How Maria College Transformed Nursing Education with VR and ManageXR

Summary

Maria College has redefined nursing education through immersive learning, growing their deployment from 30 to 150 VR headsets with ManageXR. Led by Jason Coley, Founding Director of the Center for Academic Innovation, the college uses VR to give students hands-on experience before entering clinical settings.

ManageXR enables Maria College to deploy content, monitor devices, and troubleshoot remotely, ensuring every student’s VR session runs smoothly. 

Key Takeaways

• VR empowers nursing students to practice realistic clinical scenarios at any time, helping them build confidence, sharpen their critical thinking skills, and prepare for real-world patient care.
• With ManageXR, Maria College gained centralized device control, effortless troubleshooting, and powerful usage analytics. As a result, they scaled their pilot VR program into a campus-wide initiative, 
• Successful VR programs share the same foundation: a clear vision, early faculty involvement, a focus on student comfort, and a scalable infrastructure supported by reliable device management through ManageXR.

When Jason Coley became the Founding Director of Maria College’s Center for Academic Innovation, he knew immersive technology could change the way students learn. What he didn’t know was just how much it would transform the institution.

Maria College has reimagined nursing education. Their program initially began with 30 VR headsets and has grown to more than 140, extending access across multiple programs.

What is driving the growth of their VR program? A strong commitment to scaling strategically and a partnership with ManageXR to simplify VR management and deployment.

The challenges with traditional nursing training

In nursing education, students typically progress from classroom lectures to low-fidelity skills labs, where they can practice simple procedures, such as inserting catheters. Then, they proceed to simulation labs equipped with high-fidelity mannequins. These mannequins are highly technical; you can change the mannequin’s dilation of its pupils, as well as its breathing rate or temperature. Once students have met the requirements for working with high-fidelity mannequins, they proceed to the final training stage: clinical rotations with real patients.

This pathway is highly complex, where students must master each stage before progressing to the next. While effective, this training process has some limitations:

• Mannequins are costly. A single high-quality mannequin can cost $100,000 or more and requires specialized staff to maintain it.
• Clinical experiences vary. Depending on their rotations, students will encounter different medical scenarios, creating discrepancies in their expertise. Some students may be assigned to work in an ER, while others may be assigned to specialized clinics. This leaves students with gaps in their knowledge: they might be well-versed in some medical situations, but inexperienced in others.
• Faculty time is stretched. Faculty have limited time to train and observe students. Supervising these practice sessions and ensuring proper technique requires full faculty attention that could be better utilized on higher-impact uses, such as working with students one-on-one.

Coley saw an opportunity to use VR to enhance nursing training, so that “before students ever meet their first human patient, they've had many hours of simulation practice.”

“VR is a force multiplier,” he explains. It amplifies the work of staff and faculty.

How VR helps nursing students build confidence

In Maria College’s VR labs, students interact with virtual patients across a range of realistic scenarios, from delivering pediatric care to navigating difficult family conversations. These simulations allow students to practice without the pressure of real-world consequences.

Unlike traditional mannequins, VR is available anytime and anywhere. “Every student can access a virtual patient 24/7,” says Coley. This flexibility ensures that learning doesn’t stop when lab hours end.

Because VR headsets are less resource-intensive than mannequins, students can practice frequently on a variety of clinical situations. Physical mannequins are reserved for fine motor skill development, while VR is sufficient for learning decision-making, communication, and critical thinking.

How the VR Labs Work

The VR program began with a single nursing class. Up to 20 students can participate in the immersive learning sessions simultaneously, thanks to a simple setup that uses floor mats to define each participant’s space. Before entering the program, students go through onboarding and training to ensure they understand the technology and can navigate the experience with minimal assistance.

Building on the popularity of the initial VR nursing class, Coley leveraged the program’s momentum to secure new grants and expand into additional disciplines:

• Graduate Occupational Therapy (MSOT): Every student and faculty member receives a headset as part of their Master's Occupational Therapy program. The class meets twice a month in-person, but VR enables continued collaboration and practice between meetings.
• Ovation Communication Platform: Ovation combines immersive technology with generative AI to simulate authentic patient interactions. Through this VR application, students can conduct realistic therapy sessions with AI-powered virtual patients in VR environments. Students develop communication skills in a controlled and repeatable setting without requiring live role-players.
• Surgical Technologist Training: Students learn how to position and handle surgical instruments. In real-world training, the number of available tools is limited, but VR removes these constraints by providing access to an unlimited range of instruments for practice.
• Anatomy and Physiology Training in VR: In VR, nursing students can access detailed 3D anatomical models and virtual lectures at any time, eliminating the cost, storage, and maintenance challenges associated with physical mannequins.

Challenges on the Road to Scale

Scaling from one VR program to several requires careful planning and attention. Coley describes the key challenges he needed to overcome in order to expand his VR deployment:

Faculty Buy-In: 

Some instructors were skeptical of VR technology at first, believing it would be too time-consuming to manage and underestimating the quality of the virtual learning environment. Coley won over the faculty by involving them directly in the program planning process. He invited them to demo applications, share feedback, and voice concerns. As faculty became more involved, they began to see the full potential of VR.‍

Student Comfort

Building positive first experiences is essential. When students leave a VR session thinking, “That was actually really cool—I can see how this could be useful,” they’re more likely to embrace it.

Comfort plays a critical role in creating a positive VR experience. The team learned early on that headsets must accommodate different head sizes, hairstyles, and eyewear. Some students hesitated to wear headsets because they didn’t want to smudge their makeup. To make setup stress-free, Maria College invested in head straps and user-friendly headset designs. Additionally, hygiene concerns prompted the introduction of UV sanitization to disinfect headsets between uses.

