The Gradual Immersion Method (GIM): Pedagogical Transformation into Mixed Reality

Enhancing 21st Century Skills with AR: Using the Gradual Immersion Method to develop Collaborative Creativity

“…In response to the need for guidelines to enhance creativity and collaboration in technological and educational contexts, Sanabria (2015) proposed the Gradual Immersion Method (GIM), a cognitive-pedagogical approach that encourages intuitive learning using digital interactive devices and AR. The method is composed of three modules which, as its name suggests, enable learners' gradual immersion in two complementary respects: facilitating the interactive appropriation of target knowledge, and guiding their perception through increasingly complex spatial dimensions, toward Mixed Reality.…”

“…The three modules are divided into phases with specific goals that together support the objective of the respective module, and enable spatial transition from 2D to 3D, and then to AR. (Sanabria, 2015) The first module aims at familiarizing teams of learners with a specific topic, in six phases (Figure 2). (1) Observation: a series of images are displayed, and a list of common features (or 'criteria') is generated by each team.…”

“…Depending on the objective, evaluation may be scheduled for earlier or later in the overall process (i.e., from the first to the fourth degree of intuitionsensitive peer evaluation). (Sanabria, 2015) The second module consists of a single generative phase involving an iterative transition process, dedicated to the digital creation of an AR product based on 3D models (Figure 3). After working through a creative process of visualizing and articulating a combination of objects through capturing and combining 3D models, the team generates, regenerates, or modifies its preventive structures.…”

“…These structures are externalized through the creation of an AR product which combines a real object (originally captured in the field) and a digital object (originally captured or designed in the lab). (Sanabria, 2015) The third module completes the GIM process, with the exhibition of an AR product (Figure 4). The act of displaying products (exploratory phase) offers learners a chance to interpret their own externalized preinventive structures, and at the same time enables an audience to provide feedback, which can be measured through their affective reactions for example.…”

“…The section also describes the software application which was specifically designed to support the three modules above, as well as its architectural base, which can be easily adapted to support STEAM studies. (Sanabria, 2015) Software developed for the GIM To support the learning of art movements (e.g., Surrealism, Cubism, Impressionism), Arámburo-Lizárraga & Sanabria (2015) proposed a GIM-based application called the Art Movement Learning App (AMLA), which facilitates intuitive collaborative performance of tasks using interactive devices and AR. The AMLA consists of two modules: (1) familiarization (based on the GIM's Module I), which introduces key features of a chosen art movement, in six phases involving interactive LOs, including inter-participant evaluation; and (2) an AR module (based on the GIM's Modules II and III), which guides learners through the generation of a digital creative product, and then the mounting of this product in a real-world environment, using AR with GPS coordinates, known as AR Level 2 (Lens-Fitzgerald, 2009).…”