A technical Concept for enhancing the Student Experience in Hybrid Lecture Scenarios

During the COVID-19 pandemic, learning had to be shifted from in-person settings to entirely online or hybrid teaching scenarios. Schools and universities in Germany were forced to quickly deploy solutions which often provided lackluster quality. This shift was also implemented indiscriminately across subjects so that screen intensive courses (such as programming) were impacted in the same way as practical courses like hardware engineering. In many cases, this left a negative impression of such hybrid scenarios on participants. However, with steady improvements in technology, hybrid meetings have established themselves in corporate environments and steadily gained popularity in parts of higher education programs. Especially in the case of dual programs, this is also applicable to lectures and seminars. This paper explores using products from Sennheiser electronic SE & Co. KG with microphone arrays and audio-over-IP technology in combination with network cameras as an example, this concept aims to create an environment for seamlessly integrated hybrid lectures with about 30 participants in presence.