Education work built with educators, not instead of them

From an inclusion module co-designed with Cornell University to a New York City classroom where students cook the lesson, each program was designed with the educators who use it.

A VR education training scenario in which a mentor teacher who wears hearing aids talks with a junior teacher in a corridor.

The moment

Gloves on, torch in one hand, a supervisor across the bench with folded arms

Nothing has been said yet. A trade college has its workshop on one site and its classroom on another, and the conversations that decide a placement happen at neither: the supervisor who is short with a new starter, the safety stop nobody wants to call, the client who changes the brief on the day. A student can run each of them before the bus leaves for the placement.

In a simulated welding workshop, a trainee in overalls and gloves settles a headset with a torch in one hand, a supervisor standing across the bench with folded arms. — Your students meet the supervisor with folded arms at the welding bench before they meet him for real.

A simulated office on a hospital ward, two chairs facing each other. A nursing student sits with hands in her lap as her supervisor wears the headset opposite, giving feedback. — Your nursing students hear placement feedback from a supervisor who reacts to what they say back.

A simulated university science laboratory with high windows. Two first-year students work at a bench, one wearing the headset. — Your students practise the safety stop at the moment a hand hesitates over the bench.

Work in this sector

Everyday Inclusion: Cornell University

Everyday Inclusion is PTR’s VR experience, live since 2018 and co-designed with Cornell University and diversity and inclusion expert Angela Winfield. It gives a lived experience of unconscious bias, inclusion and intersectionality, in English, French and German. The module has since been reused across other workplace and airline training engagements, including at Metro Trains and Etihad Airways.

A participant wearing a headset stands at the end of a boardroom table, addressing four seated simulated colleagues of different ages.

Read the Everyday Inclusion case study. Your staff address four colleagues around a table and notice who they did not look at.

A lecturer and student talk in the hallway. A VR training scenario for education. — Your lecturers practise the hallway conversation a student has been working up to.

A supervisor talks with a student and visitor. A VR training scenario for education. — Your supervisors rehearse the research meeting where a student is about to give up.

Working in education?

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Hands-on learning

Cook It: FoodStream Network

Cook It is a hands-on food-education program PTR built with FoodStream Network for New York City schools, many with students from migrant backgrounds. Instead of textbooks, students prepare meals while learning nutrition, mathematics, science and cultural appreciation through cooking. Teachers reported stronger engagement and focus, better understanding of nutritional and scientific concepts, and healthier eating habits at home.

A teacher wearing a headset holds a small molecular model up to the light in a school science laboratory. A VR scene for education.

Read the Cook It case study. Your students learn the science in the model they are holding, not the diagram on the board.

A literacy tutor sits beside an adult learner at a classroom desk, one of them wearing a headset. — Your literacy tutors sit beside the adult learner and practise the pace the lesson needs.

A technician and a teacher share a bench. A VR training scenario for education. — Your technicians and teachers share the bench and rehearse the handover before the class arrives.

The method

Teacher training, and the same method from classroom to campus

PTR’s disability-awareness VR experience for Central Coast Council has been incorporated into teacher training programs, alongside council staff training and CSIRO-facilitated sessions. A US university partnership, a New York City schools program and a council’s VR experience each kept its own audience and delivery. UNESCO’s 2023 Global Education Monitoring Report says digital tools should support education built on human interaction, not replace it.

A simulated primary school playground under a shade sail. A teacher wearing the headset crouches between two children.

Read the Central Coast Council case study. Your teachers on playground duty crouch between two children and practise what to say.

A coordinator talks with a new tutor. A VR training scenario for education. — Your coordinators rehearse the common-room conversation with a new tutor who is struggling.

A support worker sits beside a wheelchair user. A VR training scenario for education.

Government and public sector. Your support workers sit beside the student in the wheelchair and let them set the pace.

"Whether it's preparing teachers to manage disruptive classrooms or training doctors to handle medical emergencies, VR offers a safe space to practice and refine skills."

Simon Lowe, CEO of People Tech Revolution, in conversation. Simon Lowe
CEO, People Tech Revolution. The Cusp of a Revolution, Global Best Practice Group, October 2024

The library

The conversations a lecture cannot simulate

Breaking bad news before a graduate has to do it. Managing a distressed student who will not look up. Holding a line under pressure. A procedure practised as many times as it takes. A lecture can describe all four; it cannot let anyone get them wrong safely.

A nursing student wearing a headset sits facing a simulated patient, one hand open in a careful gesture, practising how to deliver difficult news. — Your graduates break bad news to a person who reacts, before they have to do it on a ward.

A teacher-education student wearing a headset leans toward a simulated teenage student who sits with arms folded, practising a classroom conversation. — Your trainee teachers lean towards the seated student who will not look up, and find the opening.

A student wearing a headset reaches carefully toward the arm of a simulated elderly patient in a ward bay. — Your students reach for the patient’s arm as many times as the procedure needs.

Your questions

Questions a school or college asks early

The questions that come up early, answered in the words they get asked in.

A simulated learning centre in a remote town, a window onto dry scrub. A student wears the headset at the desk as a tutor sits beside him, not behind. — Your campus runs the same conversation on the devices it already owns; headsets are the deepest version.

Do we need a headset for every student?

Not one each. The same conversation runs typed between classes or spoken aloud in the room it happens in, on the devices the campus already runs. The headset is the deepest version of it, not the requirement.

