VIRTUAL New Schools of Thought

Abstract

I co-teach a required first-year introduction to art history. One of the biggest challenges is engaging 100+ students in critical thinking. Primarily art and design students, they learn through hands-on projects in their studio classes that ideas and results are complex and change with time and experience. Yet in the art history class, these same students have difficulty with complexity. They want facts; they want to be told what is true, what to memorize, what to think. Part of the problem is related to the challenges we face in the digital age (if I read something in an outdated online Encyclopedia Britannica entry, it must be true), yet part of the solution might also be related to the opportunities we face in the digital age. This year I added a VR component to the class. A subset of the class — 21 honors students — are “visiting” a place we cover in class. First, they write: why did they choose this place? What do they know about it from class? After visiting the place via VR, they reflect on their experience: what surprised them? How did their understanding of the place change? One of the many purposes of the assignment is to encourage students to recognize that knowledge is not fixed. To personally experience and document a shift in their knowledge based on an experience. If selected, my presentation would elaborate on the project, share how I structured it and why, provide examples of results, and share what changes I’ll make for Spring 2025 before expanding the assignment to the whole class.