Course Design and Instructional Strategies for Virtual Reality Labs in Engineering Classrooms

Abstract

The price of virtual reality headsets continues to drop, making them more accessible to consumers. Students in higher education also want to be well-prepared for their careers and want to take more courses that put their theoretical knowledge into practice. Moreover, students gain a great deal from opportunities to develop their soft skills.
This article details a curriculum for a virtual reality lab course intended for upper-level students. The course is structured to help students learn about VR by simulating real-world industrial projects, and it has as its stated goals the cultivation of transferable skills like the ability to take a systematic approach to solving real-world engineering problems, work effectively in multidisciplinary teams, and manage one's time effectively. The article also refers to various project examples from the last three years and addresses the significance of the course design, the task definition, and the makeup of the work group for the effective execution of the course.