Exploring Constraints on Dialogic Interaction in Immersive Environments Arising from COVID-19 Protocols

Abstract

This paper describes an independent research study undertaken by a high school student under the mentorship of a Research Scientist at the National Institute of Education, Singapore. It explores how dialogic interactions on a given Mathematical topic, decimals, can be constrained in the remote learning platform Zoom. This research utilises Laurillard’s Conversational Framework for a small-scale intervention of two virtual learning sessions in Minecraft Education Edition, focusing on the decimal learning for primary school students. The study found that the overlapping of the immersive learning environment and remote learning platform engenders miscommunications, disorientation, and cognitive dissonance amongst both the teacher and the student, prolonging the discursive and adaptive phases in the dialogic interactions.