Toward Sustainable Fashion Product Development: The use of 3D Virtual Prototyping Technologies in the Synchronous Remote Learning Classroom

This study examined the use of 3D garment prototyping technology as a remote learning facilitator to create new instructional designs for a product development course. The new instructional designs in a flipped learning approach for the remote, synchronous computer-aided fashion product development course was created, implemented, and evaluated within the Addie framework at one of the largest fashion colleges in the U.S. The students’ submitted final semester projects demonstrated that the new instructional designs were effective for the students’ synchronous remote learning achievement at a high level. The students had an enormous experiential learning experience from the instructor-student collaborative 3D avatar fashion show promoted on the college website and social media. The outcomes of this research can be used as a toolkit to create a new instructional design using a 3D prototyping technology as a learning facilitation tool in a synchronous remote classroom. More research must be conducted to focus on challenges in helping all students adapt to novel online learning environments. The current study must be further expanded to determine the use of other 3D prototyping technologies in different remote courses across disciplines.