Teaching in a Virtual World

By Ashley Wynn, Office of Undergraduate Education intern and Class ‘23

For educators, virtual reality offers the promise of combining some of the best elements of in-person and remote learning. 

Properly implemented, the technology could allow students to see complex molecules in three dimensions or transcend the limits of a two-dimensional Zoom meeting and create a free-flowing, roundtable discussion with people from several states or countries. Or, like these faculty, build an immersive experience for students at a site visit.

But VR has drawbacks, particularly its cost and a steep learning curve to implement. To learn more, we spoke to Anne Brown and Aaron Ansell about their experience experimenting with the headsets in their classrooms. 

Brown, an assistant professor in the Department of Biochemistry, has applied VR to a course she teaches on protein structure. She also serves as an assistant professor at University Libraries which partners with faculty across campus to help incorporate immersive learning technology in their classrooms.

“Properly framing how the material is presented to students and finding ways to contextualize what they are learning is important,” said Brown. “Virtual reality can be applied to any course with the correct prep work and resources.” 

Brown said learning and class participation came quickly for her students once the novelty of the technology wore off. Many described how VR allowed them to become fully immersed in the class and learn in a unique way that helped in processing complex material. 

“I was able to stay more focused and engaged when learning about proteins in VR because of the three-dimensional space and its interactive nature,” said Marion LoPresti, a student in Brown’s class. “I was moving my body and using my hands to move the proteins, look at protein folding, and get a better understanding of the binding sites.”

“It can be hard to understand and visualize a three-dimensional protein on a two-dimensional screen, so it is really helpful to view these proteins in a virtual space,” she added. 

At the end of the course, Brown asked her students to rate their experience on a scale of one to 10, with 10 representing a great experience.  The average response was an eight.

Aaron Ansell, an associate professor in the Department of Religion and Culture, has also integrated VR into a synchronous course for graduate students, but only used the Meta Quest headsets during the first four weeks of the semester. Despite this limited time frame, Ansell said he sees benefits to the technology.

Ansell currently serves on the University Curriculum Committee for General Education which provides leadership for the Pathways program. Last fall he gave a presentation in St. Louis at the annual conference of the Association for General and Liberal Studies on efforts to integrate VR technology into general education courses at Virginia Tech.

“During the moments when the equipment was working without a lag time, students were impressed with the visuals of the simulation,” said Ansell. “They appreciated that their instructor was trying to do something aside from a standard Zoom class.”  

Ansell said VR allows students to step away from their regular classroom stress and enter into a virtual world where they can learn and express themselves. The advancements in avatars (virtual representations of a user, driven by the user's movements) will also give students further flexibility around gender, race, and personal representations. 

However, both faculty members found the technology also creates challenges. Ansell’s students faced issues with getting the equipment to work properly and some needed breaks from the headsets during class because of headaches and nausea. Brown described the most tedious portion of using VR in education as laying the groundwork needed even before the students enter the virtual world. 

Both professors expressed the importance of collaborating with other faculty that have done research regarding virtual reality and discovering ways to avoid simple mistakes. 

“VR in education will become more common once the technology gets better and new frontiers for the technology are already being pushed in education,” said Ansell. “The process mainly lies in fine tuning.”

Many students may also use VR in their careers and having experience with the technology while in school could prove to be a valuable introduction.

“I know that some companies conduct meetings in VR,” said Lopresti. “So, I think meeting monthly in a VR classroom would create a valuable learning environment.”

For more information related to research on using VR in learning contexts visit ARIES at Virginia Tech or check out the Immersive teaching and inquiry group at Virginia Tech.