--- title: "Prevention education for schools and universities" description: "The first placement, rehearsed before the bus leaves. Built with Cornell and NYC classrooms, for the annual training the Code now requires of every provider." canonical: https://peopletechrevolution.com/work/industries/education --- [Our Work](https://peopletechrevolution.com/work) / [Industries](https://peopletechrevolution.com/work/industries) # Education work built with educators, not instead of them From an inclusion module co-designed with Cornell University to a New York City classroom where students cook the lesson, each program was designed with the educators who use it. The moment ## Gloves on, torch in one hand, a supervisor across the bench with folded arms Nothing has been said yet. A trade college has its workshop on one site and its classroom on another, and the conversations that decide a placement happen at neither: the supervisor who is short with a new starter, the safety stop nobody wants to call, the client who changes the brief on the day. A student can run each of them before the bus leaves for the placement. Your students meet the supervisor with folded arms at the welding bench before they meet him for real. Your nursing students hear placement feedback from a supervisor who reacts to what they say back. Your students practise the safety stop at the moment a hand hesitates over the bench. Work in this sector ## Everyday Inclusion: Cornell University Everyday Inclusion is PTR’s VR experience, live since 2018 and co-designed with Cornell University and diversity and inclusion expert Angela Winfield. It gives a lived experience of unconscious bias, inclusion and intersectionality, in English, 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. Your staff address four colleagues around a table and notice who they did not look at.](https://peopletechrevolution.com/work/case-studies/everyday-inclusion-cornell) Your lecturers practise the hallway conversation a student has been working up to. Your supervisors rehearse the research meeting where a student is about to give up. Working in education? [Open the contact form](https://peopletechrevolution.com/work/industries/education#contact) Ask our CEO Simon Lowe’s Digital Twin a question Hands-on learning ## Cook It: FoodStream Network 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 reported stronger engagement and focus, better understanding of nutritional and scientific concepts, and healthier eating habits at home. [Read the Cook It case study. Your students learn the science in the model they are holding, not the diagram on the board.](https://peopletechrevolution.com/work/case-studies/cook-it-food-education) Your literacy tutors sit beside the adult learner and practise the pace the lesson needs. Your technicians and teachers share the bench and rehearse the handover before the class arrives. The method ## Teacher training, and the same method from classroom to campus PTR’s disability-awareness VR experience for Central Coast Council has been incorporated into teacher training programs, alongside council staff training and CSIRO-facilitated sessions. A US university partnership, a New York City schools program and a council’s VR experience each kept its own audience and delivery. [UNESCO’s 2023 Global Education Monitoring Report](https://www.unesco.org/gem-report/en/publication/technology) says digital tools should support education built on human interaction, not replace it. [Read the Central Coast Council case study. Your teachers on playground duty crouch between two children and practise what to say.](https://peopletechrevolution.com/work/case-studies/central-coast-council-disability-awareness) Your coordinators rehearse the common-room conversation with a new tutor who is struggling. [Government and public sector. Your support workers sit beside the student in the wheelchair and let them set the pace.](https://peopletechrevolution.com/work/industries/government-public-sector) > "Whether it's preparing teachers to manage disruptive classrooms or training doctors to handle medical emergencies, VR offers a safe space to practice and refine skills." Simon Lowe CEO, People Tech Revolution. [The Cusp of a Revolution, Global Best Practice Group, October 2024](https://globalbestpracticegroup.com/airevolution/) The library ## The conversations a lecture cannot simulate Breaking bad news before a graduate has to do it. Managing a distressed student who will not look up. Holding a line under pressure. A procedure practised as many times as it takes. A lecture can describe all four; it cannot let anyone get them wrong safely. Your graduates break bad news to a person who reacts, before they have to do it on a ward. Your trainee teachers lean towards the seated student who will not look up, and find the opening. Your students reach for the patient’s arm as many times as the procedure needs. - [More scenarios in the PTR VR Library](https://peopletechrevolution.com/xr/ptr-vr-library) - [Simulated learning for RTOs](https://peopletechrevolution.com/work/industries/education/rto-simulated-learning) - [University simulation centres](https://peopletechrevolution.com/work/industries/education/university-simulation-centres) Your questions ## Questions a school or college asks early The questions that come up early, answered in the words they get asked in. Your campus runs the same conversation on the devices it already owns; headsets are the deepest version. ### Do we need a headset for every student? Not one each. The same conversation runs typed between classes or spoken aloud in the room it happens in, on the devices the campus already runs. The headset is the deepest version of it, not the requirement. Your staff fit one exchange into the empty theatre or the library before it opens. ### Where does this fit in a timetable that is already full? In the theatre when it is empty, or from the lectern with nobody in the seats. One exchange is short enough that it does not need a slot of its own. Your RTO gets the placement conversation a classroom cannot stage; your simulation centre gets the