ASU biology labs try on virtual reality tech
School supplies for some students in online biology classes at Arizona State University now include virtual reality goggles, a move toward further online science-lab instruction that many academics considered off-limits in the recent past.
ASU's online biological sciences degree program, launched last year, started a pilot program this semester that uses virtual reality to teach labs. The pilot program is the nation's first fully online biology class using virtual reality for labs, the university said.
The simulation lets students conduct tests and experiments. They can don goggles at home and move through lab simulations like dissections — without cutting into an animal. Or they can collect blood samples from basketball players andanalyze glucose levels to understand cellular respiration.
ASU received 140 virtual reality headsets from Lenovo Group Ltd. to launch this semester's pilot program. Labster, a virtual lab simulation company, developed the courses ASU students will use.
So far, 30 out of about 300 to 400 students in General Biology I are using the headsets. ASU plans for three additional online biology classes — cell and molecular biology, ecology and animal physiology — to use virtual simulations in classes later this fall and next year.
Students can rent the headsets for the ASU bookstore for free or purchase them. They retail for about $400.
There's a $50 lab fee for the online general biology course, about the same as students pay in-person for class materials, ASU said. For the more advanced biology classes that will roll out virtual reality in the coming year, the lab fee is $100 because there are more lab simulations.
'Kitchen kits' included dead animals for dissections
For the past few years, online students at ASU and other universities used kits designed for their courses to move through labs. The "kitchen kits" included all the tools necessary for a particular lab, including dead animals needed for dissections.
The kits are a great method, said Philippos Savvides, manager of learning technologies at ASU's EdPlus. But students use them in a very sequential, prescribed way, almost like following recipes in a Blue Apron box, he said.
Although the simulated labs also work on computers, the headsets add a more hands-on environment, Savvides said, providing unlimited opportunities to fail and repeat while exploring multiple paths and outcomes.
Learning through mistakes helps lessons take hold, he said.
"We encourage failure. We want them to fail," he said.
Amy Pate, manager of instructional design for ASU’s School of Life Sciences, said students can also connect on a deeper level with the content in virtual reality. One lab, for example, includes a pregnant woman undergoing testing and people said they felt for the character, she said.
"When you’re in that simulation or that reality, you start connecting with those people on a very real level," she said. "It’s emotional."
Using tech to move beyond traditional lab environments
Conventional wisdom about online education declared certain classes and degrees, like fine arts and lab sciences, verboten. Some things just needed to be taught in person, the thinking went.
But move to virtual labs upends notions of what can and can't be taught online.
Although there was initial resistance from faculty to moving outside traditional lab environments, Pate said many professors have in recent years embraced different ways to teach. They tested the headsets and met with Labster to learn how the technology works and how students would use it.
“There are these opportunities to kind of break down the walls of our treasured model of a lab and try new things,” Pate said, adding that the learning objectives, assessments and outcomes for the online biology courses are exactly the same as in-person classes.
The university will work to improve the use of virtual reality in the labs, she said. And once there are data on how the program works, ASU can help convince naysayers of its viability, she said.
Savvides said he hopes technology will someday allow for one-on-one, personalized tutoring in the simulations via artificial intelligence.
He thinks headsets will become more mainstream for students to use as part of their studies, though he knows they aren't for everyone. Some people report motion sickness from using them, for example.
If the pilot succeeds, other programs across the university may follow. Savvides said there has been a lot of interest in virtual reality from professors in history, psychology, social work, physics and biochemistry.