Visualizing Context in Elementary Education
The Imaging Research Center received a UMBC Center, and Institute Departmentally-Engaged Research (CIDER) grant to test a virtual reality (VR) tool designed to help future teachers understand the many factors that affect elementary students’ learning, including issues in the broader community in which they teach. This VR environment, developed by the IRC (REVLR), has been specifically developed for the Systems Engagement and Exploration Environment (SEEe) that presents complex data in multiple ways simultaneously. The date visualization includes graphs, videos, and conceptual diagrams. The tool is intended to help new teachers see the complex factors that shape literacy teaching and learning.
SEEe includes a variety of data on school achievement in Maryland, Baltimore City, and specifically at Lakeland Elementary and Middle School in Southwest Baltimore, where UMBC has a long-standing partnership. Focusing on a single school allows researchers to understand how large-scale data factors affect student success in a specific community.
The 3D environment presents both quantitative and qualitative data. Quantitative data include charts and graphs, while qualitative data are presented on virtual screens and include text passages (such as laws and quotes from educators), videos of experts lecturing, and interviews with people who live and work in the Lakeland community. These videos highlight how neighborhood geography, history, culture, demographics, community organizations, and family experiences interact with the school.
The project takes an asset-based, culturally responsive approach, focusing on the strengths and knowledge that already exist in communities. The goal is to increase pre-service teachers’ awareness and understanding of the communities where they will teach.
A participant in the research study, Visualizing the Wide Range of Factors in K-12 Education
Once this study is complete, the next phase of research will involve an extended collaboration with an educational program for future teachers, or, an organization charged with sustaining and improving educational achievement in Maryland.
You can learn more about the REVLR system driving SEEe here.
Researchers and Creators
Principal Investigators: Amy Tondreau, Assistant Professor of Education; Lee Boot, Director of the Imaging Research Center; Anita Komlodi, Associate Director of the Imaging Research Center, Associate Professor of Human-Centered Computing;
Co-Investigators: Tristan King, IRC Lead Software Developer; Ryan Zuber, IRC Technical Director, and Specialist in modeling and animation
Graduate and PhD Students
Study Design and Implementation: Priya Rajasagi, PhD Student of Human-Centered Computing
Education Research:
Kara Seidel, PhD, 2025, Language, Literacy, and Culture
Erik Wikane, Graduate Student of Education
Rajmi Doshi, Graduate Student of Education
Neha Nooka, Graduate Student of Data Science, Department of Information Systems
June Young, Graduate Student, Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
Undergraduate Students
Lilly Mills, Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
Funding
$50,000. 2023 UMBC’s Center and Institute Departmentally-Engaged Research (CIDER) grant
Publications & Presentations
Tondreau, A., Komlodi, A., Boot, L., Rajasagi, P., Wikane, E., Nooka, N., Doshi, R., King, T. & Seidel, K. (2024, April). Virtual Reality in Teacher Preparation: Constructing Possibilities for Orienting Novice Teachers to School Communities. American Educational Research Association Annual Conference, Philadelphia, PA.