PregnancyVue – Take your learners beyond the textbook with PregnancyVue by CACHE

PregnancyVue Overview

PregnancyVue is a free virtual reality (VR) immersive learning experience which allows users to experience the stages of pregnancy from inside and outside the womb. It was co-created with learners, tutors and subject specialists, in order to offer schools and colleges an opportunity to reimagine how they can engage with learners and improve knowledge retention.

The app is available on Oculus Go headset as well as a 2D version on phones running Android and iOS.

The app’s interface was designed to be as clear and simple as possible. Through tutorials, users can easily familiarise themselves with the app and access a glossary to support their learning and take the built in quiz to test their knowledge.

Why did NCFE CACHE create PregnancyVue?

The T-Level bid outlined by the Government following the Sainsbury’s Review presented an opportunity for us to reimagine how learners and tutors experience our qualifications. We noticed a gap for VR in our childcare, health and social care qualifications, where learners often struggle. PregnancyVue is an exciting outcome of this and allows tutors to provide a new and engaging way of delivering a unit.

With interest in VR increasing, we wanted to co-create an app with tutors, learners and industry experts that could help change the way the sector approaches new and emerging technology.

Whilst our product and competitor research showed there were several educational biology applications, there were currently no products on the market which reflected our aspirations for the functionality of PregnancyVue. Although an existing pregnancy VR app was identified, this was cinematographic in style and content with little educational format. Furthermore, we struggled to find any VR applications that offered an assessment or quiz mode to help test user knowledge retention.

How has PregnancyVue been developed?

From ideation to conception and delivery, we worked with key stakeholders, customers and learner groups to ensure that the app development was focused, fulfilled the needs of our sector and adhered to the Government’s criteria outlined in the T-Level bid. This included innovation workshops, user trials, development of lesson plans and college implementation sessions. After each session all feedback was collated and directly fed into the next stage of product development.

We also built in an optional tutorial so users were not dependent on a tutor or peer to understand how to use the technology. The revision buster and glossary were created concurrently during the trials and checked against the curriculum to make sure the app fulfilled the learning objectives.

How is PregnancyVue being used?

By developing PregnancyVue, CACHE NCFE have explored how VR can realistically work within the classroom for an enhanced teaching and learning experience. So far PregnancyVue has been used in a number of different ways:

1. By Darlington College as part of their lessons - CACHE has produced a lesson plan and tested with current CACHE learners - this is available to download for free from the PregnancyVue website.
2. Taking PregnancyVue ‘on the road’ to university open days, CACHE Conferences, workshops and demos in colleges to gather feedback; as well as to promote CACHE qualifications and college’s wider offering.
3. To engage SEND learners with new material through PregnancyVue.
4. As part of colleges open days to showcase what learners will study about in their qualification.