Rob Theriault, author of “The Future of Education is Experiential” and former Georgian College Immersive Technology Manager, explains how VR can turn mass-casualty triage, bridge navigation and public speaking into repeatable training. Institutions still need a defined learning problem and credible evidence that the simulation measures the right skill.
A mock mass-casualty exercise can take months to organise. It needs a suitable site, volunteer casualties, injury makeup and coordination with emergency services.
Georgian College used virtual reality to let paramedic students repeat triage scenarios and progress from smaller incidents to more stressful exercises without staging a mock disaster each time.
Rob Theriault, the college’s former Immersive Technology Manager, believes XR earns its place when learners need access to an environment, task or frequency of practice that conventional training struggles to provide. He uses a rule associated with Stanford professor Jeremy Bailenson:
“It’s important to look for use cases of virtual reality that would otherwise in the analog world be dangerous, impossible, counterproductive or expensive.”
Repetition Can Justify XR Training
Theriault introduced VR into Georgian College’s paramedic programme after working as both a paramedic and an educator. Students could build familiarity with triage and face more demanding incidents as their skills developed.
Georgian College also sent headsets and computers to maritime learners who couldn’t travel to Canada. The simulation reproduced bridge controls, radar and binocular use, giving remote students access to ship-navigation training.
Public-speaking software offers another route to frequent practice. Theriault highlighted Ovation, which places learners in front of AI-controlled audiences and provides feedback on delivery. Students can revise a presentation and try again without assembling a lecturer and a room of classmates for each attempt.
Activity Isn’t Evidence of Learning
Theriault also described a discussion with a nuclear operator that trains tradespeople to complete plant walk-downs and identify hazards. Recreating the site in VR could let trainees repeat the inspection, while eye tracking could record whether they looked towards relevant areas.
Gaze data only confirms where someone looked. Training teams still have to establish whether the learner recognised the hazard, understood the risk and chose the correct response.
Buyers should define the skill, current training method, frequency of practice and acceptable evidence of improvement before selecting hardware or software. The XR Beat’s guides to VR training budget approval and scaling a VR training pilot cover the financial and operational work required around the learning experience.
AI Is Changing Assessment
Theriault expects generative AI to push colleges away from relying heavily on essays and exams as proof of individual ability:
“Generative AI has completely undermined how we assess students from an assignment and essay perspective.”
XR could support practical assessment by recording how a learner responds inside a repeatable scenario. Colleges and employers still need criteria tied to the real task, along with a plan for device support, software access, learner data and human review.
