“Unity is strength...when there is teamwork and collaboration, wonderful things can be
achieved.” Mattie Stepanck
Schools are starting to realize that they cannot just teach content related to subject disciplines for students to be successful beyond school. If students are to be prepared for jobs in the future that are constantly changing, then educators need to pay heed to skills related to dealing with people. The “soft skills” curriculum is becoming an essential part of what teachers need to address in their classrooms. Some examples of these skills might include social skills, empathy, confidence, leadership, collaboration, patience, and critical thinking.[1]These skills are sometimes called approaches to learning. All teachers are responsible for explicitly teaching these skills to ensure students can succeed in an ever-changing world. Google, one of the most successful companies in the world, published a document in 2008, titled Project Oxygen, which outlined ten key behaviours of successful managers. From this list communicating effectively and cooperation show up multiple times.[2] Learning how to work well in groups or take on responsibility and leadership are two examples of these critical life skills. While it is easy to pass off these skills as extraneous and not necessary, the reality is that skills like these are paramount in an ever-changing world and essential for our students to adapt and succeed.
Many adults remember growing up playing a game called “kick the can” with other children. This multiplayer activity involved one person (or group of people) being “it” who had to guard the can, which might be sitting in an open field or yard. Everyone else in the game ran off to hide. After a short count down, the person who is “it” must find and tag all participants before one of them kicks over the can. As the “it” person tags players, they must sit in a holding zone or “jail”. If the can is knocked over before all the participants are “jailed”, everyone captured is free to roam and continue playing.
One may not have been aware at the time of playing the game, but “kick the can” teaches several life skills that define key personality traits as an adult. Trust, strategy, cooperation, leadership, and effective communication were just a few of the concepts embodied as a result of playing “kick the can”, a cooperative learning game.
By definition, cooperative (or collaborative) learning involves small groups of people (or teams) working together to accomplish a common shared goal.
Why VR for Cooperative Learning?
VR is often seen as a solitary experience because the user dons an HMD (head-mounted display) and leaves the real world behind them. Yet, there is a growing number of VR applications that rely on single VR participants to work with a group of people inside or outside the HMD forming a team. “Asymmetrical gaming is a multiplayer mode in which the different players have different roles and capabilities, unlike most multiplayer games, where all the players are generally doing the same thing and playing the game the same way.”[3]VR applications that have asymmetrical features require users to work cooperatively to achieve a shared outcome. More importantly, these asymmetrical games that have one user inside the headset and the other participants playing along outside the HMD are growing in popularity.
Recommended VR Cooperative Learning Applications
Here are three popular cooperative asymmetrical learning VR applications for education:
Acron- This is a modern-day version of capture the flag. In this multiplayer experience, one player in VR takes on the role of a large, ancient tree that is the protector of the acorns. Meanwhile, two to eight players outside VR can then grab their phone devices to become competing squirrels that need to come up with strategy to steal the acorns. Cooperation amongst the team of squirrels is essential for success. [4]
Black Hat Cooperative- This cooperative game involves two or more people. One player is in VR, sneaking past enemies and collecting treasure. Other players are on the computer and keyboard with access to a full view of the map and hacking superpowers. This game requires quick thinking, trust, effective two-way communication, and unflappable decision-making techniques.[5]
Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes- This amazing team-building and communication game has one student in the HMD who sees a bomb in a room, and the rest of the team outside the VR headset has a bomb-defusing manual. They must provide clear and concise information to the person in the HMD to enable her to cut wires and solve clues on the bomb to diffuse it. [6]
Implications for Educators
There are several factors to consider before exposing students to this type of learning; merely grouping students into cooperative teams does not guarantee a positive experience.[7]Firstly, students in a group need to feel they have positive interdependence. That is to say; they need to feel “in it together”. Members of the group need to know that their contributions will help move the team forward toward the goal. Secondly, individuals within the group all need to feel engaged. Individuals need to be given agency to interact with the application and others during the experience. Heighten interaction may be facilitated through the equal distribution of resources within the experience. Thirdly, students should be coached on various types of strategies that can be employed when engaging in the cooperative learning experience. Finally, students should be taught interpersonal skills related to how to work and communicate in a collaborative team. This may involve having explicit norms within the team, like turn-taking, decision-making, and establishing trust. With these factors in mind, students will have a more successful cooperative and collaborative learning engagement.
Cooperative is “Key” at any age
I was once in an airport heading with my family on a vacation and struck up a conversation with a pilot standing in line at Starbucks. “Do airplanes differ in controls on the right side versus the left side in the cockpit?”, I asked. His response was interesting. Most airplane cockpits have similar controls on both sides. Pilots and co-pilots have equal and often redundant instrumentation to fly the plane. There is redundancy built into the system. “Does this often lead to conflict regarding who does what?”, I asked. For his airline, the pilot and co-pilot work cooperatively as a team to decide who is responsible for which tasks for take-off to landing. They even take specific training to ensure that although there is a hierarchical imbalance between the pilot and co-pilot, the strong communication between the two flight officers overcomes this power structure. He even mentioned that social norms and cultural biased toward power imbalances within a cockpit have led to crashes in the past. An overly authoritarian captain can severely exacerbate this tendency and even paralyse the co-pilot to the point that they become mere bystanders. This occurred during the crash of Korean Air cargo flight 8509. The captain, a domineering former military pilot, made a catastrophic error. The first officer noticed but did nothing for fear of reprisal. The aircraft hit the ground less than 60 seconds after take-off, killing everyone on board.[8] The pilot indicated that his company regularly trains pilots about how to cooperate as a team.
The benefits of using cooperative VR applications for learning in educational institutions is enormous. Since many schools have limited budgets, they may only have a few headsets for one large classroom. Using asymmetrical cooperative VR applications will increase the number of students that can participate in the learning experience. Additionally, there is a greater focus in schools on enhancing students’ “soft-skills”. In a world that is ever-changing, one thing is for sure, teaching students how to work more effectively to strategize in a group or team is always important and relevant.
Endnotes
[1] H. L. Erickson, Concept-Based Curriculum and Instruction for the Thinking Classroom (Thousand Oaks: Corwin P, 2007). [2] Project Oxygen - Google Spent 10 Years Researching What Makes the Perfect Manager," Eden Tech Labs, last modified December 10, 2019, https://www.edentechlabs.io/post/project-oxygen-google-spent-10-years-researching-what-makes-the-perfect-manager. [3] "Asymmetric Multiplayer," TV Tropes, n.d.https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AsymmetricMultiplayer. [4] "Acron: Attack of the Squirrels!," SpringboardVR, accessed January 26, 2020, https://springboardvr.com/marketplace/acronattackofthesquirrels. [5] "Black Hat Cooperative," SpringboardVR, accessed January 26, 2020, https://springboardvr.com/marketplace/blackhatcooperative. [6] Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, last modified November 9, 2018, https://keeptalkinggame.com/. [7] David M. Johnson and Roger T. Johnson, "What is Cooperative Learning? — Cooperative Learning Institute," Cooperative Learning Institute, n.d.http://www.co-operation.org/what-is-cooperative-learning. [8] Eve Fabre, "Are There Two Pilots in the Cockpit?," The Conversation, last modified April 11, 2018, http://theconversation.com/are-there-two-pilots-in-the-cockpit-94630.