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A new reality: VR is revolutionizing the classroom
Learning at Aurora University is pushing into new frontiers with virtual reality. Ecology students have climbed two-mile-high elevations in Rocky Mountain National Park. Health science students have explored the organs of the human body in close detail. Future social workers are making home visits to check on everything from child welfare to senior care.
While the environment isn’t tangible, the lessons are real. As VR and artificial intelligence become critical pieces of learning, AU faculty are incorporating these new technologies into their classrooms, allowing students to experience real-life work situations without leaving campus.
As part of the Emerging Technologies Learning Labs project, the university has acquired 170 VR headsets and supporting 3D software and has encouraged faculty to begin incorporating the technology into classes. The headsets, using VictoryXR, have become supplemental learning tools in more than three dozen AU courses.
Professor Chetna Patel, the Smith distinguished chair in science and mathematics, who co-chairs the AU Emerging Technology Committee, said VR has allowed her students to conduct virtual chemistry experiments. Other programs allow students to dissect frogs, analyze molecules, and experience the weightlessness of being in space.
“Any student in any discipline, from freshmen to grad students, can benefit from these technologies,” Patel said.
For many students, the AU classroom is providing their first experience with VR technology, said Arin Carter, assistant vice president for student success and innovation, who co-chairs the Emerging Technology Committee with Patel.
“These technologies are changing learning,” Carter said. “We want our students to have the opportunity to really work with these technologies and experiment.”
In health science, Ruby Kaur, an assistant professor who chairs the health science and premed programs, uses synthetic cadavers to give students a view inside the human body. These fabricated bodies are made from materials that mimic living tissue and replicate the human anatomy in great detail. With the magic of VR, Kaur can expand the learning experience by tasking her students to build a virtual body from scratch by putting all internal organs where they belong.
“A cadaver in a classroom is not circulating blood,” Kaur said. “With VR, we can simulate a beating heart and actually see the blood flowing. It’s as realistic as we can hope for.”
Allison Schuck, assistant professor of social work, wanted to re-create client home visits for her students. To make it more realistic, she asked VictoryXR to simulate a home via headset, then added her own custom touches based on what she knew her students could encounter. An unsecured firearm and empty liquor bottles, cockroaches, and moldy food along with old magazines piled high next to a space heater are all harbingers of potential trouble that an alert social worker ought to notice.
“In the old days, we’d read textbooks and talk about what a home visit would be like, and then role-play conversations with people in their homes,” Schuck said. “But that can only take a student so far.”
Richard Boniak, associate professor of biology and environmental science, chose a visit to Rocky Mountain National Park for his Ecology Lab. The students stopped at four elevations on their 12,000-foot ascent, pausing for 360-degree views of fauna and timber, ranging from the Douglas fir lower down to the Engelmann spruce near the top.
“I wanted to take them outside to places they’ve never been,” Boniak said.
Ben Strub ’25, a biology major, took Boniak’s class in the fall and is eager for more. “Our Rocky Mountain tour showed us how certain species of trees can grow differently at various elevations,” he said. “You could look up and down and all around you, and everything seemed real. It was way beyond what we could get in a textbook.”
AU was able to invest in VR thanks to a $955,000 emerging technologies federal grant secured in 2023 with the help of U.S. Rep. Bill Foster.
Like any technology, VR programs are changing as fast as software developers come up with fresh ideas. Vendors are gaining the capacity to create new and different simulations narrowly focused on just certain aspects of a course.
“One thing you can count on is that technology keeps evolving,” Patel said. “We have to find a way to keep up.”
Art, prison, and 3D math
From criminal justice to organic chemistry to fine arts, virtual reality technology is advancing learning in AU classrooms.
• Calculus students are creating high-level math concepts in three-dimensional visuals.
• Interactive Media students are developing their own video games, learning the rules of game design and the application of graphic design.
• In MBA classes on conflict management, a manager must tell a VR worker she isn’t getting a promotion, or that he must change his behavior in the workplace, and field the emotional reaction that ensues.
• Drawing students make blind contour drawings of figures seen in the virtual world, resulting in development of their observational skills and hand-eye coordination.
• In a software program re-creating prison life, criminal justice students are using VR to simulate actual jail time, with students experiencing overcrowding and lack of privacy.
• Students seeking jobs and internships can use AI to practice interviews with computer-generated avatars.
