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We study student experiences of social VR for remote instruction, with students attending class from home. The study evaluates student experiences when: (1) viewing remote lectures with VR headsets, (2) viewing with desktop displays, (3) presenting with VR headsets, and (4) reflecting on several weeks of VR-based class attendance. Students rated factors such as presence, social presence, simulator sickness, communication methods, avatar and application features, and tradeoffs with other remote approaches. Headset-based viewing and presenting produced higher presence than desktop viewing, but had less-clear impact on overall experience and on most social presence measures. We observed higher attentional allocation scores for headset-based presenting than for both viewing methods. For headset VR, there were strong negative correlations between simulator sickness (primarily reported as general discomfort) and ratings of co-presence, overall experience, and some other factors. This suggests that comfortable users experienced substantial benefits of headset viewing and presenting, but others did not. Based on the type of virtual environment, student ratings, and comments, reported discomfort appears related to physical ergonomic factors or technical problems. Desktop VR appears to be a good alternative for uncomfortable students, and students report that they prefer a mix of headset and desktop viewing. We additionally provide insight from students and a teacher about possible improvements for VR class technology, and we summarize student opinions comparing viewing and presenting in VR to other remote class technologies. 

We demonstrate a system that sequences teacher avatar clips considering student eye tracking. We are investigating subjective suitability of avatar responses to student misunderstandings or inattention. Three different avatar behaviors are demonstrated to allow a teacher pedagogical agent to behave more appropriately to student attention or distraction. An in-game mobile device provides an experiment control mechanism for 2 levels of distractions. 

Drifting student attention is a common problem in educational environments. We demonstrate 8 attention-restoring visual cues for display when eye tracking detects that student attention shifts away from critical objects. These cues include novel aspects and variations of standard cues that performed well in prior work on visual guidance. Our cues are integrated into an offshore training system on an oil rig. While students participate in training on the oil rig, we can compare our various cues in terms of performance and student preference, while also observing the impact of eye tracking. We demonstrate experiment software with which users can compare various cues and tune selected parameters for visual quality and effectiveness.