An Experiential Approach to Support Learning of Cyber Physical Systems Concepts involving Mixed Reality Platforms

Abstract

The potential of adopting cyber learning approaches to improve student learning and engagement is an important area of educational research. The advent of Virtual Reality (VR) based learning environments or Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) has ushered in the cyber-based educational era which involves smart technologies supporting experiential learning and other approaches to enrich the learning experiences in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics + Computing (STEM+C) topics. In this paper, the discussion of such experiential activities to teach advanced concepts in cyber-physical systems using process contexts from NASA's Moon Mission is discussed. There are two thrusts: (1) studying the potential of experiential activities where engineering and computer science students are taught to design and build such cyber-physical environments using Mixed Reality (MR) involving astronaut training scenarios (2) assessing the impact of immersive VLEs using low-cost platforms such as the Vive in learning science and engineering concepts. The results of such learning experiences in terms of engagement and learning on students are discussed. The overall conclusion is that such experiential activities involving VR/MR technologies have the potential to impact student learning in a positive manner.