Teaching Classes in Virtual Reality (VR)

 

My personal experience with online classes is via a-synchronous pre-recorded video and pdf documents or synchronous sessions using zoom or a similar platform. There is now an up-and-coming trend of offering online classes using virtual reality (VR) technology.

 

Of course, there have been university-level classes about virtual reality for quite some time (about the VR technology itself). But I’m talking about classes that are hosted in virtual reality (using VR technology, but possibly about some unrelated subject matter).

 

The Virtual People course offered by Stanford University is one of the first courses to be offered completely in virtual reality. Offered by the Communications Department for graduate students from multiple disciplines, the course curriculum is described as follows: “the concept of virtual people or digital human representations; methods of constructing and using virtual people; methodological approaches to interactions with and among virtual people; and current applications. Viewpoints including popular culture, literature, film, engineering, behavioral science, computer science, and communication.” All interactions between faculty and class students throughout the entire semester take place via VR.

 

Students have found the VR format provides a broader type of learning, allowing them to develop empathy by virtually standing in others’ shoes and participate in different life experiences. One guest speaker in the Stanford course “teaches racial empathy by having the viewer experience life as a black man who encounters racial prejudice.”

 

A study of student experiences in VR classes has found that students with previous VR experience benefit most from this class format. Students who are less comfortable with the VR format reported physical discomfort and distraction from the actual learning experience. Seems to me that this problem could be addressed with some VR format training/learning before the substantive class presentation sessions start.

 

As Covid has changed the way education is provided, more schools are incorporating VR into their curriculum offerings. And some, like VictoryXR Academy, offer much of their curriculum via VR.

 

Interested in incorporating VR into your own online teaching? Find VR curriculum resources here, here and here.