clinical version. ### Is this for universities alone? Colleges and registered training organisations are where it earns its keep fastest, because a placement is the moment a vocational course is judged on, and it is the thing a classroom cannot stage. See [simulated learning for RTOs](https://peopletechrevolution.com/work/industries/education/rto-simulated-learning); for university simulation centres, see [simulation and clinical communication training](https://peopletechrevolution.com/work/industries/education/university-simulation-centres). Your students practise the counter conversation with a librarian who answers back. ### What does a student practise that a lecture cannot give them? The placement, rehearsed before the bus leaves. The student who will not look up. The news nobody wants to deliver. A lecture can describe all three. It cannot let anyone get them wrong and go again. Your apprentices see the instruction on the equipment they are standing at, not on a screen across the room. ### Our trades teaching happens on real equipment, not in a lab. Does this still help? That is what the AR work is for. The overlay sits on the equipment the student is already standing at, in the workshop or out in the field, so the instruction arrives where the hands are rather than on a screen across the room. The empty theatre ## The theatre when it is empty Teaching staff rehearse in the room they teach in, before the students are in it and after they have gone. A written run from the lectern is where a teacher decides how to raise something difficult with a student; the same exchange spoken aloud from the front bench tells them whether the words land as support or as a verdict. Your teachers work the conversation through from the lectern with nobody in the seats. Your teachers say it aloud from the front bench and hear which version they are giving. Your academics practise the tone of a conversation about failed work, not just the words. - [AI practice partners](https://peopletechrevolution.com/ai/ai-roleplay-practice) More moments ## Libraries, labs, training yards, counters and the common room The rest of a campus day has its own hard conversations: the enrolment desk, the automotive bay where an apprentice is about to make the same mistake, the safety briefing outside before the trades class begins. Each is a scenario your staff can run before the term. Your instructors watch the apprentice at the bay and practise stepping in without taking over. Your enrolment officers talk a visitor through a course that might not be the right one. Your plumbing instructors brief two trainees who are not listening yet. Through the headset ## A tutorial room, a workshop bay, a corridor Inside the headset the student, the apprentice or the junior colleague is in front of you, waiting. The wheelchair user with a hand raised in class, the apprentice mid-assessment, the mentor meeting in the corridor: each answers what your staff say, not what they meant to say. Your tutors answer the student with a hand raised, and find out if the answer landed. Your assessors watch the apprentice through the practical and practise the feedback after it. Your mentor teachers meet the junior colleague in the corridor before the term does. Co-designed ## Scenarios shaped with the people who will run them A learner practises a speech in the library. A teacher rehearses an explanation to the class. A student reports bullying with a facilitator beside them. Each scenario was co-designed with the people who run it, in the room they run it in. Your learners practise the speech in the library before they give it to the class. Your teachers rehearse the explanation and hear where the class would lose the thread. Your students report bullying to a person who responds, with a facilitator for the debrief. AR in the field ## AR overlays in the field Where the lesson is a berry tunnel, an orchard or a museum object, the overlay sits on the thing itself. Your students see the halo on the plant they are pollinating and the sphere on the object they are studying. Your horticulture students see the pollination halos in the berry tunnel they are working in. Your students learn the harvest on the apples in front of them, not on a diagram. Your museum visitors and students study the object with the science overlaid on it. The evidence ## What the research measured Independent research finds VR has a 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. The [2025 Frontiers meta-analysis](https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2025.1620905) of VR in teacher education puts the combined effect at moderate, strongest for content knowledge and social-relational skills. 0.524 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](https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2025.1620905) > " PTR demonstrated a profound understanding of the intricacies of human behaviour, crucial in crafting meaningful and impactful experiences. I wholeheartedly endorse PTR and their commitment to creating impactful experiences. " Keia Hobbs, MD, Assistant Dean of Graduate Medical Education, University of Illinois Chicago Working in education? [Open the contact form](https://peopletechrevolution.com/work/industries/education#contact) Ask our CEO Simon Lowe’s Digital Twin a question - [Our approach to immersive training](https://peopletechrevolution.com/xr) - [The PTR VR Library](https://peopletechrevolution.com/xr/ptr-vr-library) - [All industries](https://peopletechrevolution.com/work/industries) ## Sources and further reading The two reports the copy above draws on. ### [Using virtual reality for teacher education: a systematic review and meta-analysis of literature from 2014 to 2024](https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2025.1620905) Frontiers in Virtual Reality · 2025 The meta-analysis behind the 0.524 card above. ### [Global Education Monitoring Report 2023: Technology in Education, a tool on whose terms?](https://www.unesco.org/gem-report/en/publication/technology) UNESCO · 2023 Digital tools should support education built on human interaction, not replace it.