The Virtual Classroom
A Pilot Case in Inquiry Based Learning
Pavel Boytchev, Eliza Stefanova, Nikolina Nikolova and Krassen Stefanov
Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics, Sofia University, James Bourchier blvd, Sofia, Bulgaria
Keywords: Virtual Classroom, Inquiry Based Learning, Inquiry based Science Education, WeSPOT, Educational
Simulation.
Abstract: This paper discusses a pilot case held in First Private Mathematical School, Sofia, Bulgaria that explores the
Inquiry Based Learning through a specially developed virtual classroom. The paper describes the motivation
for using Inquiry Based Learning and how it will be gradually implemented through several pilot
experiments. It reveals the design and the educational concepts embedded in the software tool used in the
pilots: virtual classroom. The paper concludes with a discussion about the results of the pilot and plans for
the next round of experiments.
1 INTRODUCTION
Modern conception of learning (Brown and Adler,
2008; Kolb, 1984) presents the acquisition of new
knowledge and skills as a result of social
interactions and a practical solution of problems and
tasks. Students interact with objects of the reality,
formulate their statements and assumptions, and
seek to justify, prove, or refute them. Unfortunately,
the practice in most educational institutions does not
comply with the requirements of the theory.
Students at secondary schools and universities are
mostly in a passive role in the classroom, and
teachers are often in the role of mentors.
One approach to solve the problem with the gap
between theory and practice is the inquiry-based
science education (IBSE) approach, in which
students play the role of explorers and scientists as
they try to address issues set by themselves, while
finding answers to these questions is challenged by
their own curiosity. This approach leverages a
meaningful context for students to learn concepts by
linking them with their personal experiences and
insights. It leads to collecting structured knowledge
in the given field of education and development of
skills to carry out effective research.
The project weSPOT (2012) aims at supporting
the implementation of this approach through the
design, development and testing of appropriate
software tools that will enable students to:
Customize their environment for IBSE;
Build, share and research either individually or in
collaboration with their peers.
Thus, weSPOT aims to enable the connection of
everyday life with training in subjects related to
natural sciences in schools through the use of ICT
(Mikroyannidis et al, 2012).
From the perspective of European teachers,
weSPOT project will enable both teachers and
students to apply an inquiry learning approach based
on experiments carried out in a real school
environment. Such experiments can be supported by
computer simulations, 3D animations and video
allowing students to understand better the subject of
natural sciences.
This paper presents the creation of one such tool
and its application in a weSPOT pilot.
2 weSPOT PROJECT
2.1 weSPOT IBL Model
A new Inquiry-Based Learning (IBL) model is
developed in the weSPOT project framework. It
follows the real reseach cycle with emphasis to
develop students’ inquiry metaskills (Mikroyannidis
et al, 2013). It shares many of the phases described
by Mulholland et al (2012), but it is more detailed in
the description of things that teachers and students
264
Boytchev P., Stefanova E., Nikolova N. and Stefanov K..
The Virtual Classroom - A Pilot Case in Inquiry Based Learning.
DOI: 10.5220/0004944702640269
In Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU-2014), pages 264-269
ISBN: 978-989-758-021-5
Copyright
c
2014 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)
should consider when doing inquiry.
The main phases of the weSPOT IBL model are:
Question/hypothesis - students/learners decide on a
topic or area of interest and try to formulate the
questions or hypotheses that would like to pursue.
Operationalisation - refers to the realisation of an
idea with an aim to measure.
Data collection - testing a hypothesis and seeing
whether the real world behaves as predicted by the
hypothesis.
Data analysis - process of inspecting, cleaning,
transforming and modelling data with the goal of
highlighting useful information, suggesting
conclusions and supporting decision making.
Interpretation/discussion - describes the relevance
of the results in relation to the question or
hypothesis.
Communication – reflection, sharing results.
2.2 Pilot Inquiry Scenario
Following the IBL model a pilot scenario “My
classroom – energy efficient” was developed under
the testbed “Energy effective buildings”.
