An 18-month modular education programme for senior urban professionals wanting to better understand and deliver change in cities, the Executive MSc in Cities is among the courses offered by the London School of Economics. Travel disruption arising from the coronavirus pandemic prevented that almost all international students attended in person the programme’s five-week teaching modules, however. Turning obstacle into opportunity, the Executive MSc in Cities adopted a blended remote teaching format, choosing Shure Microflex Complete Wireless (MXCW) to support a ‘hybrid-flex’ learning model.
The Microflex Complete Wireless System (MXCW), combined with the videoconferencing experience and technology of global solutions provider AVer Europe, enables all participants in the classroom to communicate and collaborate with far-end participants. Presenters and students attending teaching in-person are able now to be viewed by remote students and speakers when communicating via an MXCW640, using the AVer PTC310H’s audio tracking features.
The Executive MSc in Cities from the LSE recruits 25-30 students each year, the majority of whom are based in the Americas, Africa, Europe and Asia. Thanks to the MXCW system, they can be part of the course regardless of travelling challenges and Covid-19 restrictions. Traditional lectures have been largely replaced with innovative blended learning materials and teaching modules were reworked to emphasise classroom discussion and peer-to-peer information exchange.
The programme team was especially conscious of the need to dissolve the boundary between in-person and remote participation to allow natural-feeling interaction during classroom discussion. As such, a fully scalable, flexible, user-friendly system needed to be researched, identified and delivered quickly to help keep teaching and learning disruption to a minimum – with an added challenge to the project created by a global components shortage caused by the pandemic.
‘For me, the biggest accomplishment is that the technology largely goes unnoticed by the faculty and students,’ says Jim Osbourne, Executive MSc Manager at LSE Cities.
Inputs from the MXCW units were assigned to Dante channels which were fed into the P300, then into the AVer PTZ link camera software, with the P300 also eliminating unwanted and distracting noise. Relying on Shure partner M&R Communications to provide the kit for a real-time proof of concept to the committee at LSE Cities.
With around 12,000 students and 1,700 academic staff, the LSE campus occupies a group of around 30 buildings between Kingsway and Aldwych. The LSE Cities is its international research centre located in the UK’s capital and the only university in the country dedicated to the study and research of social sciences. The LSE is regularly rankw high among UK universities and in the top 50 universities globally.
‘The London School of Economics is one of the most prestigious universities worldwide and its educational standards are extremely high. For this reason, it was important to deliver a solution that could help remain the programme and lectures with the same quality, but in a hybrid format’, said Carys Green, Regional Sales Manager for UK at Shure. ‘Microflex Complete Wireless was the most suitable system for the Executive MSc in Cities, and we are proud to help the institution on its transition to a hybrid-flex teaching format by delivering impeccable audio.’
LSE Cities now benefits from a portable, powerful, and fully scalable system that brings a best-in-class audio and video experience, ensuring the programme team can provide cutting-edge educational material while preserving natural-feeling classroom discussion. By making use of the many features that the MXCW system has to offer, faculty and students can continue the learning journey, collaborate, and communicate efficiently and effectively, both in the classroom and remotely.
More: www.shure.com
