Pause and rewind

It’s increasingly difficult to get time for student teachers in schools, particularly in Victoria. Since the COVID pandemic there are increasing financial implications, teachers time, school time, student time and resourcing issues.

Our students are part of the Master of Teaching program. We want them to have a range of high-quality experiences. Using Virtual Reality (VR) inspired this idea that there’s more than one way to experience a classroom. We aimed to compliment the embodied experience of being in the classroom by using technology.

The ability to stop and pause and rewind, re-experience, unpack and go deeper into the classroom experience is possible using Virtual Reality.

Series of steps

	Find schools: We needed to find schools, teachers and classrooms that would allow the filming. Virtual Reality adds more than just video with the use of 360-degree cameras.
	Obtain permissions: We have taken a number of 360-degree videos of normal classrooms. We obtained the correct permissions and put a small camera in the middle of the classroom. We did not give the teachers any instructions, it is not meant to be perfect teaching with perfect students. The resulting video is edited to 3-4 minutes where there are lots of activities and different things happening. The videos can then be uploaded into the VR headsets. We had assistance from Chris Hangar and the team at StudioLab in the Faculty of Education.
	Guide students: Then all my students can experience this classroom together. They can be looking at different aspects of the classroom and the student teachers can start to understand the complexity and multi-dimensional understanding that is valuable.
	Educator role: My role is to guide the students through the recording. Watch some and then take the headsets off and have professional conversations, asking questions about their observations.

The students were able to experience a classroom without their presence disrupting the ‘normal’ proceedings of the class.

This work is ongoing but initial results indicate that the students find it a positive experience, enjoying the collaborative nature of the exercise and being able to share conversations with other student teachers about the same situation.

One interesting aspect is that once the students have used the VR headsets, they report that they feel like they have been physically and emotionally in the school. This relates to the development of teacher identity and being able to switch into that mode. The following images depict students in the classroom with the educators assisting in groupwork.

There are a range of places where this could be applied. Students can learn how to act and react to classroom situations without the fear of harm in a social space. This kind of approach could be used for any kind of social interactions or grey area of privacy that could be unpacked for the students with educators supporting group discussions.

Group work can help peer learning in a safe space.

Correct recording permissions are crucial to this type of activity. Once permissions are gained, ensure that recordings and images are appropriately stored.

Don’t expect people to know how to use the technology. Give time for people to practise using the VR headsets. Playing a game first is a good way to get to know the hand controllers.

Start with a small group of students (4-6). This allows you to address any issues that arise.

Carefully consider the secure storage of the images and recordings with the correct ethical approach. If the recordings are part of a university research project, then storage will most likely be on institutional provided hardware. Consent forms are available for all images.