The scenario challenges the students with the
question “How to make my classroom more energy
efficient?”
During the Question/hypothesis phase the
students should number factors influencing the
energy consumption in the classroom (outside
temperature, location of the room, heating, isolation,
etc.). At the next stage they should decide what and
how to measure and what additional data to collect
to prove or reject their hypothesis. After data
analysis and its interpretation the students should
come to conclusions and present recommendations
to the school principle. Their opinion should be
scientifically proved by the elaborated data through
public presentation in front of the school managers,
parents, classmates and other stakeholders.
2.3 First Pilot Results
Three consecutive pilot runs of the scenario “My
classroom – energy efficient” are planned. The first
pilot during the spring of 2013 was used to validate
the model. In this paper we describe the second pilot
run in the autumn of 2013, in which the new
software tool: Virtual Classroom simulation was
used.
The idea to develop Virtual Classroom
simulation was born during the first weSPOT pilot
experiment (Stamenov and Dimitrova, 2013) in the
First Private Mathematical School. The pilot was
Figure 1: A student measuring the outside temperature.
delivered in three classes in parallel with 6
th
graders
in the frame of the subject Human and Nature. Its
primary goal was to pilot the weSPOT IBL model.
The students’ research task was to figure out
which factors influence the consumption of
electricity in the classroom and to propose measures
to preserve it. As a part of the pilot, students had to
collect data for outside and inside temperature of
their classrooms. In order to do this they had
measured several months, three times daily, these
temperatures and wrote down them in order to use
data later for their inquiry (Figure 1).
The observations and conclusions from the first
pilot are very encouraging. They are used to give
feedback to the weSPOT researchers and developers.
One of the conclusions gathered from the pilot
was that for such young students (12-13 years old)
several months inquiry is too long and exhausting,
leading to loose of motivation. That is why it would
be perfect if it is possible to speed up data collection.
For the 2013/2014 academic year it was suggested to
develop software simulation. The benefits of such
computer program are:
Time and duration of the pilot is independent of
the particular season: it is possible the experiments
Figure 2: The initial scene of the virtual classroom.
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265
to start and finish at any time of the year and, in
the same time, the students can explore all seasons.
The experiment is repeatable and the dataset is
reusable: it is possible to set up the same situation
with the same input data and to observe if the
output is the same and if the hypothesis is proven
again.
3 THE VIRTUAL CLASSROOM
The core technological component developed for the
pilot case is a specially designed virtual classroom.
The software presents a room with windows and a
door. The room is in an environment with specific
weather conditions. There are several devices like
thermometers, a wall clock, and air conditioners.
Users may navigate within the scene examining
different part of it. Figure 2 shows the initial screen
of the virtual classroom.
Figure 3 shows the general architecture of the
virtual classroom. A set of external factors (sun,
moon, clouds, rain and snow) affect the external air
temperature. This temperature together with the
internal factors (door, windows, air conditioners and
students) and the elapsed time determines the
temperature inside the room.
There are three virtually analogue devices (two
thermometers and a clock) that are both input and
output devices. They provide a way for the students
to observe and measure temperatures and time, as
well as they allow the student to setup manually the
temperatures and the time.
Figure 3: Simulation architecture.
The following subsections describe some basic
concepts of the virtual classroom. Some of them
refer to the functional design of the simulation (like
weather condition, room configuration, thermal and
temporal control), others refer to the educational
design.
3.1 Functional Design
3.1.1 Weather
The virtual room model provides functionality to set
up specific weather conditions, which are used to
represent various inquiry scenarios.
There are two general modes, day and night, that
are represented by a change of the light and the
presence of an image of the Sun or the Moon. The
weather conditions can be sequentially selected. The
possible variations are to add clouds, rain or snow.
