Dimmel works on Colby-led VR 3D chess research
Justin Dimmel, an assistant professor of mathematics education and instructional technology, is working with Stacy Doore, Clare Boothe Luce Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Colby College, on research involving virtual reality 3D chess. With help from Colby College students, they will assess how virtual environments affect participants’ spatial reasoning strategies and their ability to reproduce a task sequence of chess moves, according to a story from Colby. Students developed various three-dimensional virtual reality chess environments for the study. Both Doore and Dimmel seek to understand how VR can enhance learning. Dimmel, in particular, believes VR could be a way to convey complex mathematical ideas. “The barriers to entering and engaging with higher-level mathematics could potentially be lowered when we have students interacting with these spatial representations,” he said.