The Future of Education

The current study seeks to explore the experiences of pre-service student teachers in a teaching unit on the subject  of Virtual Reality as a part of a special course named "Educating for the future" designed to enhance student-teachers’ growth processes and 21st century skills. In particular, the study focuses on their self-efficacy and how their experiences change it. Several recent studies show the connection between emotions and Virtual Reality. Good VR acts like an emotion amplifier. Research population was 170 students in second of four years training to become teachers in K-12 educational system from various disciplines crossing all the learning majors in the college. The main research question was: Are there any effects of teaching approaches using VR on student teachers self-efficacy, interests and creativity? If there are, what are they? How collaboration in VR classroom fosters learner's social integration? The main findings show that using challenging VR learning environments with student teachers help them increase their self-efficacy and allow them to be more innovative and creative. VR poses challenges of active teaching and learning in which the learner is an active participant, creating and being creative.