Pardis MahdaviCo-founder and CEO, MyUni Education · Reimagining higher education for workforce outcomes

Pardis Mahdavi of the University of Montana on Reflection + the Future of Learning

31 Jan 2023 · 1 min

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In this segment, the speaker emphasizes that reflection—defined as learning from lived experience—is a central component of learner engagement, especially when it invites reflexivity and positionality from a social‑science perspective. Building on this theoretical foundation, the speaker highlights the need to consider how learners connect in an increasingly networked world. To illustrate a practical application, they describe the Dreamscape Learn project, which leverages virtual reality (VR) and extended reality (XR) to immerse students in courses such as Biology 101. The project creates interactive, case‑based experiences that enable learning through doing within immersive environments, showcasing a new mode of connected, experiential education.

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I think one of the things that really resonated from the blog that you sent us around that Peter had written is this idea that reflection is the process of learning from lived experience. And I do think that that's a big component of that engagement, that learner engagement is really about inviting reflexivity and positionality from a social science perspective, but in general inviting that reflection. I think that is one very large aspect of it. The second is thinking about the new ways in which learners are engaging in a more connected world. And so one of the projects that I was most excited to work on that brought, you know, ASU into contact with people around the world was something called Dreamscape Learn, where we engaged virtual reality, VR and XR, in actually bringing students into Biology 101, for example, and started designing other cases. Having them learn through virtual reality, having them learn through doing,