Virtual Training at HASC

For this week's discussion, I wanted to write about a project that we've been developing at our work. Part of our work revolves around virtual reality (VR) training (see the screenshot below for a glimpse at our deliverable). I wrote my final project paper on how VR can potentially help influence long term memory making and retrieval. How VR will stimulate place cells, grid cells, head-direction cells, and sensorimotor cells to create more resilient and more easily re-traceable memories for the users. It could be a very distinct improvement for our training center. 

Understanding how memories are formed in the brain, starting in the hippocampus for the short term, then being "moved" to the neocortex for long term, . . . understanding how multiple trace theory works and functions, and finding out that creating more traces that trainees can access, and how multiple retrieval attempts strengthen and make memories more durable, also all became a part of my final project paper on our VR project. What I did not get a chance to weave into my paper was anything about the teaching perspectives.

Traditionally our training is quite one dimensional. The training is all presented flatly and is very much a "transmission" perspective. But when delivering computer-based training (CBT), transmission is the most probable outcome of any CBT development. We can add some activities and some short video snippets to make the training more interactive, but for the most part finding a way to make a safety or compliance training CBT a "developmental", "apprenticeship", "social reform" or "nurturing" perspective is just too much to ask for from a powerpoint style CBT. VR can liven things up in terms of the interactive nature, but still, it's nothing but transmission perspective. 

One feature we have added to our VR CBT is a series of test questions that encourage the trainee to consider scenarios where they are on the job. These scenarios ask the trainee to use and apply the information they may have learned while reviewing the CBT training and working in the VR exercises, and apply them to the job in their mind's eye. This more than any other tool or technique helps us move from a transmission to a developmental perspective. By asking our trainees to consider the learning objectives and apply them to their jobs, we are moving the information from simple, easy, question and answer with rote memorization to one that includes application of the information into a job. This is new in our community and something I intend to continue to develop with our training. 

• Having found out more about these teaching perspectives in this class, and understanding more about CBTs and training for large numbers of people, I wonder if anyone else has dealt with this type of difficulty?
• Has anyone found another way to move CBT style training from a transmission perspective to a different perspective? Either developmental or other?
• What other tools or techniques might be worthwhile to try and include in CBTs to help make them more fully fleshed out and worthwhile training tools?