AR/VR Best Practices
Teacher Clarity & Learning Intentions
Just like when planning any lesson, determine what your learning intentions are before introducing AR/VR in the classroom. While AR & VR experiences can be fun & can build excitement among students, we want to make sure any AR/VR integration serves as a valuable part of the learning progression toward a given learning intention.
Some ideas for integrating AR/VR:
- Prewriting: Use a virtual experience as a prewriting exercise to help students come up with ideas. Example: In a Spanish DLI class, students tour the solar system before being asked to demonstrate their grasp of unit vocabulary and describe what they saw.
- Setting the stage: Help students get a big-picture look at a unit's subject matter right from the start. Example: Take students on tours of Ancient Egypt and the Egyptian pyramids to help them visualize what they read in their textbooks during a unit on Ancient Egypt.
- Closing gaps: Close experiential gaps for students by taking them somewhere not all of them may have had the chance to visit. Example: Take students on virtual college campus tours during College Week.
Student Engagement
In addition to defining a purpose for a VR or AR experience, give students a purpose as well. Focus students' experience with AR/VR by giving them a specific task and previewing what will come next in the lesson. Such a task should contribute to students' active engagement, provide opportunities to respond, and/or provide scaffolding for an upcoming activity.