As a PYP coordinator, you are always looking for ways to make learning engaging, hands-on, and meaningful for our students. When grade 3 class explored the Unit of Inquiry, “How the World Works,” they integrated the Augmented Classroom: Create Mode app from CleverBooks Augmented Classroom to enhance the learning experience. The results were inspiring.
Connecting PYP Inquiry with Student Creativity
The central idea of this unit revolves around understanding scientific principles and the natural world. Students explored forces, energy, and simple machines. These concepts can sometimes feel abstract when taught through textbooks alone.
With Augmented Classroom: Create Mode students designed their own 3D environments. This made the learning experience interactive and personal.
How Augmented Classroom: Create Mode Added Value
Creating Their Own Environments:
Students built virtual forest environments to explore how forces and energy work in natural settings. For example, they added rivers, hills, and trees, then experimented with how objects move and interact within their worlds.
AI Assistance for Inquiry:
During creation, students used the built-in AI assistant to ask questions, gather information, and receive suggestions. As a result, they gained deeper understanding and connected scientific concepts to their designs.
Hands-on Exploration:
By manipulating objects in their 3D/AR environments, students could see cause-and-effect relationships more clearly. This made learning both tangible and memorable.
Student Agency and Collaboration:
Working in groups, students shared ideas and gave feedback while building their environments. Moreover, this peer collaboration strengthened inquiry skills and reinforced their understanding of scientific principles.
Real-World Connections:
Through experimentation, students related abstract concepts like energy and forces to real-world contexts. For instance, they connected ideas to playground swings or water flowing down a hill.
Teacher Insights:
Augmented Classroom: Create Mode also gave teachers a chance to observe engagement and understanding during the process. Consequently, it became easier to guide inquiry and scaffold learning where needed.
Reflections
Integrating augmented reality into the PYP curriculum transformed the way Grade 3 students engaged with How the World Works. By designing their own forest environments and using the AI assistant for guidance, abstract concepts became interactive, observable, and deeply understood.
Students left the unit with a stronger grasp of forces and energy. In addition, they built confidence to experiment, create, and inquire independently.
Using Augmented Classroom: Create Mode doesn’t replace PYP inquiry-based learning — it enhances it. It gives students new ways to visualize, create, and collaborate.