The focus of education is shifting towards a learner-centered approach that highlights the importance of engagement, interaction, and personalization in learning. This thesis explores new technologies to facilitate immersive, self-directed, curiosity-driven learning experiences aimed at addressing these key factors. I explore the use of Mixed Reality (MR) to build a context-aware system that can support learners’ curiosity and improve knowledge recall. I design and build “Curiosity XR,” an application for MR headsets using a research-through-design methodology. Curiosity XR is also a platform that enables educators to create contextual multi-modal interactive mini-lessons, and learners can engage with these lessons and other AI-assisted learning content. To evaluate my design, I conduct a user participant study followed by interviews. The participants’ responses show higher levels of engagement, curiosity to learn more, and better visual retention of the learning content. I hope this work will inspire others in the MR community and advance the use of MR and AI hybrid designs for the future of curiosity-driven education.

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