Departments

Online learning has become a whole studio production

Cameras, a tv screen, the professor lit with studio lights, and two staff work on the show in a black room with soundproofing on the walls.

InEd Studios films one of six videos for Assistant Professor Sarah van Ingen Lauer’s online Math Methods course, which will launch this summer.

By LORIE BRIGGS ’88 and MA ’13 / Innovative Education

MULTIPLIERS AND EXPONENTS and the exponential power of education — this is the lexicon of a math teacher’s math teacher. Assistant Professor Sarah van Ingen Lauer, PhD ’13, helps future educators learn how to spark children’s mathematical curiosity and unravel the mysteries of numbers.

Remarkably, she’ll soon be doing so online, a feat inconceivable a decade ago.

“I contemplated this years ago, but I didn’t know how it would be possible to achieve the same quality online as in person,” she says. 

Her Math Methods class, which relies heavily on interaction and modeling teaching practices, will go online for the first time this summer. She has no doubt it will engage students just as well as the in-person class and encourage their active participation. 

While online learning has evolved with the internet since the 1990s, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated its use and demand for more engaging and effective approaches. 

Van Ingen Lauer worked with USF Innovative Education and its digital learning team to put Math Methods online. InEd’s learning designers have been partnering with instructors for the last decade to reimagine the digital classroom. With teams on USF’s three campuses, they develop creative content and design complementary educational tools for 60 to 80 online courses per semester.

A young, blond woman looks to the camera as a director’s slate is held in front of her. A classroom setting with student desks is displayed behind her, on screen.

Assistant Professor Sarah van Ingen Lauer on set.

Learning designer Janine Diaz Cotto says it starts with meticulous planning. 

“We analyze the course, the students and the instructional challenges,” she says. “We discuss what students are expected to achieve and planned course activities. Then we map out the course progression and pinpoint areas where more student interaction or engagement would be beneficial.” 

Discussion boards, peer review activities, group projects, interactive media and live, synchronous sessions encourage active participation. 

For Math Methods, Diaz Cotto worked with InEd Studios’ cinematographers and producers to craft a half-dozen engaging videos, while learning designers developed interactive presentations and infographics, blending storytelling with educational insight. 

Producer Diana Trueman says they aim to breathe life into lessons. In the early days of video instruction, she says, the camera was in the back of the room or provided a close-up of someone talking.

No more. 

“Filming it in a way that depicted me drawing mathematical illustrations, adding viewer-friendly text and presenting different angles was brilliantly executed,” says van Ingen Lauer. “It allows future teachers to revisit and refine their techniques, ensuring they learn how to explain lessons effectively to children.”