This paper presents findings from the pre-piloting phase of the PAIDEIA Project, a European initiative designed to enhance teachers’ competencies for the responsible and effective integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in education. The study engaged 12 teachers and educational experts who interacted with an initial curriculum developed using a spiral design and aligned with the DigCompEdu and UNESCO AI Competency Frameworks. Data were gathered through usability testing, structured feedback sessions, and task-based reflections to evaluate the curriculum’s clarity, relevance, and practical applicability. Results reveal high levels of participant engagement and interest, alongside considerable variation in baseline AI knowledge. These findings underscore the importance of scaffolded learning pathways, contextualised classroom examples, and explicit ethical guidance. Participants particularly valued hands-on activities, collaborative dialogue, and authentic classroom scenarios. At the same time, they identified areas for improvement, including clearer terminology, enhanced assessment checkpoints, and more comprehensive guidance materials. Insights from this pre-pilot phase informed targeted curriculum refinements, establishing an evidence-based foundation for subsequent large-scale piloting across European schools. The paper discusses implications for teacher professional development, AI literacy, and the ethical integration of AI within educational practice.

In recent years, Virtual Reality (VR) has gained prominence as an effective pedagogical tool for Initial Teacher Education (ITE) (Zhu & Su, 2025). One form of VR simulation that is attracting increasing attention within ITE is that of VR classrooms (Li et al., 2024). Evidence suggests that VR classroom simulations afford Pre‑Service Teachers (PSTs) immersive and interactive learning experiences which enable them to practice teaching and develop greater assurance in their pedagogical capabilities, within the context of low-stakes experimentation (Gorman et al., 2025). A variety of approaches exists to enabling VR-simulated teaching experiences for PSTs, including the PST standing in front of a large digital screen while teaching, or wearing a head-mounted display (HMD) that cover the user’s full vision to create a more sensory immersive experience. However, in many cases, the PST remains in a stationary physical position while teaching within the virtual classroom, and often their hands are occupied with holding VR controllers or engaging with physical devices to mimic real-life actions within the virtual environment (e.g. pressing control buttons, picking up and/or moving classroom objects) which may have a limiting effect on the realism of the simulation when compared to real-life settings.

Situated within the context of an ongoing design-based research project to construct a Virtual Reality classroom for the purpose of cultivating inclusive teaching practices on the part of pre-service teachers, this paper reports on developments undertaken on the VR classroom to enhance the realism of the practice teaching experience. This includes walking and moving within a physical space to mirror movement within and around the VR classroom, and the implementation of a number of hand-tracking features to allow the PSTs to teach ‘hands free’ (without holding VR controllers). The piloting of these developments took place with a cohort of second-year concurrent ITE pre-service teachers. Following an initial group briefing, each PST engaged in teaching a short pre-assigned informal lesson within the VR classroom, and then took part in focus-group interviews to share their opinions of the VR experience. These interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, and thematically analysed.

Findings indicate that pre‑service teachers experienced the VR classroom as highly immersive, citing natural walking, clear spatial orientation, intuitive hand-gesture controls, and realistic classroom layout. Interactive features such as object handling and in-app PowerPoint slide control augmented this sense of authentic teaching. However, limitations were also voiced, including non‑interactive animation‑like avatars and a shortage of typical classroom teaching resources. Suggested improvements included the need for more authentic and interactive avatars with a range of behaviours, a greater variety of classroom layouts, and additional manipulable teaching resources. Overall, participants described the VR classroom as a compelling and immersive simulation that supported authentic enactment of teaching behaviours, and recognised its potential as a valuable preparatory tool for pre-service teachers to enable experimentation, build confidence, and rehearse strategies to accommodate diverse learner needs.

References

Gorman, A., Tiernan, P., Donlon, E., & Boylan, P. (2025). Bridging the coursework-placement gap: implementing an AI-enabled VR environment to support student teachers’ experiential learning. European Journal of Teacher Education, 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/02619768.2025.2555482

Li, L., Hu, Y., Yang, X., Wu, M., Tao, P., Chen, M., & Yang, C. (2024). Enhancing pre-service teachers’ classroom management competency in a large class context: the role of fully immersive virtual reality. Humanities & Social Sciences Communications, 11(1), 1050. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-03538-9

Zhu, Y., & Su, Y.-S. (2025). Virtual reality trends and challenges in teacher education: a systematic literature review. Interactive Learning Environments, 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2025.2482585