School will require lots of experienced teachers to teach using AR tools
• Requires lot of time because teachers only have limited time space for teaching
• limited only to certain subjects and topics.

 These are the Links to other great blog posts about Augmented Reality. It is quite interesting read at it.

• Smashcards- Augmented Reality Flashcards by Free Tech For Teachers
• Zooburst- Create your own 3-D popup books online by Educational Technology Guy
• 11 Good Digital Storytelling Resources- Free Tech For Teachers
• 5 Alternatives to Traditional Book Reports- Free Tech For Teachers
• Daquri Augmented Reality Builder- No Programing Required by Free Tech For Teachers
• 11 Ed Tech Things I Got Excited About by Free Tech For Teachers
• Send Felicity by Ipad Curriculum
• 11 Art & Music Resources by Free Tech For Teachers
• Augmented Reality Art by Free Tech For Teachers
• Augmented Reality in Plain English by Free Tech For Teachers

My opinion about the AR application in classroom may bring some benefits and some disadvantages as well.I can use AR tools in my classroom for all the subjects. One of the examples as i mentioned during my presentation is the Habitats/Basic Needs- teachers may use the Zooburst 3D popup book creator to create a book about animal habitats & needs. teachers could also classify animals into the major kingdoms. 

I would cooperate both AR tools and traditional teaching in my lessons because one of the main reason is that we teachers should not overlap the curriculum that is already been invented. Another reason is that students must have some interactions with the teachers and peers so that we teachers can check their understanding. As you all know, hands on experiences makes students learn better and creates a wider understanding for them. 

There is also some point that we need to consider that this AR tools is quite expensive to get and also the schools need to buy the program and install it. It will cost them a lot. However, i think for those school can afford it, they should definitely have this software to encourage students thinking skill and also merge them with the technology world. 

Reflection on our teaching experience

We as a group have been assigned to teach in a Tamil school for 4 weeks. We carried out some simple activities which engaged the students and make them have fun with those activities. The activities that have been carried out are mind mapping, collage art, writing sentences and article reading. All this activities are related to the selected theme of habitats.

As we all know according to VAK theory, most people have a preferred learning style; however some people have a mixed and evenly balanced blend of the three styles:

1.    Visual learners

2.    Auditory learners

3.    Kinesthetic learners     

The activities that we carried out includes all VAK theory because we believed  that the lesson should be caters to every learner in a one way or the other which will encourages active participation among learners. Therefore the lesson that planned by the teacher will be interesting. For example during our teaching days, we teachers allow the students to have group discussion about their topics and then all the students have to come together and share out their ideas. This will allow success in learning for the individual and also helps in differentiation in classroom. Although, there is no special child in my class, but the lesson that we planned as group will helps in supporting Learning Disability Students.

Now let’s look at multiple intelligences. Howard Gardner of Harvard has identified seven distinct intelligences. According to Gardner (1991), His theory has emerged from recent cognitive research saying that students possess different kinds of minds and therefore learn, remember, perform, and understand in different ways. Therefore, we are all able to know the world through language, logical-mathematical analysis, spatial representation, musical thinking, and the use of the body to solve problems or to make things, an understanding of other individuals, and an understanding of ourselves. The seven intelligences are Visual-Spatial, Bodily-kinesthetic, Musical, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, Linguistic and Logical –Mathematical. There are advantages and disadvantages for this MI.

In our lessons, we didn’t focus much on MI theory because it is difficult for us as teachers to identify each student’s strengths and weakness. One of the reasons is due to time constraint. Moreover, we teachers cannot plan a particular lesson in seven different ways. This is impossible especially in Malaysian context classroom where the teachers have a compulsory to finish up the syllabus on time. Although there are some advantages of using MI in our classroom, but we teachers are restricted to certain reasons.

Advantages of MI

§    Provides opportunities for authentic learning based on your students' needs, interests and talents. Students become more active, involved learners.

