Leading US universities enhance online study offering
Harvard University and the University of California are working to improve the online learning experience in their graduate schools of business, using enhanced technology to add value by simulating an in-person classroom experience. Courses are being improved via adaptive learning to help administrators understand the best way to engage students in online coursework, leading to better academic performance. While many students prefer online courses, they still require opportunities to network and engage with teachers and other students.

Collaboration

Making Virtual Classrooms More Interactive

Harvard and UC Berkeley share two different approaches to helping online business school students feel like they're attending class in person.

Harvard Business School's HBX Live studio

You know you have a truly collaborative online instructional platform when students take selfies of themselves posing on a display with their remote instructors. That has actually transpired with people who experience Harvard Business School's HBX Live virtual classroom. The environment — really a high-end production studio with some major technical twists — was introduced a year ago to reproduce in an online format the rich give-and-take that's essential to the school's case method style of teaching.

Located in Boston's WGBH public television station, the studio allows students from anywhere with an internet connection to interact in real time with each other and faculty members. The space is dominated by a semi-circular video wall that's 30 feet wide and 15 feet high, displaying up to 60 students simultaneously — each appearing bigger than life on an LED screen 2.5 feet wide and 2 feet high. Across from that wall hang two 90-inch touch monitors that act as digital blackboards on which the instructor can write or diagram. According to Elizabeth Hess, the senior managing director over HBX Live as well as Harvard Business School's HBX digital learning initiative, instructors work in the studio space with the help of a production crew that manages all of the technical aspects of the setup.

It's hard not to contrast all of that with a much smaller-scale system built for use by the University of California Berkeley Haas School of Business, in which an instructor can sit in front of one or two large touch displays showing all class participants, and call on individual students by tapping on their moving faces. The teacher may or may not have somebody else in the room helping with production aspects.

The virtual classroom system at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business

Both setups were designed with a fundamental purpose: to engage online students and make them feel as if they're physically sitting in the classroom, even to the extent of being hyper-aware that they could be called on at any moment to contribute something to the discussion. In spite of obvious differences, both programs contribute ideas that could help more traditional online initiatives perk up their own efforts.

Capturing Interactivity

Interactivity is an essential aspect for business schools — and other professional schools for that matter. "Learners tend to cite convenience as a driving factor for considering an online or hybrid alternative to a traditional classroom program experience," pointed out Zach McHenry, the manager of course delivery and support for the Berkeley Resource Center for Online Education (BRCOE). But for professional degree seekers, he said, "the networking and peer connection is almost more important than class work."

A new department spun off from the University Extension program, BRCOE helps campus clients with online program development, marketing and recruitment, pedagogical design, media production, and course support and delivery services. In the spring of 2013, Berkeley's business school approached BRCOE about providing a rich "live session" experience in fully online and hybrid MBA classes. The goal: to get beyond the standard online offerings and create a more interactive platform. So often, McHenry noted, "teaching virtually robs instructors of the ability to 'read' their students' facial and body cues; to see who is engaged, confused, distracted or even absent. This makes online instruction feel lonely, disempowering and, too often, more like a lecture than a discussion."