哈佛商学院试水在线教育

    “在最早的谈话中，”哈佛商学院资深副院长，MBA项目主管扬米•穆恩说。“我们只是看了看这一领域的动态。电视刚发明出来的时候，他们在舞台前摆上一架摄像机来录制节目。（在线教育）现在也处于这个阶段，人们依然是在教室里摆上摄像机来捕捉授课内容。”

    哈佛商学院的在线学习研发团队早早就决定拥抱新技术，用它来更深入地接触学生，而不是提供一种静态的课堂体验。2013年1月份，它决定开发自己的专有软件平台，以实现这些目标。

    “我们正在与几家致力于数字化转型的传媒公司合作，”巴拉特•阿南德说。去年9月份，他被任命为哈佛在线平台HBX的首席教授。“我们最初觉得根本没办法复制哈佛商学院课堂的神奇之处。所以就进行了数字化升级。我们问自己：‘究竟是什么让哈佛商学院的课堂如此独特？’有两个原则：1) 行动学习。我们把它称为案例教学法，但它其实是一种积极的学习方式。学生们不只是走进教室，听老师讲。他们还从始至终亲自参与其中。在哈佛商学院，你不仅仅是一位游客。 2) 案例教学法并不是以简单的理念开始，逐步增大复杂性。我们一开始就把你扔到深水区，从复杂性开始，然后一个猛子扎下去。”

    这个团队随后选择了一个哈佛商学院目前还没有进入的细分市场。“我们开始思考我们怎样才能产生真正的影响力，”穆恩说。“我们已经拥有了MBA和高管培训项目，所以我们开始把注意力集中在另一个潜在市场，即那些缺乏基础商业知识的本科生。”

    受Facebook和LinkedIn等社交网络和在线游戏门户网站的启发，哈佛商学院最终打造了一个高度直观的学习平台。它的专有软件平台不是用一台摄像机对准一位正在授课的教授，而是模拟著名的哈佛案例教学法，时常冷不丁地向个别学生提问，根据学生在网上课堂的参与度为学生打分。

    哈佛商学院已经为在线项目全新开发了15个鲜活案例。在这些视频短片中，主人公正在应对各种商业挑战，其中既涉及众多知名公司，比如苹果( Apple)、亚马逊(Amazon)、谷歌(Google)、迪斯尼(Disney)、纽约时报(The New York Times)和哈乐斯娱乐公司(Harrah's）的赌场，也包括一些规模较小的初创企业，比如一家高温瑜伽工作室和一家位于波士顿的机票代理商。教授们时不时地出现在视频上，引导讨论、提供背景和分析视角。

    两度荣膺哈佛商学院教学成果奖的战略学教授阿南德将讲授一个名为管理经济学的课程。珍妮丝•哈蒙德将执教商业分析课，她曾经在哈佛商学院向那些未来的诗人们（即没有雄厚数学背景的学生）传授MBA预备项目的基础知识。哈佛商学院会计学和管理学首席教授V•G•纳拉亚南将讲授财务会计课。

    登陆HBX平台后，大家会立刻看到一张布满脉动点的地图，每个脉动点代表着另一位正在平台上学习的学生。点击任何一个点，屏幕上会弹出一位学生的照片，连同他或她的姓名和简历。点击这张照片，人们将看到他或她一系列的专业兴趣和个人爱好，从理想职业，到最喜爱的乐队，再到人生榜样，不一而足。系统会问你刻的感受，是“迷茫”，“开心”，还是“很有启发”。你的情绪状态是公开的，其他同学都可以看到。

    你可以追踪你的每门课相对于其他同学的学习进度。每期学生将一起完成在线课程，一起通过一系列门槛。学生必须完成学习任务，电话提问和相关项目。阿南德说：“你必须跟上项目和期限，否则就会挂科的。”

    "In the earliest conversations," says Youngme Moon, senior associate dean and chair of the MBA program at Harvard Business School, "we simply looked at what was out there. When TV was first invented, they put a camera in front of a stage and taped plays. It's at the point where people are still putting cameras in classrooms to capture lectures."

    The HBS group made an early determination to embrace the technology, using it to more deeply engage students rather than delivering a static classroom experience. The school decided in January 2013 that it would have to develop its own proprietary software platform to accomplish those goals.

    "We are piggybacking on media companies that have tried to make the digital transition," says Bharat Anand, who was named faculty chair of HBX, Harvard's online platform, last September. "We said there is no way you can replicate the magic that goes on in an HBS classroom. So we created a digital upgrade. We asked, 'What is it that makes an HBS class special? There are two principles: 1) Action learning. We call it the case method but it is an active way to learn. People don't just come in and listen. They participate. People are all in, all the time. You're not a tourist at HBS. And 2) The case method does not start with simple ideas and build to complexity. We throw you into the deep end. We start with complexity and then dive down."

    The group then selected a market segment in which HBS does not currently have an offering. "We began to think about how we could make a real difference," says Moon. "We have MBA and executive education, so the space we began to narrow in on is undergraduates who lack the basic language of business."

    What HBS has come up with is a highly intuitive learning platform that is inspired by social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn as well as online gaming portals. Rather than putting a camera in front of a lecturing professor, the school's proprietary software platform mimics Harvard's famous case study approach, replete with cold calls to individual students and grades based on participation in online classrooms.

    The school has developed a new series of 15 live cases for the online program, with video snippets of protagonists who grapple with various business challenges at a wide range of well-known companies including Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN), Google (GOOG), Disney (DIS), The New York Times (NYT), and Harrah's casinos as well as at smaller entrepreneurial outfits, including a Bikram yoga studio and a Boston ticket reseller. Professors pop up on video to guide a discussion or provide context and perspective.

    Anand, a strategy professor who is a two-time winner of teaching awards at HBS, is teaching a class called economics for managers. Janice Hammond, who has taught pre-MBA boot camps to incoming poets (those without significant math backgrounds) at HBS, is teaching the course on business analytics. V.G. Narayanan, who chairs the accounting and management faculty unit at HBS, is teaching financial accounting.

    When students log into the HBX platform, they will immediately see a map with pulsating dots, each dot representing another student currently on the platform. Click on any of the dots and a photo of a student pops up on the screen, along with his or her name and bio. Click on the photo and up comes a list of professional and personal passions and interests, from an individual's dream job to their favorite band and role model. Students are asked how they are feeling at the moment, from "confused" or "happy" to "inspired," their moods visible to fellow classmates.

    Students can track their progress in each course against their peers. Each cohort will move through the program together, passing through a series of gates, during which assignments, cold calls, and projects must be completed. "You need to keep up with projects and deadlines or you get dropped out of the course," says Anand.