I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Laura Mason on my podcast. Dr. Mason is an associate professor in exercise physiology at Swansea University in Wales. She has been pioneering the use of virtual reality in her courses, so I wanted to have her on the show to discuss her experiences in more depth.
Dr. Mason first started using VR in her human anatomy modules back in 2016, when the technology was still quite new. Her university had invested in VR equipment and she saw it as an engaging way to help students learn anatomy. Students use a VR application that allows them to assemble a full-scale 3D model of a human skeleton and label the bones. There are gamification elements like answering questions about the names of the bones to make the experience fun and rewarding.
More recently, Dr. Mason’s university has collaborated with the University of Canberra in Australia to recreate the application for the Oculus Quest headset. This updated version allows students to not only assemble a skeleton, but also add muscles and identify origin and insertion points and what movements each muscle controls. This is bringing an extra layer of interactivity and learning to the application.
I asked Dr. Mason about how her students have responded to using VR over the years. In the early days of the project, it was most students’ first ever experience with VR. They were blown away by the immersive environment. Now VR is more mainstream, so some students arrive already familiar with it from gaming. But Dr. Mason says they still become deeply engaged in the anatomy learning experience because of the unique immersive nature of VR. When they put on the headset, students are completely distracted from everything else around them and focused intently on assembling the VR skeleton or muscles.
Dr. Mason has seen great enthusiasm from students for the VR application. They often visit outside of class time to use it more and request access to add-on experiences like the muscle module. She attributes this to the active, hands-on learning VR enables. Students have to think spatially to assemble the 3D model of the body, which reinforces their knowledge. The app also gives immediate feedback so they can self-correct mistakes. Dr. Mason finds VR is a powerful way to fully engage students in learning anatomy concepts they traditionally struggle with.
Beyond VR specifically, Dr. Mason makes a point to offer diverse learning experiences and formats in her courses. She recognizes students arrive with different backgrounds and learning preferences. Her goal is to allow students to experiment and discover what approaches work best for their individual learning needs. I think this diversity and student-centered approach is key at a time when student demographics, expectations and technology usage are all changing so rapidly.
My biggest takeaway from our wide-ranging discussion is Dr. Mason’s advice to just take the plunge and experiment with emerging technologies like VR. She acknowledges there can be a learning curve and it seems daunting. But she says there are turnkey VR solutions available, so you don’t have to build everything from scratch. Introducing new approaches like this does take courage, commitment and a willingness to learn. But it can truly pay off for students.
Kudos to Dr. Mason for being a leader in bringing meaningful educational innovation enhanced by technology to her students. Her work is paving the way for others to follow.
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