Online Pivot at Scale - Global Ed Provider

Challenge:

The pandemic created dual crises for a leading international education company in 2020: the shutdown of a successful international classroom platform and the potential loss of all new fall revenue as international students could no longer travel to the US for the fall semester. An opportunity emerged to leverage the expertise, content, and technology of the existing team to develop an online, device-based learning solution.

Solutions Implemented:

Building on curriculum developed in late 2019, I led a rapid program redesign effort to create a fully online semester offering with transferable credits from a major urban university. My team executed a comprehensive technology launch and process redesign:

• Transformed proprietary student engagement software into a browser-based enhancement to the live online Zoom experience

• Developed "Home Studio" technology enabling faculty to recreate classroom experiences remotely

• Conducted comprehensive course redesign to adapt a fll semester of first-year undergraduate courses to the new delivery format

• Redesigned all small group activities to function in the virtual environment

• Designed and delivered training for 56 faculty across 7 universities, with ongoing implementation support through the term

Results Achieved:

The tech-enabled solution delivered significant business and educational outcomes:

• Revenue Preservation: Secured income from nearly 1,000 new students during a critical business period, revenue that would have been zero otherwise

• Technology Adaptation: Successfully transitioned specialized classroom technology to home-based solutions

• Cross-Institutional Collaboration: Effectively trained and supported faculty from multiple universities

• Student Satisfaction: Feedback highlighted the exceptional quality of the online course engagement. One student wrote, "I was impressed by the technology… no one anticipated for 2020 to have a pandemic, so let's say no one was prepared. But it feels like [the program] was always prepared. The technology that it uses is just top-notch."

• Innovation and Ideation Excellence: When faced with unprecedented disruption, we pioneered an agile solution by repurposing existing technology for a completely different delivery model, requiring both hardware and software solutions. This creative problem-solving transformed potential disaster into opportunity, developing solutions that maintained educational quality while solving immediate business challenges.