SBIR Phase I: Instructor-friendly intelligent VR platform for secondary and post-secondary distance learning and STEAM education

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to use virtual reality (VR) to create immersive, highly engaging environments for collaborative remote learning. As more students take at least some of their classes online, there is a need to develop virtual learning environments that support diverse learners with different strengths, interests, and learning preferences. The project will support diverse learning environments by leveraging the rich data available from VR to detect and classify learner engagement in an immersive, collaborative learning experience. As a major scientific contribution, the new system will provide feedback on levels of learner engagement and ultimately make recommendations for personalized learning activities. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project seeks to create a novel real-time recommendation system for maintaining learner engagement in a collaborative, immersive, VR learning environment. The research will collect behavioral data that can identify different engagement types during collaborative learning to support learners with different strengths, various interests, and learning preferences. Subsequently, the metadata will allow for the development of algorithms for automating real-time, system-generated recommendations for personalizing curriculum options. The knowledge gained will aid diversity and increase engagement in remote VR learning as well as other collaborative, digital environments. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.