The modes together with the weather variations
generate 10 combinations, which provide enough
diversity of the external conditions. Each of these
combinations has its own specific impact on the
changes of the external environment. For example, if
the outside temperature is 10°C and the users
activate snowing, then the temperature will
gradually drop down.
3.1.2 Room
The class room is the main object in the virtual room
simulation. It can be modified by the user. There are
four main elements that can be controlled – the door,
the windows, the students and the air conditioners.
The door and the windows contribute to the
overall openness of the room. The door can be either
open or closed, while the windows have several
levels of openness, randomized within preset ranges.
Each window can be completely or partially opened
(either vertically or horizontally). Figure 4 displays
the appearance of completely opened windows.
Figure 4: Fully opened windows.
The third controllable element in the classroom is
the number of students. There are six predefined
configurations ranging from an empty classroom (0
students) to an overcrowded one (40 students)
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shown in Figure 5.
Finally, there are two air conditioners in the
room. Initially they are turned off. Users can switch
them on to cooling mode (18°C), room temperature
mode (22°C) or heating mode (26°C).
3.1.3 Measures
The options for weather conditions and room
configurations provide somewhat indirect control on
the temperature inside the room.
The room, however, is equipped with two
thermometers. One of the thermometers is attached
to the outside of the room and measures the external
temperature. The other is mounted inside the room;
it measures the internal temperature. Both of the
thermometers show the temperature analogue value.
Time is measured by using the wall clock. For
most of the pilot cases the exact time is not quite
important. Instead, students measure the amount of
elapsed time. Figure 6 is a snapshot of the internal
thermometer at 25°C and the clock at 6:09:49.
3.2 Educational Aspects
The design of the virtual classroom is based on a
few iconoclastic decisions contributing substantially
to successful pilot experiments:
Continuous simulation;
Dual purpose devices;
Navigational freedom;
Lack of internal description.
One of the most risky decisions is the implement
continuous simulation. It starts immediately after the
program is launched. There are no options to start,
pause or stop the process of simulation.
Figure 5: Overcrowded classroom.
The side effect of this decision is that temperatures
and time are changed during the configuration of the
scenario. The rationale for this decision is to provide
real-life experience. This also forces the students to
both accept some level of inaccuracy, as well as to
think ahead and act promptly when they set up their
experiments.
To provide even further feeling of real-life
experiments the measuring devices (the clock and
both thermometers) show their values in an analogue
manner. There is no option to get the temperature or
the current time digitally. Students have to “convert”
analogue measures into numbers in real-time.
Additionally, the devices are not only output
devices, i.e. they display measured values, but are
also input devices – students are able to interactively
change the internal/external temperatures and the
current time. This decision aims at simplifying the
interface and increasing the functionality.
While using the virtual classroom the students
can navigate to any place around or inside the room.
This design decision provides a feel of freedom.
Students often spend some time just walking within
the virtual scene and investigating every place.
There is no documentation describing what exactly
to do, where to go, how to measure, what is the
impact of the weather, etc. Students are expected to
explore not only a specific science problem, but also
to explore the virtual world and the software.
4 A VIRTUAL CLASSROOM
USED IN A REAL CLASSROOM
The experiments with the virtual classroom were
held again with three classes of 6
th
graders in First
Private Mathematical School in Sofia, Bulgaria. The
weSPOT pilot itself started a week earlier, when the
teacher in Human and Nature defined the research
question to the students.
Figure 6: The internal thermometer and the wall clock.
The introduction of the Virtual Classroom
simulation to the students was observed and
TheVirtualClassroom-APilotCaseinInquiryBasedLearning
267
Figure 7: A student proving hypothesis.
documented by the Sofia University researchers,
taking care for the Bulgarian pilots and providing
support to teachers and students. The weSPOT pilots
continue and their final results will be presented in
next papers, but first observations and conclusions
are presented below.
4.1 First Reactions
The Virtual Classroom was introduced to the
students by teachers in Information Technologies,
who are also members of the weSPOT school team.
