EDT-7030 ​Final Paper:Learning Environment Design

Concordia University Chicago

Doctoral Program

Student: Belford Hernandez

crf_hernanb10@cuchicago.edu

7373 Blackburn ave. #201

Downers Grove, IL 60516

Day Telephone: 630.915.7462

Evening Telephone: 630.915.7462

Assignment Title: ​ Learning Environment Design

Date of Submission: June 24 2018

Assignment Due Date: June 24 2018

Course: EDT-7030 Design of Learning Environment

Semester/Term: Summer 2018

Course Instructor: Dr. Nicole Ortegon

​
Certification of Authorship: I certify that I am the author of this paper and that any assistance I

received in its preparation is fully acknowledged and disclosed in the paper. I also have cited any

sources from which I used data, ideas, or words, either quoted directly or paraphrased. I certify

that this paper was prepared by me specifically for the purpose of this assignment, as directed.

Student’s Signature: ​Belford Hernandez

EDT-7030 ​Final Paper:Learning Environment Design

Introduction

The intended Virtual Reality learning environment design proposal for Montini Catholic

High School seeks to provide an innovative learning setting which fosters authentic learning for

all students. The design of this learning environment primarily aims to provide virtual

experiential activities to the students enrolled in music history, music appreciation, choral and

instrumental ensembles. This technology setting would be also available to other academic

departments upon request. For that purpose, a Virtual Reality lab would be integrated within the

setting of the music computer lab. Headsets would be connected to each of the workstation

computers and specialized music content software would be installed. During this immersive

experience, students would be touring virtual places or musical content as a complement to the

musical elements curriculum studied in the classroom.

EDT-7030 ​Final Paper:Learning Environment Design

Topic/Subject Matter

Moving forward, the 21st-century technology has been integrated as a learning tool into

the education system. A Virtual Reality learning environment would provide unique

opportunities to strengthen the instructional practices in music education.

In the context of education, music instruction has commonly relied on a traditional style

of teaching where the instructor is the main provider of information. Black (2002) explains that

this model is conducted in environments where students are situated in the classrooms in the

same place and time for acquiring instruction and the content is presented in sequential order and

delivered in forms of lectures, case studies, projects, etc.

With the inclusion of Virtual Reality to music teaching, students would become active

participants in discovering new knowledge by exploring guided, simulated realities activities.

Fink (2017) says that these immersive experiences serve to foster imagination, engagement for

learning and help them to interact and develop 21st-century technological skills.

In music education, a Virtual Reality environment would help the students to deeply

understand musical concepts by experiencing and exploring simulated virtual places were

musical genres or relevant historical theories were originated. These experiences could certainly

reinforce the perception of their own musical learning reality and would allow the students to

connect this experience with their own musical production output.

Virtual Reality Learning Environment

The Virtual Reality learning environment is intended to provide an immersion in a

simulated world where students have the opportunity to interact with computer-generated

environments which gives them a realistic sensory experience and a lifelike involvement (The
EDT-7030 ​Final Paper:Learning Environment Design

NMC/CoSN Horizon Report, 2016). Ausburn & Ausburn (2004) explain that the use of this

immersive audio-visual experience produces relevant changes from the traditional style of

teaching and have enriched learning by enhancing compression and academic performance

achievement.

Historically, Virtual Reality technology started as a training system developed by the

United States Military in the 1960’s. This technological innovation had applications, for the most

part, to private sector use until specialized arcade games companies started to design virtual

reality games for public use in the late 1980’s (Page, 2000). Although these games were not

successful in their beginning, Virtual Reality expanded to other disciplines such as medicine,

archeology, engineering, education, etc., which perceived the learning benefits from this

immersive experience. Consequently, these virtual environments served to provide specialized

training and simulated experiences that would be infeasible to produce in the real world (Kimer,

2011)

According to Pinho (2004), Virtual Reality is described by three main components:

● Immersion: Participants experience the sensation of being inside of an artificial world by

using a head-mounted display.

● Interaction: Participants manipulate objects that exist only within the simulated

environment by using digital globes.

● Involvement: Participants navigate actively or passively throughout the virtual world.

For the effective use of Virtual Reality within the context of education, researchers have

developed a framework to identify specific strategies and learnings goals that the participants

could derive from the Virtual Reality experiences. For that purpose, deFreites et al (2010)
EDT-7030 ​Final Paper:Learning Environment Design

created a Four Dimensional Framework which needs to take in consideration the creation and

design of Virtual Reality programs:

1. The learner (their profile, role, and competencies).

2. The pedagogical models used (associative, cognitive, and social).

3. The representation used (fidelity, interactivity, and immersion).

4. The context (environment, access to learning, supporting resources) where learning occurs

(deFreites et al, 2010, Pg-69-85).

With this structure, designers could target instructional plans with specific goals

dedicated to the interaction of the students with the intended concept in the virtual environment

experience.

