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Journal of Computer Assisted Learning

Volume 34, Issue 4
SPECIAL ISSUE ARTICLE

Embodiment analytics of practicing teachers in a virtual immersive environment

Roghayeh Barmaki

Corresponding Author

E-mail address: rl@jhu.edu

Johns Hopkins University, , MD, 21218 USA

Correspondence

Roghayeh Barmaki, Johns Hopkins University, 3400 North Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21218, USA.

Email: rl@jhu.edu

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Charles E. Hughes

University of Central Florida, , FL, 32816 USA

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First published: 21 May 2018
https://doi.org/10.1111/jcal.12268

Abstract

Interactive training environments typically include feedback mechanisms designed to help trainees improve their performance through either guided or self‐reflection. In this context, trainees are candidate teachers who need to hone their social skills for their future classroom. We chose an interactive virtual training system as the basic research environment to investigate the embodiment of the trainees. Using tracking sensors and improvements for existing gesture recognition utilities, we created a gesture database and used it for the implementation of our real‐time feedback application. We also investigated multiple modalities of feedback including visual and haptics. This paper describes the context in which the utilities have been developed, the importance of recognizing nonverbal communication in the teaching context, the means of providing automated feedback associated with nonverbal messaging, and a series of preliminary studies developed to inform the research. Results from the conducted studies indicate the positive impact of the proposed feedback application.

Lay Description

What is currently known about the topic?

  • Establishing good communications between the teacher and her students positively impacts teaching competency and student engagement.
  • Teaching and learning have always been multimodal as both are unified with speech, gesture, writing, and sketching.
What this paper adds to this?
  • Immediate feedback can help practicing teachers to improve their nonverbal behaviour skills in the classroom.
  • We have developed an interactive immediate feedback system to enhance teachers' embodiment using sensory data and computational models.

What are the implications of study findings for practitioners?

  • The study participants indicated the positive impact of informed body language and gesture in communication proficiency.
  • Our feedback system can enhance current educational practices in teacher preparation by offering the trainees the opportunity to receive feedback in real time, whereas the feedback from subject matter expert is not available.
  • Furthermore, subject matter experts can also use the system to get automated suggestions for feedback provision to participants.