I'm Brian Myers. I'm Mike Ratowick. I'm Becky Hiread. And this is Alpellentz, a podcast featuring tips for ad teachers.
We are your agricultural education resource across the web, sharing research based tips and tackling the tough questions facing agriculture teachers every day. This is Brian with Mike and Becky, and we are back here by the Alpellent, and we are always excited to talk to experts and good friends across the country as part of this podcast, but it's even better when people come back for a second dose. And when they bring friends back with them. And when they bring friends.
So it's like either they like us, I want to show us off to the friends or they're like, or it's like, you won't believe how crazy these folks are. It's like, it's like, come look at the car wreck, the train wreck come with us. Let's not ask them because. But we are excited to have Brittany Heibel and Ryan Anderson joining us back again to talk about their projects and they have brought with them their friend and colleague, Merit Drury to come talk us as well.
Thank you all for joining us here today on Alpellentz. Yeah, happy to be here. It is great. So Brittany, let's start with you.
Why don't you just do a quick introduction of yourself again for those that may have missed your last exciting and phenomenal episode of Alpellentz that you did with us earlier in the season. Why don't you jump on with the introduction for us, please? Awesome. Yeah, I appreciate that.
So my name is Brittany Heibel. I'm a graduate of Texas State University. So I grew up in South Texas and Victoria and went to school at Texas State for Agriculture, Business and Management State. I got my masters in Integrated Ag Science with a big focus on Ag mechanics and especially welding.
So yeah, happy to be here. And I'm Ryan Anderson. I'm assistant professor at the University of Texas State University. So I'm excited to be back here for the second round of President.
Thanks for having me. I'm Merit D'Roui. I am still an assistant professor at Texas State University. This article was kind of out of the norm for me because I research and teach in animal science, especially remnant nutrition.
But I was so spot for welding my dad into pipeline welder. So shout out to him and I'm excited to be here and talk with y'all. I really appreciate someone else who's going to shout out to me. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, Becky's dad listens to it.
So you got to raise the bar. We do that because Becky's dad is like one of our seven listeners. We really appreciate that. We're up seven.
Okay. Yeah, you Brian. Yeah. That's awesome.
So Brittany, give us a kind of an overview of the topic for our conversation today. Yeah, absolutely. So part of my thesis research was looking at the scope of the research around virtual reality technology, specifically virtual reality welding simulations and tools. So the basis of this research paper was to look at all of the research out there and then kind of identify some of the main themes as well as research and teacher recommendations.
We did find some large overarching themes, including like comparing training approaches and looking at VR as a teaching tool and then looking at both system development and testing of VR technology. But we did find some really interesting research recommendations and then school based education teacher recommendations too. So we'll be talking about all that. I really like this thought and idea around this virtual reality and the things that we're going to talk about today.
So first of all, tell us a little bit about what you found and then what that looks like for a planet for a teachers out there. Yeah, absolutely. I would say that, you know, like I said, the main themes were comparing different approaches. So looking at traditional welding training and comparing it to a virtual reality welding training, but some of the research recommendations were looking at more of a deeper dive into that type of study.
So looking at the effects of the VR as a teaching tool. So how does that affect the students? How does it affect the classroom and the teacher student dynamic? And then also comparing the live welding performance to the virtual reality welding performance.
So as we all know, welding in a virtual environment is not the same as welding in a true lab or in the field on a pipeline. So the research recommendations are really surrounding those types of studies. So looking at the practical uses of virtual reality, not just how the simulations work and how it emulates welding. And then another research recommendation that spurred my thesis research was incorporating VR into well training programs.
So at Texas State University, we have a series of welding classes and Dr. Anderson looked at incorporating the virtual reality, which he talked a little bit about in the last episode, y'all had us on. That was a big gap in the research that we used to as a jumping point to do my research study. But the teacher recommendations were really interesting.
So a lot of the recommendations were that teachers should develop their own kind of virtual reality skills. They need to get comfortable in that environment before they go and throw their students to it. And then something that Becky was talking about last episode was that the teachers need to know how to use it and be intentional about that in their classrooms. So you can't just throw your students off into the virtual reality simulation and expect them to know exactly what they're doing.
You can't expect it to replace you as a teacher and you shouldn't expect it to, but you need to be intentional about how you incorporate it and use it in a way that's going to benefit your teaching style and the way that your students learn. Well, I think that's a great, great tips we've got going on there. I think looking at kind of building off our last conversation, we often talk about evaluation as a teaching tool. And I think one of the things you came up here is really I would love for you to talk a little more about your findings and recommendations around how we can use VR, not just as our typical front end teaching, but as evaluation and using that as a training tool as well.
Yeah. So I feel like some of the things we talked about last time, the bipolarity between live welding versus VR and it's either, you know, it's great, it's the perfect situation or it's absolutely not applicable at all. I think a good crossroads for that would be using it to evaluate performance. So if you've got students who feel comfortable in the lab, but you do see some issues with their welds and you want to help them target their weaknesses, I think sending them to the virtual reality lab where they can view the parameters.
So so in a virtual environment, it can show cues or parameters for your travel angle, your travel speed, your position, your aim at a better visual than you can in the lab. So I think using VR to pinpoint those weaknesses and have the opportunity to repetitiously practice without using a lot of consumables without going into the lab and taking up space in there. I think that would be a great opportunity. But do you have anything to add, Dr.
Anderson? Absolutely. So from my instructor standpoint, long before VR, I don't have students that would compare their welders, they would compare their score to some score and they're like, well, I don't understand why I got a 48 and they got a 60. Like he's not scoring me consistently, even though I use the American One Society standards for creating welds.
And so they always kind of fight me a little bit on like, well, you're just being mean to me and you're being unfair. When you get them with VR world, it's 100% consistent across the board. And you're scoring on a 100 point scale and each area of all five parameters are all scored the same way. And so if those two students walked into a VR lab and they had the two dual user stations, once they had this one station or once at that station, they produced the exact same welds that I just graded out there, virtually, they get the feedback right away and it's consistent.
So they can't be like, well, he's just using personal preferences here or not using personal preferences. That machine does not care who you are whatsoever. It cares what you did. And so I think when you look at from an evaluation standpoint, you have consistent grades.
And when you put it on a 100 point scale and you can also focus on each one of the individual that also helps create more immersive learning and the experiential learning piece that we really want to build on. Plus it gives us reflective learning too because we can go back and replay that well and then we can watch it multiple times. And that was that beginning order to go back and go, oh, I guess my argument really was off, even though I kept telling you that that's not the problem. Well, I think my brain goes back to I'm a big baseball guy and baseball players, even in the major leagues, they're going to go back and watch the tape and go back and they may pick up a little tick or something.
They're doing wrong. They're experts in their game, but they're going back to figure out how do I improve my stance or improve whatever else. This is the way for the welder who maybe a professional maybe doing great stuff to go back and just to check for a minute and say, wait a minute, what am I doing going back to those fundamentals to see what would I even make for a grade, but just for some personal improvement to make sure that we're staying on top of a game. I think the flip side of that, that was also a little bit scary of the way I think about what Ryan talking about while I use the AEW standard for grading the weld.
And then I send them in there to have VR grade. I know for me, if I were listening as an I teacher, like when I was teaching, I'd be like, oh, because I didn't use the AEW standards for like, should I have been yes, but I was getting by in teaching welding. I could keep kids safe. I could look at the weld and say, all right?
These are the things we need to do. And so when I think about like, oh, shoot, I'm going to go send them to do the VR might tell them something completely opposite. And I think that really goes back to you when we talk about developing those VR skills. It's not something that's coming in to say like, you're doing a bad job teaching this or you're not evaluating well using this.
But I think when it comes to actually implementing VR to say, where does this fit and how do I as a teacher also develop those skills and where does that come in? Because it's also an opportunity for me to learn both the technology and more about the actual skill in the lab. I think it was part of our findings that we looked at too, was that we brought experience welders and some of the experience welders didn't like the VR environment. And part of it was because the VR environment was telling them what they were doing wrong.
And so we had to remind them a little bit, it's a lot like going to a golf simulator. You may be on hit a golf ball 275 yards, but you're not Tiger Woods. And if you want to start hitting a ball better than Tiger Woods, you need to fix these things to be able to drive that 350 yards. And so while you are good, you're not great.
And here's what we can do to fix those good things become great again. And so I know that looking at experience welders, we look at it more as a professional development checkup as opposed to anything else. And so maybe I did get a little sloppy on my travel angle and over time, I've been over compensation in order to try to still pass, but yet I'm not nailing it perfectly. And so I think VR can be a great way to do just a little checkup and a little professional development and growth plans for those who've been out in the world for a while.
