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来自亚利桑那州立大学（ASU）的Mike Angilletta博士是世界上首批教授生物学课程的老师之一，该课程依靠VR进行实践实验室会议。他是ASU生活科学学院的本科课程的副主任，并向在线学生讲授生态学，他们占ASU总本科生人数的三分之一。
与Labster一起，他和另外两位ASU教授共同创建了一包30个VR实验室模拟，该模拟于2019年夏季推出。华体会赞助ac米兰网络研讨会right after he had finished his six week course, about how it had been to teach with the VR labs.
在这里观看网络研讨会, or read on to learn what the pros and cons are of teaching science courses with VR, how students responded to the VR labs in Dr. Angilletta’s course, and whether VR can (and should) be used to replace large fractions of a lab course.
The ASU and Labster collaboration: where it started
该计划的院长要求本科课程的副主任安吉利塔（Angilletta）博士，以帮助建立100％的在线生物学学位。这个学位是the first online degree in the world that would provide students with a Bachelor of Science in Biology utilizing VR。
“The biggest hurdle we were facing was how we were going to complete the curriculum by delivering advanced lab courses online.” Dr. Angilletta explained about the task. “There are many simulation products out there by now, but most are targeted at the introductory level.”
Dr. Angilletta met with the Labster team to see if these labs could potentially overcome the hurdle. “Labster was an option. But it was a very different kind of option. Labster’s labs are narrative-driven, meaning there’s a story, and that’s something I think is key to learning, because students get engaged when they see there’s a reason why they’re exploring a problem, and they can relate it to the real-world.”
Dr. Angilletta tried on Labster’s VR headset for the first time, and was immediately immersed. “I didn’t want to come out of the headset! They had to pull me out of there and ask me to come back to the meeting!” Dr. Angilletta laughed, and added that he was quick to make up his mind about the collaboration. “At that point I said I wanted to do the entire degree with these labs. And that’s where it started.”
Co-creating 30 VR labs with Google
It took about a year from that point to figure out the details of the collaboration, to find funding, and to get Google onboard as the third partner in the project.
从那里开始，实验室的发展开始了。ASU教师验证了实验室的内容，并确保满足所有学习目标，以便ASU能够使用Labster VR模拟作为课程的一部分向学生提供全部课程学分。华体会赞助ac米兰
angilletta博士共同创建了10个生态实验室。与ASU合作创建的其他实验室是用于细胞生物学和动物生理学。观看Google的教育视频，以了解有关ASU，Google和Labster合作的更多信息。
What do the students think?
Dr. Angilletta’s initial expectations for the VR simulations were that using VR was going to affect how the students felt about the labs, more than it would affect how much they would learn.
“I talk to a lot of people about VR and they’re very focused on looking at research to determine whether it’s a tool that works. But I think maybe it’s more about each individual person trying to figure out what works for them, and less about what the research says, because there is very little research at this point, and a lot of variation in the data,” Dr. Angilletta explained.
All the VR labs ASU offer as a part of their courses are also available in a desktop version, and it’s up to the individual student to decide what hardware they want to use. He added that although almost all of his 85 students in the ecology course enjoyed using the headsets, there were a few who chose to use the desktop simulations instead, for reasons including the costs of the headset and the comfort of wearing the headset for long periods of time. For the ones who did choose the VR headsets, he said: “They‘re really engaged and immersed in it and it’s very hard for them to get distracted, because they are literally surrounded by the laboratory. It can actually make them more excited about doing their schoolwork.”
65名学生在课程结束时回答了有关虚拟实验室的调查。以下学生百分比同意或完全同意这些陈述：
- 80％的人觉得自己在模拟中的真实实验室中华体会赞助ac米兰
- 97% felt more confident about their skills after the simulations
- 85％的人认为他们可以将模拟中学到的知识应用于现实世界中的案例华体会赞助ac米兰
- 98% would like to use simulations in addition to, or instead of, real lab exercises
“Some of the students even said that if this is the beginning of VR, I’m really excited to see where it’s going to go—and I’m actually disappointed that I’m going to graduate before it gets there!” Dr. Angilletta added.
A novel learning experience
One of the simulations Dr. Angilletta co-created is on behavioral thermoregulation. Dr. Angilletta explained how the imaginary exoplanet Astakos IV came to be, and what the thinking was behind creating a completely novel experience with alien creatures and mesmerizing environments.Watch the webinarto learn why Labster and ASU decided to create this new learning universe, and how the students’ learning can benefit from, for example, experimenting with alien creatures in a safe learning environment, where they can’t have any preconceived ideas about the creatures.
观看下面的视频,一个简短的介绍the Behavioral Thermoregulation simulation andvisit our simulation catalog找到更多细节。
The pros and cons of teaching with VR
We then dug into the benefits of virtual labs, as well as the limitations that Dr. Angilletta had experienced over the duration of the course.
