Math via 3D environment

Hara Bouta & Symeon Retalis (2012) Enhancing primary school children collaborative learning experiences in maths via a 3D virtual environment. Educ Inf Technology. 18; 571–596; DOI 10.1007/s10639-012-9198-8

Xiaoqing Gu, Shan Chen, Wenbo Zhu and Lin Lin set up and design a framework to develop skills in executing joint problem-solving tasks among primary students in Shanghai. This framework incorporated an intervention framework for a collaborative inquiry project for the participants. In most Science classroom, collaborative environment is crucial and usually the students are assigning collaborative work by having them discuss topic and assign them into joint or shared tasks. The authors address some problems or challenges in helping students to develop problem solving skills in collaborative way as it is not effective since the students have not yet developed effective communication, cooperation, and problem solving skills. Previous studies by Yan and Cheng (2007) , Blatchford et al. (2007) and Karakostas and Demetriadis (2011) also agree that those mentioned activities do not automatically create collaboration among students. In fact, according to Hogan (1999) Kim & Hannafin (2011) and Kershner et al. (2012), without adequate structured support, productive learning outcomes rarely happens since inquiry-based learning requires students to apply complex cognitive and metacognitive skills to solve problems.

The writers gear their study by proposing a research question which is what are the impacts of the intervention on students’ group skills if any, and what are the impact of intervention on students’ problem-solving skill if any. In this study the researcher collaborate with two science teachers and the research team, which included one researcher and two research assistants (RAs) to designed an Air Quality Testing. The Air Quality Testing unit was designed as a collaborative problem-solving project with three stages of inquiry activities including preparing for solving the problem, solve the problem and wrap up the solutions. After a few measurements and testing to two groups who were controlled and experimental group, the results indicated that the students who received intervention performed better in the main indicators of higher group skills and problem solving skills.

In particular, from the author's point of view, they suggest that the intervention framework dedicated to develop students’ collaborative problem-solving skills in a classroom setting was able to provide students with appropriate training for effective group dynamics and problem solving. The layout of this study provide thorough view of the whole concept of collaboration besides explain the correlation or relationship between the problem-solving skills and inquiry-based learning. Consequently, this study can operate as a benchmark for me to gauge the usefulness of applying collaborative framework in classroom specifically for problem solving and inquiry-based learning.