§    Parent and community involvement in your school may increase. Activities involving apprenticeship learning bring members of the community into the learning process by demonstrating student’s work before panels and audiences.

§    Students will be able to demonstrate and share their strengths. Building strengths gives a student the motivation to be a "specialist." This can in turn lead to increased self-esteem.

§    When teachers “teach for understanding,” students will accumulate positive educational experiences and the capability for creating solutions to problems in life.

Based on my teaching experiences, I have some criticisms about MI. we teachers plan our lesson  in the goal to reach all students, if we going to label the student saying that he is kinesthetic because he works on cars, it could simply be his socialization that led him to that point. When we teachers make that assumption without knowing the science of multiple intelligences, we can accidentally stereotype students. Moreover, we teachers have to consider the flexibility provided in a classroom in order to adapt to different learning styles. Despite that, some students have problem in identify their own strengths and weakness.

Experiential learning

There are various terms have been used to label the process of learning from experience. John Dewey (Dewey and Dewey 1915) discussed “learning by doing,” while Wolfe and Byrne (1975) used the term “experienced-based learning.” The term “trial and error” learning is used to explain inductive learning processes.

Advantages

§    Creates an opportunity for students to engage and to apply academic understandings through hands-on experience.

§    Have an opportunity to take what they learn in class and apply it to real world situations.

§    Students will be able to take their learning beyond the classroom which provides them with new perspectives and first-hand experience while allowing them to make personal contact with the community and give of themselves in ways they may never have thought possible.

§    students gain confidence in their own abilities, discover innovative ways to overcome obstacles and turn a class project into a life experience

For our lesson, we in cooperate bit of this experiential learning where we asked the students to connect their prior knowledge of visiting such places in Malaysia and asked them to shared their experiences on what they have seen and do.  I can see that the students were enjoying sharing their experiences with us teachers and peers. However, not all the time we teachers have the opportunity to in cooperate experiential learning in our lesson but some lesson really goes well with this theory.

This project benefits me a lot because I think that the theories that I learned during the class helped me. For example, the VAK theory really helped me out in planning my lessons. I try to in cooperate balanced level of VAK theory. This is due to I understands that not all the students love hands on activities, some students like to work on their own quietly. As a teacher, I cannot force my students to do hands on all the time which is not practical at all. One of the reasons is time constraint. No matter how many theories that we include in our lessons, at some point we teachers have to remember that some time all this activities takes too much time and we teachers couldn’t finish the syllabus on time.

VAK learning styles

Suffolk Country Council and North Somerset Education Department mentioned that boys are kinaesthetic learners compared to girls. Is that true? Let's think about it.                                                                          
Noble and Bradford encourage teachers to focus more on teaching and learning styles which emphasize on variety, social engagement and the potential to change the learning. whereas Ofsted focus on certain criteria that a teacher must focus on such as:

• lessons that have clear aims which is a short term target
• variety of activies including hands on activities and ICT
• teacher makes the students to work independently by setting a high expectation for them
• questioning
• humour
• feedback that could improve teaching 

 There is a project carried out by Smith which is named as'Raising boys achivement project' . This survey was conducted to identify the student's learning styles based on Smith's context of accelerated learning in primary school (ALPS). what is ALPS and what is the purpose of this? Accelerated learning in primary school (ALPS) is a brain based reaserch which is aimed to encourage student's motivation and their achivement by identifying their learning styles. Smith mentioned that accelerated learning framework is about the modification in school that allow students to think and learn using the three teachniques which is visual, auditory and kinaesthetic (VAK) such as mind-mapping, musical stimulation and hands on activities. Smith's work is mostly about practical and modelling but definately it is not about research work because it is believed that brain based learning is a powerful tool that engage both students and teachers in learning. (Smith,2001b,p 173 &DfES, 2004). So as we can see now there is such a big difference between research and practice. Basically accelerated framework was to identify the effectivess of learning styles in schools. It also be able to allow students to identify their own VAK learning styles which will help them in their achivements and also education.