“What I think is the greatest advantage of a virtual lab is that you can do basically anything.” Dr. Angilletta started. “You can work on a piece of equipment that’s beyond the scope of what your university can afford. The students can use it freely, and more than once; they can come back and do the lab the next day and the day after that. These Labs never close. They’re open to students for the entire semester and so students can progress at their own pace. In a physical lab—if they miss a class because they were sick, or they didn’t really understand it—tough! They’re going to have to look at a friend’s notes. Whereas here, they can just go back another day.”
In Dr. Angilletta’s class, they saw a completion rate of over 2, meaning students completed the entire lab more than twice on average. Having unlimited access to lab practice in this way simply wouldn’t be possible in a physical, face-to-face lab, and certainly not for classes at larger scale.
许多人提到的虚拟实验室的缺点是它们不涉及触觉元素。然而，这对安吉利塔博士来说并不是一场交易。“我很高兴能尽早进入VR。VR也在游戏中，所以您能想象我们10年后会在哪里？我认识ASU的一位工程师，他正在该领域进行研究。这正是他要创建的：具有这种触觉反应的手套。与此同时，我认为虚拟实验室是许多事情的很好的替代品。”安吉利塔博士后来举了一个例子，说明了一个实验室中的学生如何学习移液器。每次使用移液器时，都必须更改小费，并且模拟不会让您继续进行操作。“因为当您在这些实验室中移动时，您必须做所有这些事情，所以我可以告诉您 - 您会发展肌肉记忆！ You may not have the tactile feel, but you certainly will get the muscle memory, which I think is pretty cool.”
Many also fear that virtual labs will replace physical ones. Dr. Angilletta described how the students at ASU use Labster along with other course components as a supplementary learning tool: “We don’tjustuse Labster in class. The students go and do assignments with real data and make field observations of their choice around their home. And then I have them create hypotheses and design experiments. But these are all based on the skills and knowledge that they get from Labster.”
In addition to this discussion on the pros and cons of virtual labs, Dr. Angilletta addressed a number of assumptions that people typically have of virtual labs, and which keep them from reaping their benefits.
As an example, Dr. Angilletta mentioned that some professors disregard virtual labs because they lack certain learning outcomes that the teachers see as essential. “Take pipetting. So you want to ensure a student knows how to pipette with their own hands, but the virtual lab isn’t proof enough because it doesn’t have the tactile element. Then set up a video call where the student shows you how they pipette! Once you recognize what the cons are of virtual labs, then you figure out a different solution, and that’s what we’ve done for the online degree.”
另一个假设是由participant in the webinar was that if the degree takes place online, then there must be less communication and interaction between students and the professor. “It’s a great point, and this might seem ironic, but I can actually have more direct face-to-face interaction with my online students than our on-campus students.” Dr. Angilletta said, and elaborated on how he made use of virtual office hours and video recordings to interact with his students. “So the whole online environment makes the way you teach very different. But it works. And maybe better.”
使用虚拟实验室保存资源
Of all the benefits of using virtual labs, Dr. Angilletta highlighted scalability and reallocation of resources as perhaps the greatest.
ASU’s online system allows for “scaling to an infinite number of students” simply by hiring more facilitators of the courses if the student population grows. At the same time, the university has, by introducing virtual labs, and moving some of the more difficult or costly labs online, been able to save resources. “We said; why don’t we replace those very costly traditional labs with these VR labs, and then we can take the resources, the people, and the time we’ve saved and invest it where it’s more needed. So now we can have choices for our students. We can change what we’re able to do on the ground because of the options we now have online.”
Can VR simulations replace traditional labs?
Finally, we asked Dr. Angilletta if he thought virtual labs can—and should—replace physical ones. “Consider this,” he said, “If you’re thinking: I already have a working program at my school. We have labs. They work great. Why would I be interested in VR? You should ask yourself: What would Labster’s simulations—whether they’re in 2D or VR—do for my program?”
为其他教授Angilletta博士列举了一些想法essors to consider and reflect on. “Maybe it would give my students more time with a complex lab. Maybe I want two or three lab exercises to complement what they do in the lab because they don’t get those skills down or those concepts down. Maybe their lab time is limited. Maybe there’s something dangerous or expensive I’ve always wanted to try, but we can’t do it at my school… So you don’t have to have an entire set of simulations replacing the traditional course. My course is not just simulations, and I still do things outside of the simulations with my students so that they can apply those concepts and skills that they’ve learned.” Dr. Angilletta ended.
Watch the full webinar with Mike Angilletta hereto learn more about teaching with VR and to gain further insight into the possibilities virtual labs offer.
