2U Studio In a Box

As we all know, the global coronavirus pandemic has suddenly thrust online learning into the center of the public consciousness. As I am writing this article, my son is getting a virtual trombone lesson and my daughter is taking a math class over Zoom. For those of us who have been championing the virtues of online learning over the past many years, online learning's swift and sudden embrace is one of the few silver linings to what is otherwise a catastrophic situation.

That said, those of us who have spent a lot of time delivering learning online also realize that effective, high-quality online learning means much more than simply moving physical classrooms and lessons to video conferences.

Live (synchronous) instruction is only a part of great online learning experiences. On-demand (asynchronous) content plays an equally if not even more important role. The former is merely remote learning. It's only when when you combine it with all the benefits of great digital content that you get truly compelling online learning.

To this end, over the past decade, 2U has made an enormous investment in building the world's best instructional live video, animation, and content production studios in the world. We use these studios to bring learning alive for hundreds of thousands of students on their screens.

That said, building great online learning content - and in particular video content - in the context of "social distancing" is a far greater challenge than using video conferencing to implement remote live learning.

Even before the Coronavirus outbreak we were experimenting with ways to produce learning content more remotely with our faculty partners - in some cases to help us fit filming into our instructors' busy lives, but also to make our videos more authentic, and to place the camera in the center of the action. Just a couple of months ago, before any of us had even heard of COVID-19, we started work on a project called "2U Studio In a Box" to allow our production teams to address this need.

"Studio In a Box" won't ever fully replace the exceptional state-of-the-art production work our teams can do in our physical studios. But thanks to the creativity and innovative spirit of our studio teams, we can now ship to our instructors everything they need - lighting, high-quality web cams and microphones, foldable backdrops - to allow us to produce video remotely from their homes. Our video producers use Zoom sessions to coach and train our faculty partners, and we are able to record incredibly high-quality video live online.

We are still at the beginning of the learning curve in terms of figuring out how to make this all work as effectively as possible. But the early results have been pretty amazing. While we've had our share of early stumbles and lots of lessons learned (for instance, it turns out it's important to iron the backdrop!) many of our faculty partners have not only appreciated the convenience (and safety) of filming from their homes and classrooms, but feel like they are developing a new capability themselves that they can apply beyond the specific course we're building together.

During this evolving crisis, we are all learning new ways of working together. I'm excited that 2U is not only helping students learn online effectively, but that we're also helping faculty to teach effectively in an increasingly virtual world.