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New in Bentley University's Undergraduate Core: "Living in the Metaverse"
A Q&A with Mark Frydenberg and David Yates
Why is learning about the metaverse important to first-year college students? Here, two Bentley University faculty meet with CT to explain how their unique course offering on the metaverse supports the goals of the institution's new undergraduate core curriculum.
Mark Frydenberg is a senior lecturer, and David Yates is an associate professor of Computer Information Systems at Bentley. Together they've developed and are teaching "Living in the Metaverse" as a first-year seminar, as of this Fall 2022 semester.
Mary Grush: Bentley University recently revised its core undergraduate curriculum. Could you talk a little about that and how you arrived at teaching a course on Living in the Metaverse?
Mark Frydenberg: Bentley University is a business university in the Boston area. All students take a set of core business and liberal arts courses that give them the digital literacy, information literacy, problem solving, and teamwork skills they need to succeed in their chosen majors and minors. Our first-year seminar course was historically a one-credit course that supported incoming students during the first semester of their college experience. It focused on topics such as time management and study skills, how to use the library, where to find campus resources, and how to respect the diversity that students encounter when they acclimate to a new community.
As part of a university-wide curriculum revision, the first-year seminar course [now called the Falcon Discovery Seminar, or FDS, named after Bentley's mascot] has become a three-credit course that includes many of the original core topics while introducing students to the world of research and critical thinking on a "wicked problem" from multiple perspectives. Bentley offered more than 40 sections of FDS this fall, taught by faculty from across all disciplines. Each faculty member chose the theme for their own section.
The first-year seminar course has become a three-credit course that includes many of the original core topics while introducing students to the world of research and critical thinking on a "wicked problem" from multiple perspectives.
David Yates: Other FDS courses focused on problems of plastics in the environment and sustainability, genocide, big corporations in America, and how to live a good life. We chose Living in the Metaverse as our theme. The metaverse is a current topic with many angles that we hoped would resonate with our students.
Grush: First, let's just sum it up for the purposes of our discussion: What is the metaverse?
Frydenberg: The metaverse is a collection of immersive digital spaces, or "virtual worlds" where people can interact online. Many people consider the metaverse as part of Web3, or the next generation of the World Wide Web. If we remember how the original Web connected documents through hyperlinks, and how Web 2.0 connected people through shared social media and user-generated content, we can see that Web3 introduces blockchain, digital currencies, and other technologies to add value to digital content. The metaverse enables a new digital economy where people can create, purchase, or sell digital properties and goods. Inhabitants of the metaverse create digital identities in the form of avatars or digital twins that may mimic their 'real world' identities and establish norms for their digital communities.
The metaverse is not one unique virtual space; rather, there are different metaverses, each relying on different digital currencies or serving different communities. Meta Horizon Worlds, Roblox, Decentraland, and the Sandbox are all examples of metaverses that provide different experiences and opportunities for their users. Collectively, the metaverse is a growing market. Verified Market Research estimates the value of this sector at more than $800 billion by 2030.
Grush: Why is learning to live in the metaverse of value for the section of first-year students you teach? What are some of the learning goals of the core curriculum that are served?
Frydenberg: The goals of FDS are to develop students' academic skills in areas such as information literacy, critical thinking, collaboration, and problem solving, while introducing them to a complex problem that can be approached from multidisciplinary perspectives.
Yates: We want our students to explore the theme of Living in the Metaverse through the lens of business opportunities, social concerns, and technological innovation.
For example, from a business perspective, students learn about new business models the metaverse offers, which bridge the physical and digital worlds. Among the social concerns, students explore issues related to self-identity by creating avatars, and they examine how they interact with others similarly or differently in physical and virtual worlds.
Frydenberg: We also want students to be aware of the technological foundations and developments necessary for the metaverse to become mainstream. Mobile devices, wearable computing, augmented and virtual reality, wireless Internet, digital currencies, blockchain, and advanced communication networks all converge to enable immersive environments where virtual worlds become possible.
Mobile devices, wearable computing, augmented and virtual reality, wireless Internet, digital currencies, blockchain, and advanced communication networks all converge to enable immersive environments where virtual worlds become possible.
Grush: How will students in your course gain confidence in their research skills and in their ability to approach their academic careers and upper-division courses?
Yates: By learning and practicing skills like critical thinking and persuasive communication first in several small assignments, and then in one big assignment. For example, in one of the small assignments, each student researches, prepares, and presents a five-minute talk about an aspect of the metaverse. Their classmates evaluate their delivery, slides, and content, and ask questions. Finally, writing a research paper is the major assignment in this course. I'll let Mark say more about that.
Frydenberg: We set several milestones for students as they work on their research papers: selecting a topic, creating an annotated bibliography, writing an outline, developing a first draft, participating in a peer review with a classmate, and writing the complete paper. These smaller goals make the process of writing a college research paper more manageable for students who have not done so before.
The purpose of this assignment is to give students the skills to formulate and defend their own positions; evaluate others' claims based on facts, research, or personal experience; and to draw logical and informed conclusions.
Our students have chosen a wide range of topics for their research papers. These reflect their diverse interests but are well-grounded in the metaverse theme. Topics include, for example: What is the potential of the metaverse in developing African nations? Can virtual worlds help teens with mental health challenges? What is the impact of purchasing property in the metaverse on individual privacy? Is the metaverse making some jobs obsolete? How does the metaverse impact relationships? What governance is required to keep the metaverse safe? and How can established companies obtain a marketing advantage by moving to the metaverse?
Reading and reviewing each other's papers in progress gives students an opportunity to consider diverse facets of the metaverse and analyze different approaches based on their classmates' interests.
