According to many studies, online education remains the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. higher education market, and has become an important feature of postsecondary education worldwide. Harvard DCE continues to take advantage of this trend, sponsoring more than 1200 courses with an online option at Harvard Extension and Summer School in 2024-25 of which approximately 50 are daytime Harvard College or Harvard Graduate School of Education offerings.  

A substantial fraction of the online courses are synchronous “web conferences” using software that facilitates real-time voice and video, as well as application sharing. In non-pandemic times, a number of our online courses are taught in classrooms that make live streaming possible (e.g., the two largest Maxwell-Dworkin lecture halls that DCE renovated), thereby enabling synchronous student participation. Shown here is a partial view of the control room adjoining room G115 at Maxwell-Dworkin: 

Our approach to providing HyFlex (i.e., Hybrid and Flexible) teaching and learning experiences uses technical infrastructure and thoughtful AV design and support which we call HELIX (Harvard Extension Live Interactive eXperience).  Several classrooms have been renovated and equipped to enable HELIX.  

Teaching faculty members indicate that HELIX removes the sense of distance and the feeling of isolation associated with synchronous online teaching and learning. What seems special about teaching and learning with HELIX is the increased sense of immersion and feeling of agency that students and instructors experience. The disengagement of ordinary remote interaction disappears, and instructors and students interact fluidly and “look each other in the eye.” It feels “like being there” because the experience is natural, the participants are ready and able to play their parts, and there is support to make it all work.

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, and recognizing the need to create blended learning environments at scale, my DCE Innovation team designed and engineered the Helix Portable Classroom solution, a prototype that allows us to turn any classroom on campus into a HELIX Classroom for a fraction of the cost of a traditional classroom AV renovation. 

An early prototype version of this system was first deployed in the spring of 2021, during the pandemic, when the Dean of FAS allowed the on-campus students in my CS1 course (and 2 other courses) to attend a live class meeting in Harvard Hall, with the remaining students participating at the same time using Zoom from remote locations.  The successful experiment was featured in Harvard Magazine: https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2021/04/harvard-pilots-in-person-teaching-for-fall

Our "Portable HELIX Classroom" is an inexpensive alternative to fixed renovations, provides flexibility to offer high-quality hybrid experiences in a “pop-up” manner. Portable HELIX was selected by Educause as an “Exemplar Project” for the 2023 Horizon Report. It was awarded a 2024 Eduventures Innovation Award at the annual summit in Chicago, Illinois on June 13, 2024. a video explanation of the system: