Webinar Series - Exploring Learning Sciences in the Asia-Pacific

Get ready to embark on an exciting journey with the International Learning Sciences Student Association’s (ILSSA) inaugural webinar series featuring esteemed professors from the Asia-Pacific region! We’re kicking off with,

Date & Time: March 18, 2024 (Monday)   5:30 PM (IST)

Speaker: Prof. Maria Mercedes T. Rodrigo, Ateneo de Manila University,  Philippines
Moderator: Nisumba Soodhani, PhD research scholar, IIT Bombay, India

Abstract: From 2020 to 2023, the Ateneo Laboratory for the Learning Sciences collaborated with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to deploy the What-if Hypothetical Implementations in Minecraft (WHIMC) simulation in schools in the Philippines. WHIMC is a set of Minecraft worlds designed to teach earth sciences. The goal of the deployment was two-fold: to provide teachers with additional resources to teach science and, by using a game-based format, to cultivate student interest in STEM. WHIMC was instrumented to capture student interactions. Using data analytics, we were able to gain insights about how students with varying ability levels, cultures, and emotional responses differed in their gameplay. These findings may inform design of future game-based interventions, especially those that may be used in different countries. The entire process is an example of how researchers in the field of learning sciences make use of data, analytics methods, and educational theory, among others, to deepen and nuance our knowledge of how learning takes place.

Mark your calendars and prepare to be inspired!