Tech to train teachers

To paraphrase what has become a famous expression in education circles, we are educating 21st century learners in 19th century classrooms using 20th century teaching approaches. To put it another way, teachers teach the way they were taught. Students will never develop the necessary science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subject matter and soft skills to adapt and flourish in a 21st century career if all a teacher knows is outdated teaching practices, such as standing in front of a classroom and asking students to "repeat after me."

21st Century Learners

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Teacher education is a cornerstone of achieving great education on a global, academic, and practical level. It ensures and maintains a learning process that is adaptive when new knowledge and techniques arise in the sector. However, a variety of factors contribute to gaps in teacher training, including slow adoption of pedagogical methods, lax policy implementation, a lack of funds and personnel, a lack of expertise available equitably across regions and locales, a lack of incentives for the profession, limited time, and difficult access due to distance.

VR to Train Teachers

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VR aids in the enhancement of the teacher's abilities, but it is not a replacement or substitute. For example, by teaching teachers how to use virtual reality, we can equip them with the knowledge and skills necessary to successfully integrate VR technology in classrooms that are tailored to the needs of the students. Teachers will be trained to guarantee that the rough edges are smoothed down before being placed in the hands of students, especially when it comes to figuring out how to set up a VR lab, invite students into that lab, and conduct a module as a class.

VR in the Classroom

Teachers have a significant stake in how educational technology influences educational environments, and students can be enabled to take advantage of the best of what VR has to offer through their adept and knowledgeable leadership. Nonetheless, as daunting as this may appear, it is critical to put in place a pedagogically sound structure to promote the use of VR, which should also be related to the curriculum. Less of a system should be implemented in classrooms, lest we miss out on the opportunity to benefit from modern technology. When such an educational VR system is in place, it will be quickly adopted, practical, and widely used by teachers all over the world.

AI can show where courses need to improve.

Teachers may be unaware of gaps in their lectures and educational materials that cause pupils to be confused about particular subjects. Artificial intelligence provides a solution to this issue. This is something that Coursera, a huge open online course provider, is already doing. When a high number of students submit incorrect answers to a homework assignment, the system notifies the teacher and sends future students a personalized message with advice on how to solve the problem. This type of method fills in the gaps in explanation that can occur in classes and ensures that all students are working on the same conceptual base. Students receive immediate feedback rather than waiting for a response from the professor, which helps them learn a subject and remember how to do it right the next time.

Identifying learning gaps

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The task of teaching necessitates the identification of learning gaps. As a result, one of the most obvious advantages of VR is that it allows technology to free up the teacher's important time, allowing them to move on to more important tasks. To begin, solid analytics will assist the teacher in identifying and then addressing learning gaps. Second, teachers can develop and create their own lesson plans using sample lesson plan templates to make the most effective use of VR technology in the classroom. These processes would result in the production of a well-planned immersive experience for pupils that would both motivate and engage them. 'Raise the child and the student to the infinite delight and stimulation of the unresolved; and you will have flung wide doors on "seas of thinking" deeper and more richly stocked than any in the world,' as George Steiner so eloquently exhorts. Everything else is secondary to instructors' primary job of igniting a student's dormant strengths of imagination.

Results assist learners and teachers alike

According to a University of Chicago study, students who have practical experience with scientific concepts, such as torque and angular momentum in this example, are better able to understand the issue and score higher on a post-experiment examination. Students can gain greatly from a greater level of connection with a subject, the effects of which can then be quantified by test scores, given that the basis of the argument for VR in education is the notion of learning by doing. Furthermore, complicated and difficult ideas such as climate change, ocean acidification, extinction, and glacier erosion can be better explained through virtual reality. Anyone might experience environmental change in the Amazon, the Arctic, or even under the sea at Jeremy Bailenson's Virtual Human Interaction Lab. The goal is to have a better understanding of the problem and to take a more proactive approach to finding a solution.