Browsing by Subject "sustainability education"
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(2024)Educational technology is advancing rapidly, with VR (virtual reality) emerging as a promising branch of XR (extended reality) technology for educational purposes. Utilizing head-mounted displays (HMD), immersive VR experiences immerse users in a virtual environment, limiting their awareness of the physical world. VR proves valuable in education by complementing traditional teaching methods, offering experiences impossible in the physical realm. Studies indicate enhanced affective factors, understanding, motivation, and memorization among students. In biology education, VR serves as a visual aid, helping students grasp complex biological concepts difficult to visualize from a two-dimensional textbook. It also shows potential in supplementing hands-on activities like laboratory work and anatomical dissections, experiences outside classrooms, and sustainability education. However, challenges persist in VR's educational application, including uncertainty about learning outcomes, health concerns, high costs, and a general lack of expertise in VR design and pedagogical implementation. Educational VR design has thus far lacked a foundation in pedagogy and learning theories. This thesis aims to address this gap by reflecting on the development of a pedagogically meaningful VR experience within sustainability education. Collaborating with the Global Campus project of the University of Helsinki, the thesis introduces a VR experience integrated into the immersive virtual sustainability learning experience, Serendip. The design process involved literature research, user and expert interviews, and consideration of learning theories such as constructivist learning, experiential learning, flow theory, gamification, CTML, SDL, and CLT. Specific aspects of VR design, like immersion levels and prior knowledge of users, were also considered. The thesis's significance lies in pioneering pedagogy-based design for educational VR, particularly addressing complex, abstract, and multidisciplinary subjects. It emphasizes the need for collaboration among pedagogy, content, and VR animation experts in future educational VR design. This work serves as a potential template and inspiration for further research in the field, aiming to refine the integration of pedagogical principles into VR experiences for education.
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(2023)Tiivistelmä - Referat - Abstract To aim for a just and sustainable society, it is essential to consider how we manage cities and to reflect on the role of young people as agents for successful future generations. The school system must take on the responsibility of developing a sense of social justice amongst young people. However, few learning activities are established to promote learning about environmental and intergenerational justice issues, and are usually limited to a top-down approach based on STEM disciplines (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). In this work, I argue that education in sustainability needs to be opened to a relational approach that introduces new justice perspectives, becoming a driver for active citizenship and public participation. The thesis is based on ten workshops conducted in Kumpula, Helsinki, involving 197 students from two upper secondary schools. The novelty of this work consists in addressing a specific range of upper secondary school students (16 to 19) and combining cognitive and relational learning activities to elicit reflections on environmental justice. I used a learning activity based on a Role-play method to actively involve students in working with justice perceptions and nature-based solutions. The analysis is based on a mixed methods- approach where the statistical analysis (pretest-posttest) and qualitative content analysis support each other. The innovative integration of cognitive and relational learning contributed to a deeper knowledge of urban green space management. This approach elicited new recognition justice perspectives by enhancing the participants’ awareness of community values and needs, comprehending both humans and non-humans. After the learning activity, students were generally more willing to make their voice heard by policy makers and to participate in public discussions. Based on the findings, more resources and time would be needed to build a long-term project in order to assess the permanence of relational and cognitive learning and more widely the efficacy of this approach for transformative learning.
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