Supporting Flipped Learning with Virtual-Reality Field Trips

City University of Hong Kong (CityU) was one of the pioneers in the applications of virtual reality (VR) technology in creative art, humanities and social science. Based on the learning design of a mobile app developed for a CityU MOOC, a smartphone-based solution was adopted to produce an immersive learning package for students to experience certain aspects of a field trip (or study tour). The adoption facilitated pre-class learning which was followed by in-class activities and assessment tasks to achieve the intended learning outcomes, in the context of the flipped classroom approach. Feedback from students indicated increased interest in learning within a virtual tour environment and the alignment of activities to learning outcomes was highly appreciated. Teachers in other local higher education institutions were also attracted by the pedagogical value of such VR field trip. Hence, the production workflow was documented in this paper to further promote the adoption of portable virtual reality technology in teaching and learning.