Apprendre les matières physiques difficiles grâce à Gadgeteer EDU

Physics is a subject that demands a great deal of creativity and experimentation. Both of these aspects can be enhanced through the use of virtual reality in your classroom!

But the idea of ​​using virtual reality can frighten some teachers. Do I need technical knowledge? Do I need to understand programming? To reassure you, the answer to both questions is no !

The attached course outline and worksheet constitute a complete physics course covering the following topics:

• Gravity
• Potential energy
• Kinetic energy
• Elasticity

These topics can be difficult to explain to students without visual aids. And what better visual aid than virtual reality! This lesson plan requires no technical expertise. Simply use the VR Expert teaching kits , print the worksheets, and you're ready to begin!

I can promise you that after using this lesson plan, you might even try to come up with new ideas for using Gadgeteer in your physics class . The topics covered in this lesson are just the tip of the iceberg. Who knows what else students can learn when they use virtual reality?

About the Gadgeteer EDU app

Gadgeteer EDU is a puzzle game based on physics and chain reactions. In puzzle mode, students must use their problem-solving skills to figure out how to complete certain Rube Goldberg machines.

Students are given a limited number of objects that they must place correctly to ensure that kinetic energy is transferred to the final target. This can range from simply placing dominoes to using catapults, pulleys, gears, etc.

One of the key factors that makes this app so effective is the opportunity to learn through experimentation. Students must use their problem-solving skills to solve physics problems.

Why is Gadgeteer EDU so effective for educational purposes?

The main reason this app is so effective is related to gamification. This means that the use of puzzles and different difficulty levels ensures that the student is motivated to learn more in order to complete the levels.

This application and lesson plan are designed for secondary school students (aged 11 to 14), for whom physics is a relatively new subject. The advantage of using virtual reality to introduce students to these abstract concepts is that they interact with the theory themselves and discover definitions without having to look them up in their textbooks!

The included lesson plan outlines a comprehensive 60-minute introductory lesson on the aforementioned physics topics. This lesson plan can easily be adapted for shorter or longer courses by increasing the time spent in virtual reality.

In the included worksheet, students select the physics concept responsible for an event in the game. The advantage is that even if they choose the wrong answer, they will have thought about an explanation of that physics concept, which will be displayed on the board anyway! Therefore, even if they are wrong, students feel they have achieved their learning objective.

A physics teacher, after trying this lesson plan, stated: "Students will love this way of learning because they feel both in control and proud of themselves." Because students can connect their existing knowledge and discoveries within the application, they are able to create the definition themselves.

All teachers agree that students learn more by experimenting and discovering than by reading a book!

Classroom logistics

The application used in this course plan is called Gadgeteer and is included in the standard and pro versions of our VR Education kit . Supported languages ​​are: English, Chinese (China, Hong Kong or Taiwan), Danish, German, French, Japanese, Korean and Spanish (Mexico).

This lesson plan is based on dividing the class into pairs. This means you'll need a maximum of 16 VR kits. Most classrooms already have tables for two students, which makes setup much easier. Make sure each pair of tables has a charged VR headset.

Your classroom should already be equipped with a whiteboard. Most of them can be flipped over, so take advantage of that! This means the definitions for the four topics can be hidden from the students and revealed after they have discussed their own explanations.

Experimentation and other tips

This lesson plan relies entirely on the use of sandbox mode, but make no mistake: allowing students to use classic puzzles is an excellent reward for a job well done!

In my humble opinion, letting an entire class of 32 students play puzzles without any connection to the relevant theory is not an effective learning method. The puzzles themselves are a significant challenge, but using the objects in a sandbox environment and relating them to the relevant theory makes the lesson more effective.

If the class has worked well, you can use the (experimental) mixed reality mode to have students build a Rube Goldberg machine on your teacher's table. Set the starting point at one end of the table and the finish line at another. Using the live stream, the whole class can watch as students take turns placing objects to reach the finish line. Give each student a maximum of one minute to place objects before passing the VR headset to another student. By setting a time limit, for example, 5 minutes, this becomes a real challenge.