Abstract:

digiPHOTON is a project funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). In this project, we have taken on the task of making the content of the "M.Sc. Photonics" degree course accessible to online students. This master's course is mainly attended by international students, who normally resettle to Jena in good time before the studies begin, but recently the number of reasons preventing this at least temporarily is rising. By digitalizing the course, we not only bridged the COVID-19 lockdown period, but also gave students the opportunity to start their studies in time despite travel difficulties or restrictions. Since we had students both online and on-site we had to prepare not only online lectures but hybrid lectures. Therefore, we were interested in flexible and sustainable solutions in order to be able to switch quickly and easily. Together with our partner the “Max Planck School of Photonics” we sought solutions that would allow online students and on-site students to grow together as a community. We always kept the focus of our efforts on the integration of the online students in any interaction that might take place.

In this paper we report on the measures we took to support our freshmen in the winter semester 21/22. We reflect on these measures in terms of their impact, feasibility and sustainability. The first thing our students were confronted with was our Kickstarter Moodle course. It consists of a collection of hints and advices for a successful start into studying in Jena with a special focus on local characteristics and online study options. Another particular challenge for us was practical content and laboratory experiments. Together with the Open Photonics Makerspace "Lichtwerkstatt", one of our approaches implemented and carried out last winter semester 21/22 was our Lab Buddy System. It is a multi-camera conference system that enables a team consisting of two on-site students and one online student to work together in the lab. The system essentially consists of a video conference meeting equipped with a large number of cameras (PiCams), which provide various perspectives on the experimental setup, and a hands-free device that enables audio interaction regardless of the number of people present. Each individual PiCam automatically connects itself as a participant to the meeting. In this way, the Lab Buddy System can be used very flexibly with a variable number of cameras, adapted to the respective requirements of the experiments. Further applied measures are the use of a social gathering and communication platform, a hybrid preliminary mathematics course with blended learning content, a welcome party, hybrid lectures and a training kit that was shipped to the students.

We will focus on what we have learned and which concepts seem future-proof.

Keywords:

Hybrid learning, online students, buddy system, learner centered approach, STEM.