Fostering Meaningful Student Engagement
Through Virtual Reality

Purpose & Objective

Purpose: Learn ways to authentically and purposefully implement Virtual Reality to successfully engage students with relevant content, provide meaningful and real world learning opportunities, and foster rich educational experiences for all students.

Objectives: Understand the possibilities VR can have on student learning. Showcase ways VR can be incorporated into a current unit. To leave feeling inspired by the potential VR can have on student learning and in their ongoing understanding as a global citizen.

Unit: Interconnected Systems

Students investigate the systems of the world – the interconnection of man-made and biological systems that enable societies to operate effectively; classification systems; systems of the living world; systems at home and on a global scale. The students innovate creatively to devise solutions for problems on a local, national and global scale.

Subjects included: History | Geography | Digital Technologies | English | Mathematics | Library | Drama | Creative Arts  

Big Idea: Colonisation creates impact and opportunity   

Concepts: Power | Perspective | Interactions 

Focus of the inquiry

Students engage in a transdisciplinary study of colonisation from the past and into the future. They develop their historical, geographical and technological skills in a guided inquiry learning cycle.  Students are provided with the materials and learning experiences to develop an understanding of the British colonisation of Australia. They investigate the circumstances and motivations that contributed to colonisation, and they study the First Fleet and the impact of colonisation from multiple perspectives. Students review the organisational systems that enabled the early colony to operate effectively. They explore the impact and opportunities brought about to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and draw similarities and differences from similar world events. 

In order to connect lessons from the past with the future, students work in small groups to develop a proposal for future colonisation. This proposal aims to consider the possible impact on the settlers and existing populations as well as the potential changes to the environment and the likely social, economic and scientific opportunities it may present. They will use Micro:bits to code useful tools for the settlement and Co-Spaces to construct their very own colony home.