Althought this ALPS term is more towards primary school, This project was conducted with two groups of secondary schools and one group of primary school using VAK test from ALPs by Smith and Call. The purpose of this survey was to enable to identify their own learning styles which works for them well, therefore they also  could be able to reflect on their learning by extending their learning style in a partcular subject of filed to become an effective learners. The schools identify their learning styles through questionaires by incorparating a learning style approach in a particular subject areas with particular teaching group using VAK teachniques. Lessons in particular subjects will be incooparated with VAK activities to identify and dicuss the children's preferred learning styles during lessons or time to time.

In oder to answer the question which i posted very begining of this journal review. Let's take a look at the findings from preferred learning styles. The findings shows that there is no connection between gender and preferred learning styles because the percentage of boys and girls whom preferred kinaesthetic learning were very similar. Moreover, boys and girls prefere doing skills rather than sitting and listening to the teachers through out the whole lessons. When they were assessed by learning styles in terms of the hardest and the easiest, the results were quite suprising. Because nomally visual learners would find looking is the easiest skill and for autitory learners listening would be the easiest skills. But both visual and auditory learners prefference were equally divided with all the three skills. In addition, kinaesthetic learners did not choose doing as the hardest skills and they choosed it as the easiet skills. Therefore, from the test it is very obvious that students find listening is the hardest skill and doing as the easiest skill. The reason for students saying such because some of them could not hear what the teacher is talking during the lessons, some of them find it very boring to sit still at a place and so on. Whereas the reasons behind why they chosed doing as the easiest skills because some of them find it that doing things is easier, some of them said that it was interesting and so on. Students preferred to have active learning environment which engage them with physical experience because they learn better through experince and modelling  (Smith 2001b, p 173).
 The subjects that the students preferred to have kinaesthetic learning is core subjects such as mathemastics, english and science and also active subjects such as PE and so on. The results of likes shown during the year were increased in subjects such as English, PE, ICT, expressive arts, maths and practical science after incoporating the learning style approachs. At some point, the likes for girls in core subjects increased whereas for boys it decreased. Boys quite preferred active subjects because its more student centred and it also gives them freedom to make their own choices.

The reasons for students dislike the lessons is because of poor class control, no varations in teaching, too much writing and lack of critical teaching methods. Students complaint that they dislike listening as the resultd mentioned earlier in the test of preferred learning styles. Students also felt that copy pages of notes frm textbooks or from the whiteboard does not benefit them at all, it is just waste of time. They would like to do things in different varities such as numeracy games, scrabble, group discussion, experiment, ICT and so on which will allow them to understand the lesson even better. Moreover, it also will make the classroom environment more lively and active.

My personal opinions about this VAK learning styles incoporating with Smith and call Brain based acceleated learning will be very useful in any classroom. As we can see from the findings above, students prefere active learning environment where they can voice out their opinions, do more hands on activities, group discussion and so on. So here comes the teachers responsibilities where they need to have varied teaching methods that engage all the students in the classroom. They also could incoporate VAK learning approaches into their lessons to make it more active rather than just focusing on one type of learning style. In malaysian contexts classroom, the methods that is being used is more to auditory and visual learning styles. This is because teachers are just concerned about finishing the syllabus. This will reall bored out the students, they will lose their concentration. For each particular subjects, teachers can try to come up with active lesson by incorporating VAK techniques. As a future teacher, I would plan my lesson more interestingly by having all three VAK learning styles and Smith & Call 's APLS. I would like my students to have more interaction with teachers and their peers while doing any lesson. I also want my students to voice out their opinions, have more hands on activities, having games that is relevant to the topic and so on. By doing all this, my student would not feel that the teachers is talking all the time and they have to listen and also have no chance to voice their opinions. by incorporating VAK and ALPS learning styles will my lesson as active learning classroom and student centered learning.