Our Work / Industries

Education

Accessible, engaging and future-ready learning experiences through emerging technologies like AR, VR and AI. Our education work spans university-level diversity training and hands-on, cross-curricular learning in schools, always designed together with the educators and communities who use it.

Key takeaway

PTR builds immersive and hands-on learning experiences with educators, not instead of them. Independent research finds VR has a real, moderate effect on some learning objectives, and little to no effect on others, so where and how it is used matters more than the technology itself.

Three animated avatars in yellow and blue hi-vis workwear at a workshop bench, one gesturing toward a wall-mounted grid diagram, with text overlay reading 'Education & Workforce Development'.

Work in this sector

Everyday Inclusion: Cornell University

Everyday Inclusion is PTR's seminal three-part VR experience, live since 2018 and co-designed with Cornell University and diversity and inclusion expert Angela Winfield. It gives a first-hand experience of unconscious bias, inclusion and intersectionality, and is also available in French and German. The module has since been reused across other workplace and airline training engagements, including at Metro Trains and Etihad Airways.

Read the Everyday Inclusion case study

The Everyday Inclusion VR module's title screen, with an avatar gesturing toward the module name in a virtual room.

Cook It: FoodStream Network

First-person VR view of a hand pouring water from a kettle into a saucepan at a kitchen sink, part of the Cook It food-education module.

Cook It is a hands-on food-education program PTR built with FoodStream Network for New York City schools, many with students from migrant backgrounds. Instead of textbooks, students prepare meals while learning nutrition, mathematics, science and cultural appreciation through cooking. Teachers and facilitators reported stronger engagement and focus, better understanding of nutritional and scientific concepts, and positive behavioural shifts, including healthier eating habits at home.

Read the Cook It case study

Teacher training: Central Coast Council

PTR's disability-awareness VR experience for Central Coast Council has also been incorporated into teacher training programs, alongside internal council staff training and CSIRO-facilitated sessions, extending its reach into education settings beyond the original community rollout.

Read the Central Coast Council case study · Government & Public Sector

A note on scope

Education is one of the sectors where PTR's work spans different age groups and settings: a US university partnership, a New York City schools program, and a local council's teacher-training use of a VR experience built for a different purpose. We keep those distinctions clear rather than blur them into one generic "education" claim, because the age group, the setting and what was actually delivered differ across each engagement. UNESCO's 2023 Global Education Monitoring Report on technology in education makes the same point at a policy level: digital tools should support education built on human interaction, not aim to substitute it, consistent with how PTR designs each program together with the educators and communities who deliver it.

Speakers seated in a row taking part in an expert panel at a PTR VR Training Library event
The expert panel at a PTR VR Training Library event.

The conversations a lecture cannot simulate

Breaking bad news, managing a distressed student, holding a line under pressure, and a procedure practised as many times as it takes. These are rendered illustrations of the scenario patterns, not footage from a client build.

Breaking bad news, rehearsed before a graduate has to do it.
Managing a distressed student, in a staffroom that behaves like one.
Holding a line under pressure, with room to get it wrong.
The procedure, repeated as many times as it takes.
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Combined effect size for VR in teacher education (moderate positive impact), strongest for content-knowledge and social-relational skills, minimal for metacognitive skills. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 2025