Engagement is the first step to accelerating learning. Before students can absorb new knowledge, they must first be drawn into the learning experience. The more invested they are, the more likely they retain information, develop critical thinking skills, and make meaningful connections to the subject matter.
But many teachers face the challenge of motivating and engaging today's students. Traditional teaching methods alone are not always enough to spark curiosity and sustain attention, especially in today’s digital age.
This is where immersive learning tools like Sandbox can help. Designed to close the engagement gap, Sandbox transforms students from passive consumers into active creators, making learning more memorable, enjoyable, and effective through immersion and gamification.
What is Sandbox?
Sandbox is an immersive learning tool that transports students to different times and places, helping them emotionally connect with the material they are exploring. This interactive approach leads to better knowledge retention and long-term interest in a topic.
Students can choose from hundreds of 3D models—exploring ancient Greece, driving the Mars rover, diving into ocean depths, or celebrating cultural events like Lunar New Year. Within Sandbox, students can build, explore, and record their learning, making abstract concepts tangible. To enhance the learning experience further, teachers can access classroom activities, instructional videos, and guides in Discovery Education Experience.
But engagement alone isn’t enough.
While engagement is a crucial first step, it is only meaningful if learning can be measured. Teachers need evidence of student progress, just as they would with traditional lessons. The challenge lies in how to assess and document learning within an immersive environment like Sandbox.
How to Measure Learning in Immersive Experiences
Think of immersive learning in the same way you would approach field trips, lab experiments, or creative projects. The experience itself is engaging, but structured assessment ensures students absorb and apply what they’ve learned. Here are some effective ways to measure understanding:
- Reflection Activities: After using Sandbox, students can write journal entries, reflections, or exit tickets describing what they built and what they learned.
- Guided Questioning: Teachers can ask open-ended questions about student creations, encouraging them to articulate their learning process and justify design choices.
- Comparative Analysis: Students can compare their Sandbox scene with historical accounts, scientific models, or artistic interpretations, demonstrating their understanding of accuracy and representation.
- Peer Reviews & Discussios: Classmates can review each other’s work, providing constructive feedback and discussing different approaches to the same problem.
- Concept Mapping: Have students create a concept map or diagram explaining how their Sandbox creation connects to broader topics or real-world applications.
Recording Learning Within Sandbox
Beyond measuring learning, teachers also need efficient ways to capture and document student work. Fortunately, Sandbox provides built-in tools for students to document and share their learning:
- Screenshots: Students can take photos of their 3D work from any angle, then share, print, or save them for reference.
- Video Recordings (iPads only): In Sandbox AR, students can record a video of themselves navigating their scene while narrating their design choices or roleplaying historical figures.
- Text Panels: This tool allows students to place text labels within their 3D space, annotating their work before taking a screenshot.
- Share Feature: The most powerful tool for documentation—students can generate a unique access code to share their work with teachers for later review.
The Share Feature: A Teacher's Best Friend
Manually collecting and reviewing every student’s device would be impractical, but Sandbox’s Share feature streamlines this process. Here’s how teachers can efficiently gather and review student projects:
- Students save their work: Before sharing, students should use the Rename tool to give their project a meaningful title, ideally including their own name.
- Generate a share code: From the Options menu, students select Share, which generates a QR code and an alphanumeric access code.
- Teachers collect projects efficiently:
- If using an iPad, the teacher can open Sandbox AR, tap Load from QR, and scan each student’s QR code. The projects will then appear in Recent Sandboxes on the teacher’s device.
- If using Chromebook, students can write down or send their access codes, allowing the teacher to retrieve them later from a single device.
Get Started
Engagement is the key to unlocking deeper learning, but without meaningful assessment, its impact remains unseen. With Sandbox, teachers have a robust suite of tools to not only captivate students but also collect tangible evidence of their learning. By integrating screenshots, videos, text panels, and the Share feature into their lessons, educators can ensure that immersive learning experiences are fun, measurable, and impactful.
Sandbox is Now Available for Chromebook!
The award-winning Sandbox app has landed on the Google Play Store for Chromebook devices, bringing immersive learning to even more classrooms!
The Chromebook version matches the beloved features of Sandbox: students can create stages, use a vast library of 3D models, explore pre-made scenes, and share their creations between devices. In Sandbox for Chromebook, students shrink themselves down into their scenes and explore them in an interactive, video-game style using a keyboard and mouse.
Designed for access and equity, Sandbox for Chromebook is helping us work towards every student experiencing hands-on immersive learning and exploring the universe from inside their classroom.
