In this presentation, we seek to examine the role virtual reality plays in a community-wide project in teacher residency. Specifically, our work addresses the ways educator preparation programs use technology to build and sustain partnerships and collaborations, as well as how educator preparation programs and PK-12 professionals collaborate to meet the diverse needs of underserved individuals and communities.

Our work emerged from our partnership with PK – 12 urban schools, SUNY IITG, and local businesses in an effort to understand specific concerns about new teacher’s preparation to meet the needs of underserved students in multiple types of environments. The VR tools developed in conjunction with these administrators, teachers, and students provide means to more deeply understand ways in which to become more pedagogically and culturally responsive to students’ needs through teacher development. Through such in-depth and honest conversations, we have built stronger, reciprocal relationships with our partner schools, preservice teachers, cooperating teachers, and communities.

Participants will critique the role and problem solve the application of Virtual Reality, and more broadly educational technology, plays in education programs to create highly effective teachers prepared to meet the needs of underserved students and communities. Participants also will discuss the value of standardized virtual scenarios as a means to promote difficult conversations about race, ethnicity, poverty, and opportunity as they relate to both PK – 12 student learning and preservice teacher learning. Particularly, we will focus on tactical solutions and creative problem solving regarding virtual reality and its impact on the near- and mid-term future of teacher preparation in colleges and universities.