The National Science Foundation awarded doctoral student Joseph Wong an NSF GRFP Non-Academic Research Internship for Graduate Students (INTERN) Supplemental Funding Opportunity.
Wong will intern at Immerse Inc., a virtual reality (VR) software company that specializes in language education. The company has developed a VR language teaching and learning platform, allowing language lessons to be delivered using immersive simulations.
Wong anticipates the internship will support him in developing key virtual, augmented, and mixed-reality design and pedagogical learning design implementation skills. The internship will also enable Wong to research the Immerse VR learning experience platform, which provides both teacher and student interfacing systems; facilitate communication with industry educational developers, designers, and stakeholders; design assessments in VR to support transferable skills; and take pedagogical learning design, student, and teacher needs into account when designing interventions for teaching and learning in the Metaverse.
This award will provide me the training and professional practice opportunities to acquire real-world, on-the-ground competencies and transferable knowledge that will not only broaden my skill set as a doctoral research scholar in academia, but also deepen my technical expertise in virtual reality design, research, and entrepreneurship in the STEM teaching and learning Metaverse,” Wong said.
“This award will provide me the training and professional practice opportunities to acquire real-world, on-the-ground competencies and transferable knowledge that will not only broaden my skill set as a doctoral research scholar in academia, but also deepen my technical expertise in virtual reality design, research, and entrepreneurship in the STEM teaching and learning Metaverse,” Wong said.
Wong previously received an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship in support of his research, “Virtual and Augmented Reality in NGSS STEM Education: Exploring Inquiry-based Learning Frameworks through Immersive Field Trips in Elementary Science Instruction,” which tested the effectiveness of teaching students with the use of low-cost VR/AR field trips.