New Virtual Classrooms Expand Digital Learning

Fast forward six years and online learning—and the need for it—has evolved significantly, leading the School to expand and move the operation onto campus. The original classroom has been replaced with two new larger classrooms—increasing flexibility and capacity from 60 participants to nearly 200.

“These HBS Live Online classrooms are designed to look and feel like our physical classrooms and to be congruent with our pedagogy,” explains Ron Chandler, chief information officer. “The richness of the classroom experience has everything to do with the level of interactivity between faculty and students, and these virtual classrooms provide a better online experience.”

Students log in from their respective computers all over the world and, through a custom interface, their faces appear on a curved video wall in the virtual classroom. The professor stands in front of the video wall—similar to the pit of an Aldrich physical classroom. The students and professor can easily see and speak with each other.

Off camera in the control room, production staff “direct the show,” says Dustin Hilt, director of HBS Live programming. “We’ve combined video conferencing software with television production hardware and techniques to create a much more interactive, engaging experience,” explains Hilt. “We control the technology, including multiple cameras, so the students can focus on the class.”

The new classrooms will be a School-wide resource—for Executive Education, MBA, doctoral, and HBS Online courses; alumni events and meetings; and other special programs.

The pandemic drove the accelerated completion of the two classrooms to accommodate the June start of a new online version of Executive Education’s Program for Leadership Development. “Last spring, we had to cancel or postpone a number of upcoming programs,” notes Nancy DellaRocco, executive director of Executive Education. “We could not have reopened our doors virtually so quickly without the new classrooms. The timing was fortuitous.”

In recent years, Chandler explains, HBS has been experimenting with digital learning—to complement the flagship case method and field-based learning. “These virtual classrooms are an important step in refining and expanding this effort,” says Chandler.