Overview
As every teacher knows, engaging students at a distance is particularly challenging. Using VR lessons on specific complex topics can alleviate this problem. These benefits include complete attention from students, progress tracking, and content that supports the student at their own pace.
The Futuclass team, together with Kuristiku school Chemistry teacher and educational technologist, held a 45-minute Chemistry lesson with students at Kuristiku high school. The schools VR headsets were sent to the student's homes in advance.
Results
The reaction balancing module was a big hit with students, and the students all passed the module. There is high student engagement together with concentration and focus in the VR lesson at hand. Asking questions from the students during the experience can be difficult because of this. (some Futuclass VR lessons have in-game questions that solves the issue)
Chemistry teachers feedback
Guiding the students at a distance can be difficult, but this is the case with regular distance lessons as well.
It's a lot easier to get students interested in Chemistry with Futuclass VR. In the later lessons on the topic, this interest remains.
Setting up the lesson is no more complicated than setting up a regular Chemistry class when working with the help of the school's IT team or educational technologist.
Kuristiku High School's educational technologist's comment
We wanted to cooperate with Futuclass to contribute to the development of educational games and to create synergies between educators and enterprises. Localized VR learning games are (at present) a rare phenomenon, but their development is vital to the global education system. Futuclass Physics and Chemistry games give students various opportunities for hands-on experiments, discovering and studying natural phenomena, all without the risk of endangering themselves if they make something explode in the game by accident or on purpose. Furthermore, VR can be used to view objects that would be impossible to see in the real world, especially in school settings, since laboratories and microscopes are rarely readily available. In addition to being a good tool for learning, a well-designed learning game with a lesson plan also makes lesson preparation easier for the teacher.
Plans for the future
Kuristiku high school plans to continue using VR for distance learning and in-person lessons when there are no Covid related restrictions.
Both the students and the teachers have a strong interest in various Chemistry and Physics topics, and all parties see value in using them.
Kuristiku High School has 7x Oculus Quest and 10x Oculus Quest 2 devices available at their school.