The Use of Immersive Virtual Reality Technology to Deepen Learning in Singapore Schools

The implementation of immersive technologies such as virtual reality is contextualised as a strategy of exploration and experimentation. This brings about changes in the instructional design of virtual environments and pedagogies of lessons that achieve the outcomes of the student-centric values-driven paradigm of Singapore’s education system. Riverside Secondary School’s VR hub is a futuristic virtual reality classroom that provides immersive learning through sensorial experiences. Students’ feedback and results from a preliminary study validates the benefit that VR is a powerful means of visual learning to help students learn molecular and cellular representations that enhance interest and joy in learning. Students develop scientific empathy when VR give them the opportunity to actualise and be a cell or molecule as this generates a first-person perspective that can give rise to more accurate reasoning to explain scientific phenomena.