An important characteristic of a Virtual Reality environment learning experience is the

alignment with the educational constructivist approach. This theory as explained by Mayer,

(1999) fosters learning by building and organizing relevant information that is integrated with

existing knowledge to construct a new concept. For Virtual Reality, this is a vital concept

because the individual learners have the opportunity to makes sense of their own virtual learning

environment and to compose their own reasoning and understanding from their own personal

experience.

Learning Environment Description

For effective Virtual Reality experiences, students will be assigned to one computer

workstation with virtual headsets. Prior to the immersion into the activity, students would receive

instructions of the objectives and goals to achieve. When all the questions or technical issues

have been resolved, students would proceed to immerse into the assigned virtual world.
EDT-7030 ​Final Paper:Learning Environment Design

During this experience, students would have the opportunity to “visit” places such as

cities, museums, concert halls, or specialized music software content. This exploration would

allow students to interact with the elements of that particular place, time and artist that would

serve to complement the studied musical concepts in the classroom.

A good example of this virtual experience from the students’ perspective could be

described in this manner: students will virtually visit the city of Paris, France during the times of

the 18th Century. The narrative and visualizations would help the students to see the

development of the local musical scene that was influenced by composers, performers and other

European musical styles. This immersion would allow the students to choose from various

scenarios and sequence their experience. For instance, they could select to visit a composer's

space to see his creation of musical ideas or they could select to visit the concert halls to observe

more performances and artists.

As for the role of the instructor in a Virtual Reality activity, he/she must provide specific

guidelines for the proper use of this technology that guarantees students the desired learning

achievement from that experience. Then the instructor must describe the goals and objectives to

attain upon the completion of the content unit.

With this foundation, teachers adding Virtual Reality to their music curriculum should

emphasize their instruction as facilitators of learning. This educational concept is based on the

concept that teachers must construct an educational environment where students have the

opportunity to fulfill their potential for personal and academic growth (Elam & Duckenfield,

2000) Subsequently, intellectual curiosity, collaboration and interaction with the learning context

would be developed among students. This concept is supported by Dewey’s writings (1935)
EDT-7030 ​Final Paper:Learning Environment Design

where he remarks the function of education not only as the transmission of knowledge but the

discoveries of the meaning based on experiences.

Using Virtual Reality in music education would bring significant benefits to the students’

learning process:

● Virtual reality enriches the students’ learning experience by providing a constructivist

approach to traditional teaching styles.

● Virtual Reality environment promotes students’ concentration by focusing on the content

of their virtual immersive experience.

● Virtual Reality promotes learning as an active experience by the interaction students

apply during this activity.

● Virtual Reality improves learning by allowing students to experience content from a first-

person perspective.

● Virtual Reality fosters creativity and learning engagement by allowing students to

interact with technology.

● Virtual Reality helps the development of 21st-century technological skills.

I believe that Virtual Reality has the potential to positively reform the interaction

between students and the musical content, thus allowing them to create new resources of

connectivity between music and other subjects or disciplines.

Assessment for Virtual Reality learning environment effectiveness

It is crucial to determine the level of effectiveness of Virtual Reality in the students’

learning. For that reason, both formative and summative assessments, would serve to determine

individual student learning and progress and to create adjustments to the instructional strategies.
 EDT-7030 ​Final Paper:Learning Environment Design

For summative assessment, students would be able to demonstrate their understanding

and mastery of the musical concept learned during their Virtual Reality experience. This would

help the students to discern the unit objectives and the procedures to accomplish their learning

goals. These assessments could be applied as graded classroom tests or quizzes.

For formative assessment, students would be able to receive feedback from the teacher as

an opportunity to improve their progress. This ungraded assessment procedure is intended to

track the students’ progress while learning is happening, fostering critical thinking and inducing

students to take ownership of their own learning. These assessments could be applied as

classroom discussions, ungraded constructive quizzes to assess understanding of studied

concepts and journals to record students feelings or impressions from their Virtual Reality

experiences.

In addition to the presented assessment, I created this rubric to assemble students’

feedback from their experience in Virtual Reality. The collected data would help me to

determine the effectiveness of the students’ virtual experience and how to update my

instructional strategy to improved their learning experience.

Virtual Reality Assignment Rubric:

CATEGORY Excellent Good Satisfactory Needs COMMENTS

4 3 2 Improvement
1

Immersive Virtual Reality Virtual Reality Virtual Reality Virtual Reality

experience experience was experience experience was ok. experience was
highly was good. The design needs unsatisfactory.
satisfactory. Some design improvement to The design
No additional items could be improve the needs a lot of
design items added to experience. work to produce
are necessary. improve the an effective
experience. experience.
EDT-7030 ​Final Paper:Learning Environment Design

Content I completely I understood I understood the I did not

understood the the content. content. Some understood the
content. areas were content. Most
confusing. areas were
confusing.

Technical The Virtual The Virtual The Virtual Reality The Virtual
Quality Reality gear Reality gear gear functioned Reality gear did
functioned functioned ok.There were not function
flawlessly. properly. some technical properly.
issues.
EDT-7030 ​Final Paper:Learning Environment Design

References

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deFreitas, S., Rebolledo-Mendez, G., Liarokapis, F., Majoulas, G., & Poulovassilis, A. (2010).

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