A first person view in a school library, a librarian gesturing beside the shelves with an option panel nearby. — Your staff fit one exchange into the empty theatre or the library before it opens.

Where does this fit in a timetable that is already full?

In the theatre when it is empty, or from the lectern with nobody in the seats. One exchange is short enough that it does not need a slot of its own.

A nurse educator briefs a nursing student in a simulation laboratory, one of them wearing a headset. — Your RTO gets the placement conversation a classroom cannot stage; your simulation centre gets the clinical version.

Is this for universities alone?

Colleges and registered training organisations are where it earns its keep fastest, because a placement is the moment a vocational course is judged on, and it is the thing a classroom cannot stage. See simulated learning for RTOs; for university simulation centres, see simulation and clinical communication training.

A librarian and student talk across the counter. A VR training scenario for education. — Your students practise the counter conversation with a librarian who answers back.

What does a student practise that a lecture cannot give them?

The placement, rehearsed before the bus leaves. The student who will not look up. The news nobody wants to deliver. A lecture can describe all three. It cannot let anyone get them wrong and go again.

An engineering student wearing a headset examines a glowing holographic part in a workshop, a machine tool behind him. — Your apprentices see the instruction on the equipment they are standing at, not on a screen across the room.

Our trades teaching happens on real equipment, not in a lab. Does this still help?

That is what the AR work is for. The overlay sits on the equipment the student is already standing at, in the workshop or out in the field, so the instruction arrives where the hands are rather than on a screen across the room.

The empty theatre

The theatre when it is empty

Teaching staff rehearse in the room they teach in, before the students are in it and after they have gone. A written run from the lectern is where a teacher decides how to raise something difficult with a student; the same exchange spoken aloud from the front bench tells them whether the words land as support or as a verdict.

A lecturer stands at the lectern of an empty lecture theatre seen from the back row, a stack of glowing message panels beside them. — Your teachers work the conversation through from the lectern with nobody in the seats.

A woman sits on the front bench of an empty lecture theatre, a ribbon of light running the width of the frame. — Your teachers say it aloud from the front bench and hear which version they are giving.

A woman stands in an empty lecture theatre, a band of sound running the width of the frame as she speaks. — Your academics practise the tone of a conversation about failed work, not just the words.

AI practice partners

More moments

Libraries, labs, training yards, counters and the common room

The rest of a campus day has its own hard conversations: the enrolment desk, the automotive bay where an apprentice is about to make the same mistake, the safety briefing outside before the trades class begins. Each is a scenario your staff can run before the term.

An instructor watches an apprentice at the bay. A VR training scenario for education. — Your instructors watch the apprentice at the bay and practise stepping in without taking over.

An enrolment officer talks with a visitor. A VR training scenario for education. — Your enrolment officers talk a visitor through a course that might not be the right one.

A plumbing instructor briefs two trainees outside. A VR training scenario for education. — Your plumbing instructors brief two trainees who are not listening yet.

Through the headset

A tutorial room, a workshop bay, a corridor

Inside the headset the student, the apprentice or the junior colleague is in front of you, waiting. The wheelchair user with a hand raised in class, the apprentice mid-assessment, the mentor meeting in the corridor: each answers what your staff say, not what they meant to say.

A wheelchair user raises a hand during class. A first person VR training scenario for education, seen through the headset. — Your tutors answer the student with a hand raised, and find out if the answer landed.

An apprentice undertakes a practical workshop assessment. A first person VR training scenario for education, seen through the headset. — Your assessors watch the apprentice through the practical and practise the feedback after it.

A mentor teacher meets a junior colleague. A first person VR training scenario for education, seen through the headset. — Your mentor teachers meet the junior colleague in the corridor before the term does.

Co-designed

Scenarios shaped with the people who will run them

A learner practises a speech in the library. A teacher rehearses an explanation to the class. A student reports bullying with a facilitator beside them. Each scenario was co-designed with the people who run it, in the room they run it in.

A learner practises a speech beside the library shelves. — Your learners practise the speech in the library before they give it to the class.

A teacher rehearses an explanation at the front of the classroom. — Your teachers rehearse the explanation and hear where the class would lose the thread.

Student gestures beside a facilitator. A first person VR training scenario for education, seen through the headset. — Your students report bullying to a person who responds, with a facilitator for the debrief.

AR in the field

AR overlays in the field

Where the lesson is a berry tunnel, an orchard or a museum object, the overlay sits on the thing itself. Your students see the halo on the plant they are pollinating and the sphere on the object they are studying.

Coral halos glow in berry tunnels. An agriculture pollination scenario. — Your horticulture students see the pollination halos in the berry tunnel they are working in.

Colour spheres appear among the apples. An agriculture harvest-learning scenario. — Your students learn the harvest on the apples in front of them, not on a diagram.

Colour orbs surround a metal sphere. A VR training scenario for education. — Your museum visitors and students study the object with the science overlaid on it.

The evidence

What the research measured

Independent research finds VR has a moderate effect on some learning objectives, and little to no effect on others, so where and how it is used matters more than the technology itself. The 2025 Frontiers meta-analysis of VR in teacher education puts the combined effect at moderate, strongest for content knowledge and social-relational skills.

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Combined effect size for VR in teacher education (moderate positive impact), strongest for content-knowledge and social-relational skills, minimal for metacognitive skills. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 2025