Prisms VR, a learning platform pioneering a new paradigm for math education, recently celebrated Ohio’s leadership in virtual reality education at its first Prisms of Reality Conference in Marysville, Ohio.
Leading the nation in scaling experiential learning, Ohio launched Prisms’ VR new world math learning design in fall 2021 to over 50 school districts and 15,000+ students; it’s the first state to drive VR adoption to help raise math engagement and scores for all its students.
Built for 8th to 11th-grade math students, tutors, and teachers, Prisms VR provides standards-aligned VR content and multiplayer collaborative learning environments that target bottleneck topics in secondary math. In 2021, Ohio schools introduced Prisms VR technology into math classrooms, empowering students to engage with complex math concepts at the root of failure, in an immersive and interactive way. The application creates virtual environments that simulate real-life scenarios, allowing students to connect to compelling problems through physical situations before abstracting up to symbolic notations, conventions, and procedures.
The home of the first large-scale efficacy studies of the impact of VR on math learning outcomes, early studies across the state has shown double-digit growth outcomes on standards-aligned proficiencies, deeper conceptual understanding, and confidence. VR technology has also increased student motivation and purpose in math, making it a stimulating and rewarding subject to learn.
Anurupa Ganguly, Founder & CEO at Prisms, said,
We are hearing students who’ve taken two years of Algebra say that they understand exponential functions for the first time, because they could clearly ‘see where they came from’ and could apply them to problems they care about. VR finally allows us to scale how we’ve always wanted to teach — using problems that mean something, plus movement and tactile visualizations that elucidate structure and great stories. It’s not a new technology fad; it’s the best shot we have at scaling humane teaching practices that don’t treat students as computer algorithms, but rather as rich sense-making beings. Using VR, we can take our students beyond the classroom walls and transport them to places and situations that are difficult, if not impossible, to replicate otherwise. Using this approach can engage and inspire learners, and it’s my mission to make learning more accessible and scalable than it ever has before.
Prisms VR, founded in 2020, is pioneering efficacious learning experiences in virtual reality. Backed by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, Prisms is the first spatial learning platform for K-12 STEM education, scaling a new way of learning core math and science that actualizes pedagogies that we know work best. In 2023, Prisms launched its VR math modules for consumers via the Meta Quest Store bringing joyful and spatial math learning to anyone: Students, teachers, tutors, and parents.
