Abstract:

This paper describes the set-up and assessment of the Earth Course Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) STEM education pilot, part of the European NEWTON Horizon 2020 project (www.newtonproject.eu). The pilot is carried out in two primary schools in Dublin, Ireland: Saint Patrick’s Boys’ National School and Corpus Christi Girls’ National School. The Earth Course large-scale pilot includes a set of educational applications, developed as part of the NEWTON project in an effort to attract students to STEM subjects, which cover a set of topics as part of four main areas: Atmosphere, Geosphere, Biosphere and Astronomy. The developed applications use various technologies and innovative pedagogical methods to achieve the learning objectives of the course and improve user learning satisfaction, including Augmented and Virtual Reality, gamification, game-based learning and problem-based learning. The modules are also suitable for students with disabilities, specifically hearing impairment. This paper describes the set-up for the Earth Science large-scale pilot, its assessment procedure and results from both the knowledge gain point of view and usability of the NEWTON project platform and employed technologies.

Two classes of around 30 students in each took part in this pilot in both participating schools. The participants were 5th class students, as deemed suitable for the presented subjects covered by this large-scale pilot by principals and teachers. The experimental class was presented with the NEWTON project approach lessons by the research team members in the following subjects: Water Cycle in Nature, Wildlife, Sea-life and the Solar System. The NEWTON project approach lessons are part of the online Earth Science course created on the project learning management platform, NEWTELP. The control class was presented the same topics in a classic approach, by their usual teacher, where the lesson was previously prepared by the NEWTON project research team, in order to cover the same knowledge content as the experimental approach. Both classes were provided with a knowledge test prior to each lesson and a post-test after each lesson.

The control class will also have access to the NEWTON approach, however this will be as part of a revision lesson, around 4 to 10 weeks after the first classic approach lesson. The revision lesson will also be evaluated with pre- and post-knowledge tests, slightly different from the original tests, however ensuring that they cover the same topics and expected learning outcomes. The revision lesson tests will assess the knowledge retention after the classic approach lesson and the improvement in knowledge, if any, after the NEWTON project approach lesson. The knowledge retention will also be evaluated for the experimental class, around 4 weeks after the entire Earth Science course was finalised and around 10 weeks after the first session.

The other strand of evaluation is focused on usability and motivation state following the experimental lessons, assessing the effect of Earth Course TEL modules on students’ interest in STEM subjects and their increase in motivation following these innovative lessons. The usability evaluation is both for the overall online platform used to provide the educational content and for individual technologies employed in each application, therefore assessing if any of the technologies exhibit a higher effectiveness in user satisfaction or in knowledge improvement.

Keywords:

STEM, TEL, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, gamification, game-based learning.