The document discusses the Six Learnings Curricular Framework for designing learning in immersive environments. It was developed at the National Institute of Education in Singapore between 2009-2016. The framework aims to help students develop intuitions about concepts by making their thinking visible through exploring, collaborating, being, building, championing, and expressing in virtual worlds. When students' lived experiences do not align with formal assessments, learning can be negatively impacted. Immersive environments allow novice intuitions to be unpacked and enduring understanding to be built.

1. The Six Learnings Curricular Framework
and Disciplinary Intuitions: Designing for
Learning in Immersive Environments
and Game-based Worlds
Kenneth Y T Lim
National Institute of Education

2. Scope
• Designing for learning in immersive
environments
– Why?
• Disciplinary Intuitions
– How?
• Six Learnings curriculum framework
• Examples of how immersive environments are
being used in schools in Singapore
• Examples of places you can visit to learn more

3. • 2009 – 2011 using immersive environments to
learn Geography
• 2012 – 2013 translation of pedagogical
approach to Design & Technology, and to
Literature
• 2014 – 2016 scale-up to other schools, and to
more subjects

4. Alignment
• Many education systems in East Asia and the
Nordic countries have been held up as success
stories
– High stakes national examinations
• The alignment of curriculum with respect to
the everyday lived experiences of students,
and formal assessment
• What results when lived experience and
formal assessment do not cohere?

5. Discussion point #1
What results when the everyday lived
experience of students, and formal assessment,
do not align?

7. • The everyday experience of children growing
up in Singapore does not give them many
opportunities for developing intuitions about
geographical processes in nature
• Yet they are assessed on their understanding
of these processes in the national
examinations

9. Discussion point #2
In your own area of specialisation / subject
discipline, what intuitions might some novices
have, and how might these intuitions have come
about?

10. • Since 2009, the Six Learnings curricular design
framework has helped teachers design immersive
environments within which their students can
express their emerging conceptual understandings.
• In this way, students’ thinking and intuitions – which
would otherwise be largely tacit (hidden) – are made
visible and can be dialogued around with peers.
• Learning is thus more enduring as first-principle
understanding is built.

11. Disciplinary Intuitions
• Intuitions are, by nature, tacit
• They inform behaviour and decision-making, and
play a greatly overlooked role in how students
approach any given curriculum
• If teachers can be more aware of and unpack these
intuitions, they can design for more effective
learning environments

13. The Six Learnings framework for curriculum
design in immersive environments
•
•
•
•
•
•
Learning by exploring
Learning by collaborating
Learning by being
Learning by building
Learning by championing
Learning by expressing

22. “… by terraforming, it really helps us understand
the properties of a landscape.”

23. “… this is much more believable, much more
impactful.”

26. Discussion point #3
What ideas about the possibilities of using
immersive environments in learning would you
like to share?

27. Site visits
• The Field Studies Centre at Bowness
– Different stations at the Centre allow you to
experience each of the Six Learnings
• The Abyss Observatory at Farwell
– Collaboration with colleagues from the Agency for
Marine-Earth Science and Technology in Japan
(JAMSTEC)

43. Points of discussion
• What results when the everyday lived experience of
students, and formal assessment, do not align?
• In your own area of specialisation / subject
discipline, what intuitions might some novices have,
and how might these intuitions have come about?
• What ideas about the possibilities of using immersive
environments in learning would you like to share?