By 2028, the U.S. will have the largest number of foreign-born individuals since 1850 with non-hispanic whites in the 18-29 age group in the minority. These changing demographics require a major shift in education practices that will affect these residents’, and organizations wanting their labor, ability to continue their education, get/recruit for a career, enlist/recruit in the military, and simply navigate in a digital society. Many of these residents have a range of challenges from language barriers to lack of access to the Internet and mobile devices that must be addressed.
XR technologies, interwoven with learning theories, offer solutions to these challenges. This paper presents a study of XR-enabled educational delivery models with the community of Storm Lake to enhance students’ aspirations for STEM careers. Storm Lake is a rural Iowa community with a large low-skilled workforce employed in the agroindustrial sector and a K-12 student population that is 64% English Language Learners and 85% students of color. The research began with co-design activities (formal process actively involving all stakeholders) with teachers, students, and families in the community, without technology use. Analyzed study data showed that traditional technology development and deployment practices wouldn’t effectively educate or inspire students. For example, providing teachers with XR devices creates a training burden to properly operate, often resulting in unused technology. Another outcome was that co-design activities, with place-based challenges in XR environments, was effective for students to learn STEM-related content. Co-design activities concluded in a three-day summer workshop for 11 high school students. At the workshop, students defined a place-based challenge in their community and implemented an XR technological solution in software and hardware. Assessments following the workshop showed very positive results from the students on several measures and culminated with seven of the 11 applying to a university in a STEM major.
Keywords
AUGMENTED AND VIRTUAL REALITY (AR/VR), DESIGN, DISTANCE LEARNING, EDUCATION, LEARNING TECHNOLOGY STANDARDS, PEDAGOGICAL DESIGN, SOCIOLOGICAL, STEM
Additional Keywords
place-based, educational delivery models, minority demographics