Part of that too, and I'm going to deviate a little bit from the conversation, but it goes back to what Becky's concerns were and maybe what some of our Aang teachers have concerns about because we don't feel like we have the level of expertise or level of knowledge and skill sets to make it happen. But a lot of your work related to this and other conversations we've had is around collaborations and bringing people in. And so talk to us a little bit about the opportunities for collaboration and using the resources that we have around us to support the work we're doing. I'll be the first to med that I talked well, I'm very similar to Becky did for the longest time in my career.
I would go in. They try to make it feel better. I know. I'm going to start somewhere.
So we have part of it. You've got to get in. You've got to get in. You've got to start somewhere.
Some of the things that we've helped me get to the point where I'm now teaching at those standards are participating in different professional development opportunities. So I've gone out to the link and electric and participate in their train the trainer program. We've worked with the Texas High School of Welling Studies, has a teacher institute during the summers, and they bring in AWS CWEs, which started by welding educators, and they've talked us through how to evaluate. And then over time, I've also worked with CWIs and CWEs and have brought those certified welding inspectors into my class and have done inspections weekly with our students.
And if our students pass the CWIs inspection, they now get certified on the spot. And one of the things that I did was really start to listen to the CWIs and try to absorb as much from them on what they're looking at and what they are suggesting and what they're telling our kids. And that's what helped me grow as an educator to be able to start to be at the same level as a CWI. So even now, what we'll do is I'll have a student that will do a self evaluation, I will evaluate it, and then a CWI will evaluate it.
And I'll see how close I am to the CWI on their evaluation and see if I'm being consistent with them. And over the last five years, I've become almost spot on with the CWI. And so that tells me I need to go become a good teacher, the test and become certified, but it took years to get there. So it's not something that you just naturally do from the very beginning, but it's time and absorbing the knowledge around you.
And Ron, I just appreciate you sharing that. And I think to highlight that point is to understand for all of us, for any topic, but especially here for teachers, need to hear it say that the expectation is not that you're at that top level on day one, that you really, and I really appreciate you walking us through kind of your journey to build that skill set and to understand that, you know, those students you had at the beginning weren't getting the same level of feedback that your students today get, but you were still giving them a good experience. And you go with that and you continue to kind of grow and build your knowledge and experience as you go through and do this as the instructor as well from where you start to where you are now. The opportunity for so much grace.
That is one specific content area that takes us that amount of time to build and give yourself some grace with all the content that you're working with and all the different things that you're doing. And I think too, thinking about our local programs, we're all at different stages, we're all have different outcomes that we want to achieve with our local programs. And so Ryan's talking about what he's trying to accomplish at a secondary, post-secondary level, and some of us may only be teaching a unit. So we're barely introducing it.
And we are letting students just kind of burn a little bit of rod and get to know what it feels like. And it's like, hey, this might be fun. I want to go on to a community college or a specialized program for welding down the road. And we're not preparing expert welders as juniors in high school either.
So we don't learn that. Yeah. But yet there are some programs, and I know Texas and other, several other states, they have some really high level welding programs at their high school levels. And so then it would be appropriate.
No one wants appropriate. And what we want to achieve, I think, is an important aspect of the conversation we need to have. Well, and kind of building on this idea of collaboration that you've kind of danced around a little bit, but just kind of knowing that this is a team sport. You mentioned this a couple times Ryan of dealing with those different inspectors and the educators, but can you talk a little bit more about how you intentionally built those collaborations?
And then maybe how other teachers could use that, what you've learned from building collaborations to make this work in their own programs as well? Well, I'm very intentional about developing industry partnerships as much as possible. When Brittany was a graduate student here, I think we had two results. Once a week we were bringing somebody in from a different aspect of the industry, trying to promote our brand, trying to promote our program, and trying to promote our students, and trying to create collaborations, trying to develop internship opportunities, and post-graduate careers.
And funding opportunities. Yes. That was the underlying theme of all the things. I'm going to throw it out there for those who missed it.
