Virtual reality (VR) computer interfaces show promise for improving societal communication and representation of information due to their unique ability to be placed spatially around the user in three-dimensional (3D) space. This opens new possibilities for presentation and user interaction with the target information, and may be especially impactful for the education of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) professionals. Simulations and visualizations have been shown in research studies to improve the efficiency of STEM learners compared to the less sensorimotor rich learning mediums of live instruction and textbook reading. Yet, learning science research into immersive computer simulation environments for educational applications remains limited. To address this research gap, we analyzed a fundamental VR interface capability, virtual environmental traversal, and its impact on participants' learning. We altered the traversal ability between two groups of STEM learners within the same virtual environment and compared their performance. Findings point that VR computer interfaces, regardless of environmental traversal, are suitable STEM learning environments, but that environmental traversal can increase learning efficiency.

As augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) technologies become more mainstream, educational technologies will increase use of AR/VR capabilities. User Experience (UX) designers will need to understand the extent that these capabilities can impact a virtual learning environment. The proposed experiment in this paper seeks to isolate the interface components of traversal fidelity that are unique to AR/VR technologies and offer insight into their impact to user learning, performance, and usability preferences. AR/VR technologies have the unique feature of a spatial interface, which is a system interface that is embedded into the virtual environment in 3D around the user. This enables a level of realism to computer system interfaces that can emulate physical interactions with a higher fidelity than 2D user interfaces on computer monitors. Understanding the benefits that spatial interfaces can bring to user learning and performance, and help user experience (UX) designers develop better virtual learning environments using AR/VR technologies.

Educational approaches must keep pace with the rapidly advancing state of technology so that students have the necessary skills for the modern workforce. Computer science (CS) education presents an interesting cross-section of challenges to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education to explore the effects of alternative teaching methods. Our undergraduate program has been working on these educational challenges for several years. We have found project-oriented studio classes with computing and design students collaborating on emerging technology projects lead to positive outcomes. This paper presents our current cross-class collaboration method along with student surveys and final presentation results. It is a necessary class structure to successfully educate future developers and designers, and we wish to share our experiences with the larger STEM educational community.

New curricula initiatives are growing to meet nearfuture, industrial demand for computer science (CS) graduates with Augmented and Virtual Reality (AR/VR) development knowledge. Universities are often at the forefront in developing these curricula to help prepare their students for industry jobs. High schools wanting to offer college aligned CS courses for their students typically work with local universities to adapt courses for their students’ needs. This paper presents such an effort along with results from a student survey showing the successful implementation of college-level courses through training of high school teachers. The curricula from this study are available for public use at artncoding.com and may be adapted as needed by educational programs to meet the emerging employment needs of their students in the AR/VR field.

Educational fields that are abstract in nature, such as computer science (CS) and other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields may find alternative teaching methods useful to maximize student opportunities to internalize and process the curriculum. When designing alternative educational tools in virtual reality (VR) technologies, the objective is to expose an academically diverse population to CS in an engaging and immersive environment. With this objective in mind, we built and tested a CS educational VR experience, CSpresso, designed to teach students to count in a binary (base-2) number system. Testing confirmed that the student group who learned to count binary in VR were just as successful as those who learned from a certified CS instructor. This shows that VR educational experiences can be used as alternative teaching tools in CS education, which can supplement traditional teaching methods enabling new learning methods for students in the classroom and at home. We believe that this is evidence to support a larger effort in adapting the current CS education system to meet the needs of a more diverse student body that may find alternative teaching tools useful in internalizing abstract concepts.

Higher educational institutions formalize socialization for their incoming undergraduate student populations with traditional forms of physical classroom-based learning community (LC) skill-building environments; however, recent studies have shown that virtual LC environments can offer improved results over physical LC environments. This study examines whether incoming undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) students gain the same benefits to their academic performance regardless of whether they receive LC training in physical or virtual reality (VR) treatment. We found that either treatment of collaboration training improve the participants’ academic performance in comparison to the control treatment. In addition, we found that the VR participants gave more academic help in social settings to their peers throughout the semester than their control group counterparts. Upon interviewing the two treatment group participants, we found that virtualization of collaboration may impact perceptions on leadership roles, group functions, and thinking about the future. This research shows that virtualizing LCs has the potential to expand and supplement existing learning structures, and create new ones where they were not previously available, and aims to offer a better understanding of the strengths and limitations of introducing VR technologies in higher education.

While the next generation of educational technologies (ET), such as monitor-based (MB) and virtual reality (VR) applications, are still in their infancy, they do show promise for improving education. In this study, we compared MB and VR educational technologies as alternative supplemental learning environments to traditional classroom instruction using lectures, textbooks, and physical labs. We conducted the study in four high school chemistry classes, as chemistry education is well-suited for visually enhanced explanations for learning abstract concepts, and provides a solid testing situation for current and extended reality ET. Ultimately, this research project serves as a foundation to determine whether ETs have the potential to engage high school students in their STEM classes. Successful integration of ET into the public school system curricula may be a viable solution to engage students in STEM education.

Virtual reality (VR) has the potential to drastically alter the future landscape of education. Immersion can be a powerful educational tool, yet it can create isolation issues if user needs are not thoroughly considered. For this reason, designers, educators, and researchers will need to address accessibility issues for the technology to be adopted into mainstream classroom use. English language learners (ELLs) are a relevant user group to study in this regard, as they are largely underserved within the educational technology space, and their usage of these immersive VR tools can highlight both positive and negative aspects of the experience that developers can use to improve their applications.

Following industry standard practices in undergraduate IT education helps produce employable graduates. Classroom training of essential skill sets range from the technical skills of programming to the soft skills of communication, coordination, and collaboration. Learning activities should be organized around current work methodologies, such as agile software development led by a project manager (PM). This talk discusses our program's current attempts to institute these practices in a production-oriented classroom.