Abstract:

digiPHOTON is a project funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). In this project, we have set ourselves the task of improving the accessibility of the content of the M.Sc. Photonics degree course for online students. This master's program is mainly attended by international students who usually move to Jena in good time before the start of their studies, but recently there has been an increasing number of reasons that prevent this, at least temporarily. In order to give our students the opportunity to start their studies in time despite travel difficulties or restrictions, the digitalization of the course is the right tool. This way, we not only bridged the COVID-19 lockdown period, we have also significantly lowered the entry threshold for our applicants. Since we had students both online and on site, we had to prepare not only online lectures but hybrid lectures.

A demanding challenge for us was our practical training. Together with the Open Photonics Makerspace "Lichtwerkstatt" we developed and applied our Lab Buddy System in the last winter semester 21/22. This approach allowed us to let the online students benefit from this learning content as well, while at the same time promoting the integration of the online students into our student community, of which they only represent a small part. Our Lab Buddy System is a multi-camera conference system that allows a team of two on-site students and one online student to work together in the lab. It is composed of a video conference meeting equipped with a variety of cameras (PiCams) that provide different perspectives of the experimental setup and a hands-free system that allows audio interaction regardless of the number of people present. Teamwork was emphasized here in a way that the local students could be the extended arms of the online students. At the same time, the acquired knowledge of the whole team was used to create a joint analysis in the form of a report.

We put our system to the test by means of a qualitative survey. We will focus on our operating experience, necessary considerations when implementing such a concept and needed management in order to make it successful.

Keywords:

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