Abstract:

It is becoming increasingly important for students to learn proactively to develop competencies. For students to learn proactively, they need to reflect on their learning, grasp their learning status, and adjust their current learning to lead to the next learning.

However, the more time that passes after the learning, the more difficult it is for students to remember clearly what they noticed and thought at the time. It is also difficult for students to reflect on the process of learning that they engaged in, understand their growth, and decide what to learn next. Furthermore, it is difficult for students to determine when and what to reflect on.

On the other hand, advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and metaverse have been attracting attention. We assumed that if we could duplicate scenes of past learning in the metaverse, we could create a new style of reflection, as if students were going back in time. We call it "reflection on learning in the metaverse." However, reflection on learning in the metaverse has not been sufficiently discussed.

The purpose of this study is to develop a support system to actualize students’ reflection on learning in the metaverse and to support students reflecting on their learning.

When students reflect on their learning, they need to be able to do so with vivid images of each scene (Requirement 1), reflect not only on their learning outcomes but also on the process and grasp how they grew in that process (Requirement 2), and decide what to learn in the future on the basis of their reflections (Requirement 3). Furthermore, they need to be able to determine when and what to reflect on (Requirement 4).

To satisfy the requirements, we developed a support system as a Web application with six functions. Functions 1 and 2 accumulate and manage students’ e-portfolios and their additional information. Function 3 duplicates a scene of past learning by creating the world in the metaverse and presenting e-portfolios within it. Function 4 visualizes the process of the students' learning on the basis of the date and time information of accumulated e-portfolio items, information on relationships, and the number of times each e-portfolio item has been accessed. Function 5 presents prompts to students through an avatar when students reflect in the metaverse. Function 6 analyzes numerical values of students’ ongoing self-assessment using change-point detection and presents a prompt to support students to decide what to reflect on.

The flow of use for our system is as follows. First, students engage in learning and accumulate e-portfolio items. At an appropriate timing, students conduct self-assessments by reviewing the e-portfolio items accumulated so far. Whenever a self-assessment is recorded, the system analyzes numerical values of self-assessments by using change-point detection. When a change point is extracted, the system presents a prompt to guide students to reflect on their learning, duplicates a scene of past learning, and visualizes the process of learning in the metaverse. Then, students are immersed in the metaverse that the scene of past learning is duplicated and discuss with an avatar to reflect on what they noticed at the time and their own growth.

Evaluation results clarified that our system enables could be used effectively. In the near future, we will use the system in various learning situations to verify its effectiveness in detail.

Keywords:

Reflection on learning, metaverse, change-point detection, e-portfolio.