“Studio-Out-of-the-Box” – Center for Health Decision Science

CHDS’ Media Hub aims to establish processes and strategies for effectively utilizing media in education. Consistent with this goal, Media Hub lead Jacob Waxman recently launched the “Studio-out-of-the-Box” initiative.

Currently in its proof-of-principle testing, “Studio-out-of-the-Box” is an inexpensive, easy-to-use multimedia kit and accompanying user guidance. The “Box” provides a media production pathway to create and construct activities in the classroom, and to improve access to the use of media as an instructional tool. “One goal of the Media Hub is to approach multimedia education from an interdisciplinary perspective, incorporating lessons learned from cinema, theatre, pedagogy, cognitive science, and a variety of other sources,” Waxman shares, “Studio-out-of-the-Box is aimed at taking many of the lessons we’ve learned in media pedagogy and production and democratizing that ability to learners and teachers of all backgrounds.”

Preliminary versions of the “Box” were beta-tested in the Harvard undergraduate writing course “Expository Writing 20: What is Health?” led by CHDS faculty member Eve Wittenberg; Harvard Graduate School of Education course “T550: Designing for Learning by Creating”; and with the Learning Lab team at the Global Health Education and Learning Incubator. Product development and assessment are continuing through the next year in course-based pilot studies across the University.

More about the CHDS Media Hub

The CHDS Media Hub combines a physical brainstorming space with a laboratory-like digital environment to prototype, pilot and produce educational multimedia for teaching, learning and policy translation.