Future of Education: Embracing Virtual Reality in Hong Kong's Curriculum

Overview

In collaboration with a local primary school, we secured funding from QEF amounting to 1.1 million HKD in 2022. It was used to develop and implement VR-based interventions for AD/HD students (named ’VR Soccer Training Programme‘) and STEM learning (called ’Marine Biologist Taster Session‘) for two academic years. As the programme concludes in May 2024, the team will share the positive impact of our VR education programmes based on programme statistics and students’ feedback.

Throughout two years of its implementation, the project has served 170 students and 100 parents. the speaker developed the ’VR Soccer Training Programme‘ because VR-based interventions can effectively improve students’ attention-related abilities as cited in literature. However, this mode of training is not yet popularised among students with special education needs (SEN) in Hong Kong. On ths other hand, C & M A Sun Kei Primary School (Ping Shek shared that AD/HD students in their school were particularly interested in soccer and sports. Hence, the idea of combining soccer and VR-based interventions emerges which led to developing the ’VR Soccer Training Programme‘.
A series of soccer mini-games targeted to improve AD/HD students’ attention and impulse inhibition abilities were designed. Eight eight-week intervention programmes were conducted, benefitting 32 students in total. The VR soccer mini-games were complemented with group training activities to improve their executive functioning, daily functioning, and interpersonal relationships.
Another programme, ’Marine Biologist Taster Session’ utilises the off-the-shelf VR programme ’ that allows students to experience the daily life and work of marine biologists, such as identifying mantra rays using the patterns on their abdomen, learning how to sample diversity of sea life, and utilising artificial satellites to study the life and abundance of different corals. These were complemented with a mini-lecture that explained the nature, interactions and impacts of corals and the lack thereof.
The speaker will also share how VR technology can be integrated with the local curriculum. For instance, the ’Marine Biologist Taster Session‘ is related to the ’Biological World‘ Module of the Primary 6 General Studies Curriculum, including concepts such as biodiversity and ecosystems. The ’VR Soccer Training Programme‘ is developed based on the interests and needs of students with AD/HD at the primary school, with the aim of raising their level of participation and learning motivation towards the training content.
Participants in this seminar will learn:
• strategies to adapt and execute VR-based interventions and learning within the local context.
• understanding the potential and challenges of using VR as an effective teaching tool.
• insights into the future development of VR-based education, considering the rapid evolution of the metaverse.