Design And Implementation Of Learning Activities Of Science Curriculum In Junior High School Supported By Augmented Reality

The 21 st century is the era of knowledge-based economy,and therefore the promotion of national scientific literacy is closely related to the national development and the increase of global competitiveness.The instructional activities of science curriculum in school education is an important approach to implementing science education,and improving the national scientific literacy.Although great achievements have been made in the process of the science curriculum development of China,the problems with instructional contents,instructional methods,and instructional situation still need to be solved urgently.Meanwhile,the instructional application of technologies and tools,as a research focus in the field of educational technology,has received much attention from researchers.Researchers are engaged in the exploration and discovery of new technologies and tools and apply them in the instructional practices to promote the process of teaching and learning,thus increasing students' learning performance.Under this background,the purpose of this study is to apply augmented reality in the instructional practices of junior high school science curriculum,and put forward a pattern of learning activity design supported by augmented technology based on the improvement of conventional instructional situation,tools,and methods.Besides,instructional activities are to be implemented in a certain junior high school to explore the influence on students' learning motivation and learning performance.To achieve this aim,this research is conducted in four phases that are as follows:(1)On the basis of activity theory and support by situated learning theory and multimedia learning theory,a pattern of learning activity design based on augmented reality is brought forward.In this study,the development,evolution,and connotation of activity theory are summarized at first.And then,a thorough analysis have been conducted to explore the support of activity theory for learning activity design.After that,the features of learning activities supported by augmented reality are analyzed,and based on it a pattern of learning activity design supported by augmented reality is proposed.(2)According to the proposed pattern,learning activity cases of science curriculum are designed.Based on the theory construction,the junior high school science curriculum has been chosen as the research object to conduct the learning activity design.In accordance with the process of learning activity design,ten learning activity cases supported by augmented reality of junior high school science curriculum are designed.(3)The instructional software based on augmented reality that is applicable to above learning activity cases is designed and developed.During this process some tools such as Unity 3D,HiAR SDK,Android SDK,and JDK are used to form a development environment.And according to the process of software development,the instructional software based on augmented reality is developed to support the implementation of learning activities.(4)The learning activity cases are carried out and a survey is conducted to investigate the instructional effectiveness and the learning feedback of students.During the process of this study,instructional experiments are conducted in a certain junior high school.The research data collected from the experimental group and the control group is analyzed to reflect the influence of learning activities supported by augmented reality on students' learning motivation and learning performance in comparison with the conventional learning activities.Besides,the students' feedback and comments about the instructional software and learning activities based on augmented reality are surveyed through a questionnaire and interview.After the year-long instructional experiment and through the data analysis,it is indicated in this study that the learning activities of science curriculum supported by augmented reality is conducive to enhancing students' learning motivation in a certain degree,arousing their learning interest,and maintaining their learning attention in class.Besides,the learning activities could promote students' learning performance and help them understand and master the learning contents better.And most students have a good opinion of the instructional software and learning activities based on augmented reality,and they show strong preference for the tools and activities based on augmented reality compared with conventional learning tools and activities.