Metafocus: You Say You Want a(n Educational) Revolution

Everybody has been saying it. This column has even said it.Virtual reality will revolutionize education. The technology is already soadvanced, the content so extensive, the instructional intent so clear, theefficacy so obvious, and the risks so limited that schools should completely andimmediately replace all traditional teaching methods with virtual realitylessons. Below you’ll find an example lesson plan to demonstrate to teachersand instructional designers just how close VR really is to its moonshotpromises of revolutionizing education.

(Editor’s note: Incase you have concerns about the content, please see this article!)

Lesson plan

Annual field trip to a local farm to learn about food production,now experienced exclusively in virtual reality (VR).

Learning objectives

• Students will learn how food is produced,including the growth of crops, the life cycles of farm animals, the importanceof healthy soil and fresh water, and the lives of farmers
• Students will experience deep empathy forfarmers, farm animals, and plants

Materials and preparation

This lesson is suitable for ages 13 and up due to VR headsetmanufacturers’ warnings.

Since this field trip will be experienced entirely in VR,the students may not experience all the smells, tastes, physical sensations,sights, and sounds of an actual farm. However, VR creates deep empathy on thepart of students. Therefore, by completing the Virtual Farm Experience, theywill understand the farm and food production at a much deeper level and feelfar more empathy than if they had visited an actual farm in person. Studentswill also be safe from bug bites, sun, rain, dangerous animals, muddy shoes,interactions with strangers, interactions with each other, and boredom. Ifstudents complain about not being able to go to an actual farm, gently remindthem that prior to the VR educational revolution, students did not enjoy deeperlevels of empathy and increased safety.

Students are allowed to use their own VR headsets for thisexperience. Students who cannot afford or who for any other reason do not havetheir own VR headsets may use VR headsets provided by the school.

Schools that cannot afford VR headsets and VR-ready PCs forall students can adjust budgets by reducing teacher salaries or by eliminatingthe music, arts, history, physical education, math, English, science, driversed, and/or athletic departments, as these departments will all soon be replacedby VR experiences anyway. If, in the meantime, schools still don’t have enoughVR headsets and PCs to go around, students may have to share, but please makesure to remedy this shortage on a school-wide basis as quickly as possible. Howelse will the students learn if they don’t all have VR headsets and VR-compatiblePCs?

Remind students they may accessthe Dramamine dispenser and barf buckets at the front of the room anytime they get motion sickness. Make sure to have enough barf buckets andDramamine available. Remind students not to take more than two Dramamine everyfour hours throughout the day, no matter how motion-sick they may become. 

Introduction

Help students with logins and headset strap adjustment.Students sharing a headset may need additional help with this when it’s theirturn.

Remind students not to physically venture beyond the three-by-five-footspace next to their desks and to refrain from waving their arms excessively sothat no one gets hurt. Remind students not to trip over anyone’s cords. Discouragestudents from running into one another throughout the day. This may limit theirability to walk about and explore the virtual farm somewhat, but this ispreferable to students repeatedly falling down and injuring themselves andothers.

Have students select the Virtual Farm Experience in theirheadset display. Students will not be able to progress to each successive levelwithin the experience without 100 percent mastery of the current level.

Because student engagement with VR content is higher thanwith other media, there will be no need for further student-teacher interactionfrom this point forward.

Instruction

The Virtual Farm Experience will commence immediately uponheadset login. Students will experience various farm animals inside and out,riding on tractors, the long and exciting history of fencing, riding oncombines, barn maintenance, riding on harvesters, and much more.

Students may experience headset failure or excessivevomiting from motion sickness induced by riding on various virtual farmvehicles. Therefore, teachers should not venture from the classroom for morethan 60 minutes at a time. Teachers may want to bring a book to pass the time.

Guided practice

At approximately noon, have students open the virtual lunchexperience. Students will virtually help the farmers “pick vegetables” from the“garden,” “prepare” a “meal,” “eat” the “meal,” and “wash” the “dishes”afterward. Notably, students’ Virtual Calorie Points and Nutrition Level Barswill increase throughout the meal, both of which can be redeemed in the eStore andapplied toward fantastic virtual gifts and avatar upgrades.

This virtual lunch experience serves three purposes. First,students will learn firsthand what it’s like to grow a garden, prepare and eatmeals, and clean up afterward, valuable life lessons for any young person.Second, students will, of course, develop deep empathy for people working inthe agriculture and food service industries. Third, the virtual experience willtrick the students’ brains into believing they have actually eaten, therebydecreasing hunger and the need for lunch. This can be a major benefit for studentsin schools that no longer provide lunches, as is often necessary due to thehigh cost of purchasing VR headsets, PCs, and revolutionary educational contentsuch as the Virtual Farm Experience.

Teachers may choose to eat a snack in the breakroom at thistime. Teachers who are completing the Virtual Farm Experience along with theirstudents may prefer to avoid eating as well, especially if planning to ride onvirtual farm vehicles of any kind.

Independent working time

When students finish the main Virtual Farm Experience tour,they may select and explore any of the Additional Virtual Materials provided aspart of the Virtual Farm Experience package.

The Additional Virtual Materials will soon include theVirtual Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) Tour, a Day in the Life ofa Migrant Farm Worker, and the Virtual Climate Change Drought Simulator. Muchmore educational content is also planned for future release. Unfortunately, noneof the Additional Virtual Materials have yet been released for student viewing.We expect that some of the additional materials and experiences will bereleased in the coming months or years. We expect that they will be incredibleexperiences when they are finally made available.

Due to the challenging nature of the content, the AdditionalVirtual Materials may be unsuitable for some younger viewers. If students begincrying uncontrollably, they may take off their headsets.

Students may opt to bypass the Additional Virtual Materials ifthey feel they’ve experienced enough deep empathy for one day.

Students must bring virtual permission slips signed by theirparents or guardians allowing the student to access the Additional Virtual Materials.Parents or guardians must check the box that says they accept fullresponsibility for the many risks involved with VR, as described in “Real Virtuality: A Code of Ethical Conduct.”

Students who have finished the Additional Virtual Materialsor who have opted to bypass them may play their favorite video games until allstudents have finished their virtual experiences.

Lesson extensions

Because no quantifiable results on the effectiveness of VRin the classroom have yet been proven by peer-reviewed research, nor have thelong-term effects of VR on child development been studied, teachers mayencourage students to tour an actual farm as a supplement to the Virtual FarmExperience. Decades of research show that these supplementation practices (i.e.,actual field trips) have strong positive effects on student learning andretention rates. Further, when the instructional intent is explicit and clear, actualfield trips are shown to be even more beneficial. However, do not forget thatthe actual farm experience should be the supplemental material, not the other wayaround.

Teachers may review the Virtual Farm Experience Teacher’sGuide if the instructional intent is not made fully clear in this lesson plan.

If students are unable to finish the Virtual Farm Experiencedue to fatigue of the neck, eye, or face muscles, teachers may send studentshome with a practice block (i.e., a brick) and elastic strap to buildendurance.

Assessment

If the students looked like they had fun, then the VirtualFarm Experience was clearly a success and no other assessment will benecessary. Encourage students to rate the Virtual Farm Experience with five starsin the Virtual App Store.

Summary