Virtual Reality in the Classroom Alisa Howell Floyd

Virtual Reality in the Classroom Alisa Howell Floyd County Mc. Dowell Elementary

Overview At the beginning of the school year, my problem of practice was getting my students interested and engaged in what we were learning in social studies. I knew this was a problem because when I polled my students on which classes they enjoyed most, least, etc. , social studies was their least favorite. I inquired as to why, and I received answers such as “It’s soooo boring!” and “We never do anything fun!” I wanted to implement a more hands-on and actually “going into” social studies, so to speak. I wanted them to visit the places we are discussing and talk to the people we are learning about. The resources that I needed to do this was a class set of virtual reality goggles and a couple i. Pods for those students who don’t have access to a device.

Collecting Data To determine whether or not the problem was being solved, I would observe the students while they were using VR and just listen. I overheard comments such as, “This is the best day ever!”, “I can’t believe I just walked down the Oregon Trail!”, and the list goes on and on. Remember: my goal was to get students engaged and interested in social studies. . . it’s working!!!! As far as test data goes, the 5 th grade went from having 69% novice and apprentice on their Think Link benchmarks to only 15% novice and apprentice. That’s phenomenal if you ask me. This data proves that something is making social studies more interesting and engaging, and I can honestly say that VR played a big part in that. Oh. . by the way, over half of the 5 th graders favorite class is social studies!

Classroom Pics

Student Input Devon Slone Alexis Reed Makenna Stumbo Johnathan Moore Keithen Moore Dakota Madden