Social Impact and Experiential Learning: Developing Virtual Reality Experiences to Prevent Cyberbullying

The use of experiential learning in CS and related disciplines has long been explored. Experiential learning allows students to use hands-on, ''real world'' projects to help make cognitive connections between theory and practice. The increasing accessibility of virtual reality (VR) has opened new avenues for experiential student learning, offering the promise of building both hard and soft skills among students. VR also presents opportunities for interdisciplinary projects which are socially impactful and emotionally engaging. This poster presents an overview of a multi-year project to incorporate experiential VR development into a capstone experience for computing majors. The capstone experience focuses on the development, modification, and enhancement of anti-cyberbullying VR experiences for use in K-12 environments. These projects offer the opportunity for students to engage with community stakeholders and research teams to advance violence prevention programs. The poster will provide an overview of the project, the course pedagogy, and reflections and experiences from the first course offering. The poster will also describe the immersive experiences developed by students and the context of their ''real-world'' use.