They presented the simulation only with several
sentences, introducing it as a tool, which will
support the students in their inquiry project for the
Human and Nature discipline. In addition, teachers
shared with students the fact, that the simulation is
specially developed for their needs and purposes of
the given inquiry. Then the students were left to
discover the software functionalities.
Immediately each student started own inquiry
with great power of observation in many different
directions. Their reactions like: “Great graphics!”,
“A-a-a, there is sun also!”, “Oh! What students!”,
“The temperature drops very quickly when windows
are widely open! Let's open them in the other
direction.” confirm this.
Each of the inquiries provoked the students’
curiosity - they asked questions and defined their
own hypothesis.
4.2 Open Questions and Hypotheses
Some of the questions like “Why the room is without
roof? Would this cause the outside and inside
temperatures to mix?” shows that the students
expect the simulation to be completely realistic.
Other questions like “Why the classroom is on
Mars?” provided researchers with new ideas: to
think about future use of Virtual Classroom for
simulation of conditions at other planets.
However most of the questions were really
dedicated to the inquiry, which students have
worked on. In one of the cases students opened the
door and all the windows of the Virtual Classroom,
set the outside temperature at minimum and made
the hypothesis that inside temperature will fall down
quickly. But according to the simulation, the inside
temperature has even slightly increased. “Why?”
asked a student. Then the teacher invoked him to
look carefully what factor could influence the
temperature. “Oh!” was next reaction. “In the room
there are 40 pupils! Let’s them go out and then
check the temperature again.” Through several
experiments this student proved newly appeared
hypothesis (
Figure 7).
In some of the cases students had seemingly
opposite hypotheses: If the door and the windows
are open then: a) the room gets colder (Figure 8,
top); b) the room gets warmer (Figure 8, bottom).
Two teams of students tried to argue who is right
and why. Then they discovered that it is one and the
same hypothesis, because in the first case the outside
temperature was lower than the inside one; in the
second case the outside temperature was higher than
the inside one.
Figure 8: Students with first hypothesis (top photo) and
students with “opposite” hypothesis (bottom photo).
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4.3 Observations
The simulation provoked students’ interest. Most of
them expressed their expectation to run the program
at home. The Virtual Classroom created atmosphere
in which all the students worked intensively, but
each one of them in own direction, according
personal perception of the world, with own pace.
The students were excited by the simulation
functionality, especially by the possibility to
manipulate objects and phenomena. They gradually
discovered, in different order, functionality of the
Virtual Classroom elements: the status of the
buttons, the change of the temperature, the rotation
of the building with the Virtual classroom, going
into the classroom and outside it, changing the
number of pupils inside, etc.
The initial enthusiasm established better
conditions for successful inquiry learning activities.
After that, the students started collection of data
through subsequent experiments, systematically
proving their hypothesis and recording the data and
conclusions in Moodle, where the special course for
the purpose of the pilot was running.
5 CONCLUSIONS
The analysis of the results of the second pilot
experiment shows that the Virtual Classroom
simulation plays successfully its role in the weSPOT
project. To what extend the software simulation
contributes to the core science experiment objectives
will be possible to conclude later, after the third pilot
experiment, but even at this stage it was proven that
students learn some of the important lessons like:
If you have hypothesis, through collection of data
you could prove or reject it.
If you would like to confirm that given result is not
accidental, then you need to receive the same
result with the same data when recreating the same
experiment.
During the next year the weSPOT inquiry workflow
engine will be fully developed, providing
opportunity to conduct inquiry, fully supported by
technology, collecting and sharing in electronic form
data and evidences. The third pilot will use the
inquiry workflow engine together with the
simulation and specially developed validating
instruments. In this way we will be able to
implement the whole inquiry cycle and application
of the weSPOT model for IBL, and to evaluate its
real contribution to learning.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The research is done with financial support of EC
FP7 /2007-2013/ contract N°318499 – project
weSPOT.
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