Yates: Also, by thinking about complex issues related to the metaverse, students learn to explore their topics systematically, gathering data or experiences and analyzing them against known results.
Grush: Is your course also going to produce sustainable skills that will benefit the students, ultimately, as they reach the marketplace or go into graduate research?
Yates: The overarching goal of the Falcon Discovery Seminar is to introduce incoming college students to university-level research and get them to think about a complex problem from different perspectives. In our course, the study of the metaverse is the theme around which they conduct their research.
Frydenberg: Leaning into this sort of research is often challenging for first-year students. However, the skills that students learn and develop will carry forward into more advanced courses at Bentley and eventually into their jobs and careers, or graduate education if they pursue it.
The skills that students learn and develop will carry forward into more advanced courses at Bentley and eventually into their jobs and careers, or graduate education if they pursue it.
Grush: Can you offer a couple more practical examples of student learning, maybe focusing on the technology environment a bit more?
Yates: In addition to a research paper, we combine many interactive small group in-class activities along with opportunities to experience virtual reality hands on. We want students to be able to describe the technologies needed for the continued development of the metaverse; identify key companies and innovators whose work is influencing the metaverse; and create digital artifacts — avatars, virtual spaces, and various digital properties they can use when they explore immersive environments. We want them to reflect on what it's like to be a consumer or a citizen in an immersive, virtual experience and compare this with similar in-person experiences.
Frydenberg: And we want students not only to talk about the characteristics of the metaverse based on readings, but also to present their knowledge of the metaverse based on their own first-hand explorations with VR headsets.
We've created several experiential assignments for students to learn about the metaverse and apply the concepts they learn from their readings. For example, after reading about the characteristics of the metaverse, their first assignment is to visit the website for Decentraland, an open-source metaverse environment, and look around. They create slides showing features of the metaverse described in their readings and implemented in Decentraland. Students take screenshots of virtual marketplaces, meeting places, maps, and museums, and they describe how these exemplify characteristics of the metaverse.
In a second assignment, students enhance virtual reality scenes that are part of the Roblox gaming metaverse. And in a third assignment, they wear VR headsets to attend a virtual event in the AltspaceVR community-based metaverse — after which they write a reflection essay on the experience. Then, the culminating activity for the course is to hold a meeting in an immersive learning space.
Grush: Are the technologies easily accessible for students? I hope there isn't a 'metaverse divide'!
Yates: Many metaverse applications are available for free to explore through a browser. The expense comes with purchasing VR headsets, which may cost about $300 each. But we have some VR headsets already, and we've borrowed a few more on campus for use in this course.
Frydenberg: We built an immersive learning space based on Bentley's CIS Sandbox physical learning space, using the Frame platform. We hold one of our classes in this virtual space during the semester. Frame allows students to gather online either while wearing headsets or from a browser, so it serves as a virtual conferencing platform. Similar to Zoom, participants can hear each other, chat, and view shared screens. But in VR, they see avatars in their locations in the room instead of faces in a grid; they can relate their digital environment to a familiar physical one and navigate from one part of the room to another to interact with other students online.
Grush: Is all of this a big stretch for some students? Are there any particular hurdles they need to overcome in order to join in with their section that's living in the metaverse?
Yates: The students who are less tech-oriented may have a harder time with some of the technology requirements, but ultimately all get to use the headsets and build their metaverse scenes with varying degrees of help. We're fortunate that students who figure out the VR glasses help others in the class.
Grush: What is the importance of interdisciplinary work in the core sections?
Yates: Because the metaverse has implications for both business and society, it is important to connect technology advances, e.g., richer immersive experiences and high-speed networks, to business opportunities and social concerns. The metaverse requires that students reflect on the applications and implications of an interesting emerging technology.
Grush: What is the role of student facilitators in the success of the Falcon Discovery Seminar? In particular, in Living in the Metaverse, how are they able to help other students? They may be just now learning about the metaverse themselves.
Frydenberg: Each section has a student facilitator whose main role is to acclimate the students in the class to their college experience. They are a resource for incoming students as they register for classes, set their calendars, and learn about campus resources. In most sections the student facilitator is not expected to be a subject matter expert on the theme. Our course is a success because we chose an undergraduate tutor who has a keen interest in technology and is able to help with guiding students through the hands-on activities to experience the metaverse.
Grush: What do you hope other colleges and universities might take away as they look at your work on Living in the Metaverse?
Yates: Teaching in an emerging technology environment like the metaverse is fun and interesting for both of us. An important goal of our course is to make learning about the metaverse as fun and interesting for our students as it is for us.
Frydenberg: The experiential assignments are particularly impactful because they directly relate to the readings. One thing I want to do differently when I teach the course again in the spring is to get students into VR headsets much earlier in the course. For those who haven't used a VR headset before, or those who have used them only for gaming, experiencing a virtual environment provides experiential context to better understand the readings. Just as you can't learn to ride a bike by reading a book, you can't fully appreciate the potential of the metaverse until you wear a headset and experience virtual reality first hand.
Yates: Understanding the importance of making this course engaging for students and giving them the opportunity to learn from each other are the most important takeaways from our work.
Understanding the importance of making this course engaging for students and giving them the opportunity to learn from each other are the most important takeaways from our work.
The peer learning in our section depends on the many small team activities that the students work on together during class. By taking a multidisciplinary approach when selecting relevant readings, and connecting the readings to interactive in-class activities and hands-on experiences, we hopefully create a course that appeals to Bentley students' varied interests.
[Editor's note: Images created with Frame, framevr.io courtesy Bentley University.]
