rohs_virtual_reality_class_agreement.docx | |
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File Type: | docx |
In formal education, a curriculum is typically defined as the set of courses, and their
content, offered at school. A curriculum is prescriptive, and is based on a more general
syllabus which merely specifies what topics must be understood and to what level to
achieve a particular grade or standard.
The great systems thinker and iconoclast (An iconoclast is someone who works to
challenge and destroy established dogma or conventions) Russell Ackoff once noted, “A
curriculum is a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.” In essence, Ackoff argued that
learning is dynamic and dominated by motivation – those things we enjoy and love we
learn without needing a “teacher” or a “curriculum” or a set of courses. Motivated
students and adults learn without being taught and they do so by the means they select.
(Ackoff, Turning Learing Right Side Up, pg. 10). Formal education in the industrial age needed
to organize learning by input and divide it out so it could be automated – thus,
today we have math courses, science courses, etc. in a prescribed sequence with common
names, time lengths, etc.
VR is intentionally designed to be a disruptive innovation – to openly challenge
typical learning archetypes and provide schools with a 21st century learning model for
their schools. So, why no curriculum? Because we have no real way of knowing how any
particular student will use VR to learn, we are forced (quite happily and willingly) to
set and measure student outcomes rather than the material they covered to get to the end
of a course. VR can simultaneously be a math, science, history, art, English, foreign
language, research, physical education, and/or industrial technology course – it all
depends upon where a student’s interest takes them. Designing a “curriculum” and
assuming we know best the way any particular student may learn is presumptuous and
fraught with flaws.
VR Syllabi
Having no formal curriculum is not analogous to “anything goes.”
VR has a very clear and demanding expectation – that students pursue an educationally
relevant project that helps them connect, extend, and learn important content and concepts
tied to Common Core standards and/or local performance expectations. VR is concerned
with outcomes – did the student demonstrate their learning accurately and completely?
VR Documentation
VR Member schools are expected to meet and maintain some basic documentation
requirements that both help them and their students in staying on-target and assists the
VR consortia in building and sharing its library or resources and applications to help
all students learn.
Documentation provides the basic information required of VR schools and will be
added to a national VREP on-line library.
What does a VR classroom look like?
Since VR standardizes on outcomes – students producing meaningful and useful 3D/
VR projects that extend their learning and the learning of others – it doesn’t prescribe
inputs.
The only requirement is that VR not be constrained by a formal curriculum, a
teacher who “teaches” VR, and other traditional school constraints like time-of-day, etc.
VR schools are encouraged to experiment with many different inputs and share their
successes and failures with the larger VR community so that we can share and extend
learning across the consortia.
Remember that this class is "STUDENT DRIVEN", you really have to take responsibility for your own learning and pursue your own interests in this course. Your facilitator mentor is here to help you find resources to help you solve any problems you run into and to assess you to make sure you are taking an initiative to independently explore your interests. Any assessments will be to make sure you have developed a basic and an advancing knowledge of the software with a limited number of assigned VR projects to introduce you to the operations of the software. The focus of this course is in part developing work that is of interest to you and is in part related to developing work that serves an educational purpose for others (such as graphics or animations for another teacher's course). You will have the opportunity to develop artifacts for other purposes as well that may be of interest to you such as developing graphics or animations for business, manufacturing, or medical purposes.
content, offered at school. A curriculum is prescriptive, and is based on a more general
syllabus which merely specifies what topics must be understood and to what level to
achieve a particular grade or standard.
The great systems thinker and iconoclast (An iconoclast is someone who works to
challenge and destroy established dogma or conventions) Russell Ackoff once noted, “A
curriculum is a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.” In essence, Ackoff argued that
learning is dynamic and dominated by motivation – those things we enjoy and love we
learn without needing a “teacher” or a “curriculum” or a set of courses. Motivated
students and adults learn without being taught and they do so by the means they select.
(Ackoff, Turning Learing Right Side Up, pg. 10). Formal education in the industrial age needed
to organize learning by input and divide it out so it could be automated – thus,
today we have math courses, science courses, etc. in a prescribed sequence with common
names, time lengths, etc.
VR is intentionally designed to be a disruptive innovation – to openly challenge
typical learning archetypes and provide schools with a 21st century learning model for
their schools. So, why no curriculum? Because we have no real way of knowing how any
particular student will use VR to learn, we are forced (quite happily and willingly) to
set and measure student outcomes rather than the material they covered to get to the end
of a course. VR can simultaneously be a math, science, history, art, English, foreign
language, research, physical education, and/or industrial technology course – it all
depends upon where a student’s interest takes them. Designing a “curriculum” and
assuming we know best the way any particular student may learn is presumptuous and
fraught with flaws.
VR Syllabi
Having no formal curriculum is not analogous to “anything goes.”
VR has a very clear and demanding expectation – that students pursue an educationally
relevant project that helps them connect, extend, and learn important content and concepts
tied to Common Core standards and/or local performance expectations. VR is concerned
with outcomes – did the student demonstrate their learning accurately and completely?
VR Documentation
VR Member schools are expected to meet and maintain some basic documentation
requirements that both help them and their students in staying on-target and assists the
VR consortia in building and sharing its library or resources and applications to help
all students learn.
Documentation provides the basic information required of VR schools and will be
added to a national VREP on-line library.
What does a VR classroom look like?
Since VR standardizes on outcomes – students producing meaningful and useful 3D/
VR projects that extend their learning and the learning of others – it doesn’t prescribe
inputs.
The only requirement is that VR not be constrained by a formal curriculum, a
teacher who “teaches” VR, and other traditional school constraints like time-of-day, etc.
VR schools are encouraged to experiment with many different inputs and share their
successes and failures with the larger VR community so that we can share and extend
learning across the consortia.
Remember that this class is "STUDENT DRIVEN", you really have to take responsibility for your own learning and pursue your own interests in this course. Your facilitator mentor is here to help you find resources to help you solve any problems you run into and to assess you to make sure you are taking an initiative to independently explore your interests. Any assessments will be to make sure you have developed a basic and an advancing knowledge of the software with a limited number of assigned VR projects to introduce you to the operations of the software. The focus of this course is in part developing work that is of interest to you and is in part related to developing work that serves an educational purpose for others (such as graphics or animations for another teacher's course). You will have the opportunity to develop artifacts for other purposes as well that may be of interest to you such as developing graphics or animations for business, manufacturing, or medical purposes.