THE CHALLENGE: GIVING STUDENTS THE BEST POSSIBLE CHANCE TO SUCCEED

Merced introduced Dreamscape Learn’s immersive biology experiences inside the college’s Interdisciplinary Academic Center, where students step into cinematic worlds to investigate ecosystems, solve scientific problems and collaborate through story-driven learning.

Early results have been encouraging. Across 2025-26 BIOL-02 (Human Biology) sections, students in Dreamscape Learn-enhanced courses had a 94% course completion rate, compared with 82.7% in non-Dreamscape sections — an 11.3-percentage-point difference. Course success rates were 80% in Dreamscape-enhanced sections compared with 57.4% in non-Dreamscape sections, a 22.6-point difference.

Students also responded positively to the immersive approach. In a post-course survey, one student said, “It was great! I felt excited to come to class to see what we would learn. I think it helps with visual learning, which I prefer.” Another student wrote, “It is interesting to learn this way rather than just seeing the images and videos.”

At the same time, Dreamscape Learn is helping faculty imagine what’s possible beyond biology.

Across agriculture, psychology, automotive technology, Spanish, and other programs, instructors are already identifying immersive experiences they want to create with the Dreamscape Developer Kit, expanding immersive learning into disciplines across the college.

Like many school leaders, Dr. Jennifer Cruz was seeing students become less engaged with school, particularly in middle school. The signs were clear: attendance, classroom behavior, assignment completion and the quality of student work all reflected whether students saw purpose in what they were being asked to do. 

​

“We were seeing a drop-off in motivation,” said Dr. Jennifer Cruz, superintendent of Pendergast Elementary School District. “Students just weren’t seeing the why behind the work.” 

For Dr. Cruz and her team, the issue was not student ability. It was a mismatch between students’ lives outside school and the way they were often asked to learn inside school. 

​

Pendergast serves a diverse student population in west Phoenix, and district leaders worried that too many students were being left behind by a system that no longer matched how young people learn, connect and pay attention. Students were growing 

up in a world shaped by immersive media, gaming and digital storytelling. School needed to give them learning experiences that felt more active, relevant and worth their effort. 

“We have a significant engagement challenge because of the structural problem that we face,” Dr. Cruz said. “Students live with technology. They form relationships through

Merced College serves one of California’s most diverse and underserved regions. More than 70% of students receive financial aid, and nearly half are first-generation college students. For President Chris Vitelli, that creates a responsibility to ensure students have access to the same innovative learning experiences available at leading universities.  

Dreamscape Learn gave Merced a way to invest in the kind of world-class learning experiences its students deserve while creating experiences they couldn’t access anywhere else. In a time when learning can happen almost anywhere, those experiences give students meaningful reasons to come to campus.