Data & Evaluation

When the VR initiative first launched under a grant, the team was required to report measurable outcomes tied to specific goals and successes. To meet these reporting requirements, the team brought on a data scientist to help gather evidence of the program’s effectiveness.

They used QR code-based surveys to collect feedback on student satisfaction and leveraged built-in analytics from applications like Ovation, which logs user actions. This data provided insights into student performance and informed future adjustments.

Scaling your VR deployment is iterative: “building the airplane while learning to fly it,” as Coley described. No VR program is perfect at the start, but successful programs collect feedback, analyze trends, and continuously adapt. 

Infrastructure

It is essential to have the right technical foundation to support several VR devices. Early in the deployment process, the team encountered challenges with remote casting from their headsets. It turned out to be a problem with their Wi-Fi bandwidth. This experience highlighted the importance of strong network for VR, where high bandwidth and consistent connectivity are crucial. Read ManageXR’s XR Network Survival Guide to learn everything you need to know about setting up your Wi-Fi network for your VR deployment.

Amid technical challenges, Coley and his team stayed driven by a clear vision for the program. “Having a vision is one of the most important things. These are expensive technologies, and they change a lot. That means that you have to be invested, you have to stay on the news, and you have to be connected to what's going on with this emerging technology.”

Why Maria College trusts ManageXR to manage their devices

As Maria College grew from 30 to more than 140 devices, device management became a critical bottleneck.

“We have 150 headsets, and the idea of not having them on some kind of management device system would terrify me,” Coley says. “Just like in any other institution, you have your laptops or computers that you loan out to students, and you have to install specific software to make sure that these devices do only what you want them to do.”

ManageXR provided the necessary infrastructure to manage VR headsets remotely. For example, faculty can monitor simulations across several headsets simultaneously. Instead of walking each student through menus or troubleshooting setup issues one by one, instructors can remotely place students into the correct VR application. 

ManageXR also offered essential backend data and troubleshooting tools. When technical issues arose, such as connectivity disruptions or unexplained headset errors, the platform would flag errors and report device activity, allowing IT to retrace their steps and identify the source of the problem. 

ManageXR’s responsive customer support, help documentation, and proven reliability for over 2,000 customers cemented its role as the foundation of Maria College’s immersive learning infrastructure. Coley explains “Our prime directive is that every student must be comfortable inside the headset.” ManageXR is essential in making VR experiences frictionless for students and faculty alike.

For Maria College, ManageXR provides:

• Centralized Control: Faculty can launch apps across dozens of headsets simultaneously, ensuring every student has the same experience and stays on task.
• Troubleshooting & Data: Built-in diagnostics help faculty and IT staff quickly identify and solve issues, such as Wi-Fi connectivity problems or app download failures.
• Analytics & Insights: Usage data enables faculty to identify which applications are most engaging and where students may require additional support, providing measurable outcomes for continued program funding.

Essential Tips for Your VR program

For colleges and universities considering immersive learning, Coley offers clear advice:

1. Start with Vision: Every great VR initiative begins with a clear purpose. Coley emphasizes that VR should enhance the curriculum. Define what educational outcomes you want to achieve, whether that’s improving clinical decision-making, building communication skills, or expanding access to virtual labs, and let that vision guide every purchase and deployment decision.
2. Win Faculty Support: Instructors are the bridge between technology and learning. Involve them early in the process by allowing them to test applications, share feedback, and co-design lesson plans. When faculty see how VR solves real classroom challenges, they become champions for adoption rather than skeptics.‍
3. Prioritize Student Comfort: A student’s first impression of VR determines whether they’ll embrace or resist it. Invest in comfortable, well-fitted headsets, accommodate different needs (like glasses, hairstyles, or makeup concerns), and create a welcoming environment for first-time users. The goal is for every student to leave their first session thinking, “That was easier than I expected.”‍
4. Make VR Engaging: Don’t overlook the fun factor. Incorporate game-like elements, interactive scenarios, or lighthearted activities to help students relax and explore the technology. A sense of enjoyment fosters curiosity, lowers anxiety, and makes the experience more memorable.‍
5. Prove ROI Through Data: From the start, establish methods to track learning outcomes and engagement. Use built-in analytics tools or surveys to identify trends in user satisfaction and retention. These insights not only justify the investment to stakeholders but also help improve the program’s effectiveness over time.‍
6. Plan for Scale with ManageXR: As your program grows, managing devices manually becomes unmanageable. A robust MDM like ManageXR allows you to deploy apps, monitor devices, and troubleshoot remotely, saving time and ensuring every student’s experience is consistent. It also provides valuable backend data for technical support and usage analytics.

See our full guide to piloting VR in the classroom, for more expert tips on running a successful VR program.

Conclusion: A Vision Realized Through Immersive Learning

What began as a small experiment in Maria College’s nursing classes has grown into a scalable, data-driven program spanning multiple disciplines. By focusing on clear goals, faculty collaboration, and student comfort, the college built a sustainable model for immersive learning that enhances traditional methods.

With ManageXR providing essential device management and oversight, the program runs smoothly across more than 150 headsets. The result is a reliable, frictionless experience for students and instructors alike.

As Jason Coley puts it, “If a picture is worth a thousand words, a VR experience is worth a million.” For Maria College, that idea continues to guide their work: using immersive learning to prepare students for real medical situations in ways no lecture or lab ever could.