Leveraging Agency in Virtual Reality to Enable Situated Learning

Learning is an active process that is deeply tied to physical and social contexts. Yet schools traditionally place learners in a passive role and focus on decontextualizing knowledge. Situating learning in more authentic tasks and contexts typically requires taking it outside the classroom via field trips and apprenticeships, but virtual reality (VR) is a promising tool to bring more authentically situated learning experiences into classrooms. In this position paper, I discuss how one of VR's primary affordances for learning is heightening agenct, and how such heightened agency can facilitate more authenticlaly situated learning by allowing learners legitimate peripheral participation.