Designing for Student Interactions: The Role of Embodied Interactions in Mediating Collective Inquiry in an Immersive Simulation

Advances in mobile and wireless technologies provide new possibilities for supporting K-12 learning activities that can be spatially distributed in the classroom, for example in jointly investigating a scientific phenomenon. Such technologies have an impact on the ways in which students engage with one another, and with the quality of their engagement with the activity itself. This paper uses an embodied approach to understand the patterns of interactions between students (e.g., student-to-student, student-to-teacher) and with computational media within the environment (e.g., student-to-device, student-to-large display), in relation to students’ real-time meaning making as they engage in collective inquiry in an immersive simulation environment. The design-based research study consists of two iterations tested in an authentic school setting. We found that increased student-to-student interactions was accompanied by improved observational accuracy and higher quality student explanations constructed. The design implications of the research findings are discussed.