So I started out with the very simple things. I started out with bringing in our regional reps for the different welding companies, and then I just kind of explained to my network, okay, now I'm starting to bring in some of the HR directors from the local welding related companies, and then we kind of get branching out from there, and just continually trying to bring in different people to A, Ira students, B, develop connections with our program, and then C, kind of serve as an external advisory committee members almost, and give us more feedback, and they walk through like, hey, we see that you were certain with this, can we help you with this? And so Brittany's company that she was from now has been a tremendous partner. Xylem has done a great job.
They walked out, and even though they don't specifically focus on welding, Brittany's boss walked in and goes, hey, I noticed that you had been spending a lot of time cutting steel, and Brittany will probably roll her eyes, because the amount of hours that she has spent at a band saw cutting steel, and her boss goes, you know, we can just pay for all that, and have it done, and you don't have to do any of that. I would have never thought to ask her, boss Jacob for 10,000 pieces of steel, and he's like, oh, don't get 10,000, I'll go ahead and buy 16,000 pieces of steel. So he bought enough steel for us to teach for two full years, and now it'll have to spend hours upon hours on a band saw cutting pieces of coupon, and it's all because we had a partnership where we brought Xylem through, they talked to our students, and they saw a need, and they've set up and told us what we needed, just from what they saw. And so you have people want to do that.
The welding industry is one of those industries that knows that they need to connect with high school students, high school teachers, and colleges as well, because they know that they have a gap, they need to fill that gap, and they're willing to help. We could probably do an entire out-pilot session on the Texas High School Welding Series, the things they're doing, and how that can be replicated across the nation, and how cool that is. But I know that that will still break me a Sunday day, so I'm not gonna talk about that. What far is this?
There's a get board, go find the Texas High School Welding Series and just read that. What they're doing for kids is cool. And they are connecting kids with CW guys, and they are connecting them with one certification. And I think no matter where in Iowa, Florida, Nebraska, Texas, we can all do those things, and it's not a whole overload on the teacher themselves having to be the expert.
They just have to connect the dots. I think what I'm taking home is let people in to find and meet your needs. Like letting somebody in to the coupon example, like having somebody say, hey, I can do that, where I wouldn't even thought to ask. Well, and again, the thing that you were doing there too, that you just didn't naturally, but not to highlight it is, you were bringing people in to actually learn and provide input.
You didn't lead with the, hey, I need this from you. Yes, you wanted them to invest, and yes, you wanted them to donate, but unfortunately so often we go from our needs, like I need someone to donate money for a machine, or I need them to donate money, and that's not how you wanna begin the conversation. You begin the conversation, you brought people in to sayin', look what we're doing, how does this connect with what you wanna do, and learning from them, and that helped open up the wallet, in the checkbook later on to do that as well, but also for a more intentional and more effective way of doing it. I think also another important thing that maybe Dr.
Anderson did mention that he really had throughout my whole time at the program was that he had a vision. So telling people about what your vision, what your ideal situation is for your program, or goals that you have for your kids, I mean that is so important because that's what people are gonna connect with, and that's what they're gonna wanna help you get to where you wanna be. So Anderson telling them, hey, this is my dream scenario for our welding program, I'd love to get here. Here's what I'm missing, here's what I need, letting people know what you need without necessarily just asking and putting your hand out for it.
I think that's a great way to show maybe areas where you need improvement and then giving opportunity to people to help you get where you wanna be. Yeah, Brady, I think it's a great way to end this conversation because I think what you got here is this is a great example of what you've all done in the area of welding, and other can replicate that in welding, but I think those principles are also gonna be the same thing what we're talking about in the green industry, with the greenhouse or in the animal sciences or whoever else kind of having that mindset, and you all have provided a great model for all of us to look at as we try to build our programs, whether it is in welding or in other areas as well. So y'all, thank you so much for being with us today here on this episode of Alpelite, you're doing phenomenal work, appreciate that you've shared this with us. There's a lot of great resources, there's a lot of great experiences that are happening there that Ryan and his crew put on for teachers and other people across the state or across the country to be able to check those out, some really cool professional development opportunities as well as other resources that are available there.
So thank you all for joining us today here on Alpelite. We hope you've enjoyed this episode of Alpelite, check out our website for more information on this topic and to learn more about our guests. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to stay connected and be sure to subscribe to our podcast so you'll never miss an episode. For Mike and Becky, this is Brian here by the Alpelite saying, thank you and we look forward to seeing you again on another episode of Alpelite's Tips for Egg Teachers.