Virtual reality (VR) in education has tremendous potential in providing immersive and interactive experiences for students. Immersive virtual reality (IVR) technologies and IVR learning experiences have been increasingly used in education settings to support a variety of instructional methods and outcomes by providing experiential and authentic…

Experimental learning is one kind of contextual learning, which places learners in a variety of virtual or real contexts to acquire knowledge, gain ability and experience, and generates emotion through experiencing and perceiving, communicating and exploring, and self-reflecting. Applying VR technology to experiential learning involves both…

This paper aims to improve the design methods for serious games (games for learning) by identifying a set of well-established pedagogical misconceptions and presenting design guidelines to avoid these. It analyses the pedagogical principles and models that are commonly used in serious game design, and contrasts these with evidence and advances in…

The advanced visualisation and interactive capabilities make immersive virtual reality (IVR) attractive for educators to investigate its educational benefits. This research reviewed 64 studies published in 2016-2020 to understand how science educators designed, implemented, and evaluated IVR-based learning. The immersive design features (sensory,…

This paper presents a novel approach to designing an online, open-source course in systems librarianship, an area of librarianship that may be perceived as complex and intimidating because of the technologies involved. The course design focuses on making systems librarianship more approachable for library and information science students who may…

This design case illustrates an innovative research-based pedagogical approach to customizing students' learning experiences in an online course. We centered the course design on the experiential learning model which fosters student's learning through a reexamination and integration of their current knowledge with new and refined knowledge (Kolb,…

In the process of experiential learning, students acquire skills and values as the consequence of a direct experience. Experiential learning draws on senses, emotions, and cognition and appeals to learners' entire being. Such learning, by nature, enables the development of a variety of capabilities, such as planning, teamwork, coping with…

The purpose of this paper is to describe the development and implementation phases of online graduate nuclear engineering courses that are part of the Graduate Nuclear Engineering Certificate program at Virginia Tech. Virginia Tech restarted its nuclear engineering program in the Fall of 2007 with 60 students, and by 2009, the enrollment had grown…

Many novel learning approaches in recent years have involved innovative technologies; however, other creative approaches can also be used to facilitate the learning of new or difficult concepts. In this article we explain how novelty and fun can be introduced into the learning experience without the need for advanced technologies. The novel…

The purpose of this study has been to examine the impacts of aesthetic design on learner experience in an e-assessment environment, specifically on cognitive load and task performance. Sixty-six postsecondary students were randomly assigned to one of two aesthetic design configurations of the e-assessment environment: (1) an environment with low…

This paper describes an experiential learning activity designed for a New England university freshmen course, BUS101-Marketing First-Year Experience (FYE). The purpose of the activity is to teach basic principles of marketing, develop a general perspective of business, and provide FYE activities that facilitate the college transition. The specific…

Knowledge and its applicability nourish each other in schools where teachers critically analyze data and, through team discussions, have the opportunity to solve the challenges that education presents every day. The premise of this model is that all participants have an active role in the function of creating praxial knowledge. This article…

Much geographical scholarship on teaching and learning details the intellectual, technical and personal benefits stemming from residential field course offerings, reflecting characteristics of constructivist active learning. With the sustainability of these offerings in question given logistical and political issues, there is greater demand for…

This study focuses on learning about fish biodiversity via mobile devices in a situated learning scenario. Mobile devices do not only facilitate relating the presented information to the real world in a direct way; they also allow the provision of dynamic representations on demand. This study asks whether mobile devices are suited to support…

The best way to learn is by having a good teacher and the best language learning takes place when the learner is immersed in an environment where the language is natively spoken. 3D multi-user virtual worlds have been claimed to be useful for learning, and the field of exploiting them for education is becoming more and more active thanks to the…