Want to protest in The Hague but still give your lecture? Three tips
On Monday 25 November at 13:00, students and staff from higher education institutions are protesting at Malieveld against the announced cuts. How do you ensure that you and your students can be there if you should be teaching then, and cannot or do not want to cancel your class?
You may have plenty of experience in coming up with alternative teaching forms, particularly with memories of the pandemic still fresh. But should you need some help, we have compiled, with the help of the Leiden Learning & Innovation Centre, a list of tips and handy links. You could use Blended Teaching methods for Monday afternoon, for example, but then adapted to an ‘emergency’.
The Executive Board and deans support the protest in The Hague and will be there themselves. They find both the scale of the plans and the uncertainty they bring to the education sector unwise and downright irresponsible. The quality of our research and teaching is at stake. A high turnout on 25 November will underscore our support for this message. To prevent additional work and study pressure, the Executive Board and faculty boards have decided not to declare a lecture-free afternoon for the whole university. Read the information that has been shared with students and staff about teaching on Monday afternoon.
Tip 1: Record the lecture beforehand
Before you do anything: check your video archive (if you have one), for instance on web lecture on Mediasite. You may find you have a video from a previous year that you can use. If not, you can use Kaltura Capture to record a video. We advise interspersing shorter clips (6-12 minutes) with interactive exercises, such as a short question. You can use WooClap for this. This ensures that students’ attention doesn’t flag and means you don’t have to record everything in one go.
Rather than always being onscreen, you can show PowerPoint slides as you give your lecture. You may prefer to record your lecture as a podcast. Or you could keep your lecture shorter and give students an extra article to read instead.
For more tips on making videos and podcasts, see the video toolkit.
Tip 2: Give students literature to read with a discussion assignment
You can get students to discuss questions in Brightspace, with extra reflection in FeedbackFruits. You can also use FeedbackFruits to get students to answer or discuss questions about an article in the comments. This option is called Interactive Document. Students can decide for themselves when they take part, obviously before a certain deadline. This form of asynchronous work is flexible for everyone.
Tip 3: Postpone your lecture
This is the easiest option with small groups, particularly if you have already prepared the class. But be aware that this can create a higher workload for you and your students because it will be hanging over you, you will have to find a new time, book a new room etc.
Bonus tip: Ask for help
The faculties all have their own support departments that can help you, also with recording and sharing videos and podcasts. And LLInC has its Teacher Support website full of tips and information.
Useful plaforms/contact person per faculty
- Faculty of Humanities: ECOLe - Universiteit Leiden
- Faculty of Science: Education at the Faculty of Science - Leiden University
- Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences: Faculty Teacher Platform - Leiden University
- Archaeology: teachersupport@arch.leidenuniv.nl
- Law: ltc@law.leidenuniv.nl
- FGGA: Teachers Platform – Leiden University
- LUMC: weblectures@lumc.nl
Banner photo: Rob Dorresteijn