Augmented Reality for Teacher Education faculties (ARTEfac): images of the Earth-sun model
AUTHORS
Document type
Conference papers
Abstract
In France, primary school science curricula (equivalent P4 to P6) includes astronomical content knowledge about the movement of the Earth to explain the seasons. However, researches about students' knowledge have highlighted misconceptions when explaining the phenomenon of seasons, often related to the distance model (varying distance between the Earth and the Sun), associated to highly elliptical images of the Earth orbit about the Sun commonly depicted in print or on the internet. The question of which images can be used during teacher education programs arises, especially in a context where learners are exposed to multiple modes of representations. Teacher educators' institutions are challenged with the need to develop resources to prepare future teachers to teach in a multimodal environment. The idea of the present research is to use augmented reality (AR), and in particular 3D animated images to help students to visualize the Earth-Sun model and better understand the phenomenon of seasons. A team of educational researchers, teacher educators, technicians and developers worked together to design 3D images of the Earth-Sun model and the associated modeling application. The objective of this research is to question the role of 3D animated images in students' understanding of the phenomenon of seasons, based on the evolution of their representations. A preliminary qualitative research has been conducted with 4 teacher students in primary education in France in order to question their prior representations (Q1) and how they evolved while working with 3D animated images in AR (Q2). Through designated questions, their prior knowledge of astronomical concepts was assessed (Q1). Training sessions using the 3D animated images were videotaped to analyze the relationship between students' prior representations and the explanatory models they developed based on the use of 3D animated images in AR (Q2). The data highlights interesting interactions between students use of the 3D images, speak and gestures. First results show an improvement in the way students explain the phenomenon of seasons, but also a recognition of the visual and conceptual difficulties their pupils will have, and the interest of visualization using 3D animated images in AR in primary science classrooms.
