There’s a paradigm shift happening in the education sector. Just as we moved from physical textbooks to online learning, there’s a transition happening from E-learning to immersive learning experiences. Technologies such as image annotation and augmented & virtual reality are at the forefront of this learning revolution.
At Renyoo, we started off with a simple assumption that people learn in different ways and facilitating learning for all kinds of learners would improve classroom performance. Well, we carried out a few pilots in a few classrooms around the world and here’s what we found.
Immersive experiences improve memory retention by 4X
According to Fleming and Mills, learning styles can be classified in Visual, Auditory, Reading and Writing and Kinesthetic, commonly known as the VARK modalities. Data suggests that the modern classroom must accommodate all kinds of learners to be truly effective and inclusive in their teaching methodology. The curriculum and teaching methods of the past were designed to serve the Read/Write learners well tending to largely ignore Visual, Aural and Kinesthetic learners.
The fundamental flaw of this approach is that it panders to a minuscule segment of learners leaving a large segment majority ill-equipped to learn. Findings tell us that a vast majority of us (close to 65% of the general population) are visual learners. It has been also found that the use of Visual Aids in the classroom improves learning by up to 400%. However, even after these findings have been strongly established, we are yet to make any fundamental changes in the education system.
The very foundation of a stronger and more accommodative education system can be laid down by introducing learning material that accommodates all the VARK modalities. This means that learning material must be more visual, use more imagery, more video aids, and more audio aids to supplement a textbook learning approach. Renyoo helps teachers create learning modules that incorporate all kinds of formats (Image, Audio, Video, Text and More) helping different types of learners assimilate information faster and retain it better.
To learn more about how teachers can create immersive learning modules with Renyoo, read our detailed blog on the topic here
It provides a real-world context for education
Digital environments created using tools such as Renyoo can give students a sensory experience that creates a context for learning. For eg; a video of a T-Rex walking around in flesh coupled with the voice of its blood-chilling roar will help students remember more than a 10-page description of a T-Rex. Digital environments can help students explore and navigate through real-world destinations from the comfort of their own homes.
Teachers can use the information available online to create virtual tours that transport their students into distant locales. They can pay a virtual visit to the Taj Mahal, the leaning tower of Pisa and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon all on the same day.
It boosts classroom engagement and participation
Students learn best when they are actively involved in the learning process rather than passively listening. Tools such as Renyoo can be used by students as a way of documenting their learnings and research and collaborating with each other.
Students can take pictures, collect audio recordings and videos of the phenomenon occurring in the world around them. For eg: they can take a series of photos over the span of a few months of the plants growing in their garden, or even take stock of the various kinds of flora and fauna around them. Over the span of a few days, students will learn of the hundreds of species of plants and animals in their immediate surroundings.
Teachers can ask students to document scientific experiments such as terrariums and jot down their observations of the world around them. Students using such tools will eventually develop a scientific curiosity about the way the world works, and this will help improve learning outcomes. Another advantage is that the class can share their individual learnings with each other through presentations of the projects they have created on the Renyoo app.
It helps those with learning and physical disability
Interactive content can help students that face learning disabilities keep pace with their peers. Studies suggest that learning aids that immerse students with disabilities such as those with Dyslexia or ADHD in virtual environments help them retain information better. It was also observed that such environments improved the motivation of students to learn and reduced distracted behavior.
Tutors can include images, video, audio transcripts as part of the learning modules so that they are accessible to everyone. Visually challenged students can benefit through audio transcripts while students with a hearing disability can learn through rich images and video representations.
Asynchronous learning modules help reduce strain on educators
Renyoo uses the power of collaboration and crowdsourcing and helps your students leverage it to help themselves. The learning resources that are created on Renyoo serve as a ‘Virtual instruction’ resource. This can help educators reach more people without having to put in more hours.
This also saves the monotony of having to teach or explain the same topic repeatedly to different sets of students. Creating such shared learning resources also imparts practical team-building skills, analytical skills, attention to detail, digital literacy, collaboration, and presentation skills that are much sought after and prized later in their careers.
Facilitates collaboration between tutors and learners in real-time.
Often teaching tends to become a one-way communication instead of a conversation due to the nature of classroom dynamics. The tutor dictates and the students take notes, or even worse the tutors prescribe a laundry list of reference material and the students keep mugging up blindly. Renyoo’s powerful collaborative features help democratize the classroom and encourage open communication between tutors and students.
Tutors can create shared projects and notes using the Renyoo app and add other fellow students as collaborators. The students can then ask questions, clarify doubts, add their own research and more on to the project while the tutor acts as a moderator to ensure that the project takes the right direction. This increased involvement also increases networking between the student peers and creates a shared resource bank that everyone learns and benefits from.
So, what are you waiting for? Start creating content today on Renyoo!
