How can we future-proof our teaching and education?
Innovative, future-proof teaching methods were the theme of the tenth Leiden Teachers’ Academy Education Conference that took place on 5 June. In times of budget cuts, growing demands, the use of generative AI and increasing uncertainty about the future of higher education, this theme was highly relevant.
More than 100 university lecturers attended the conference programme, which included workshops and discussions about teaching. ‘These are not easy times,’ said Rector Magnificus Hester Bijl in a video message to the lecturers. ‘And that makes gatherings at times like these even more meaningful.’ Bijl described the conference as an opportunity to pause for a moment and to critically and creatively reflect on how teaching and education can be made future-proof.
Play
In her keynote speech, Sybille Lammes, Professor of New Media and Digital Culture, discussed the potential of fun, engaging tools to implement radical changes in teaching methods. She even uses Minecraft from time to time, to reflect on the past. Role-playing games are also used in classrooms. Play is a powerful cultural force that can change our understanding of teaching and teaching practices. It encourages both students and teaching staff to reflect and promotes creativity, collaboration and speculative thinking.
After discussing how play has been viewed throughout history, Lammes presented the audience with a series of statements. In keeping with the theme of her presentation, she used a bingo wheel and lottery tickets to decide who could respond to the statements.
About the Leiden Teachers’ Academy Education Conference
This annual conference is organised by the Leiden Teachers’ Academy (LTA). The LTA was launched in 2014 to reward top talents in education and boost educational innovation. Lecturers who are selected as teaching fellows become members of the Academy and are awarded grants for educational innovation projects. The LTA currently comprises 25 teaching fellows. This year’s education festival was organised by LTA members Anja van der Voort and Aris Politopoulos.
Conference attendees share their thoughts
Max van Duijn, Assistant Professor, Media Technology
‘When I think about today’s theme – safeguarding and future-proofing higher education – two separate issues come to mind. The first is the need for protection against undesirable influences, such as the pressures currently facing the academic world: political pressure, financial pressure and work pressure. The second threat is artificial intelligence and how it is disrupting the education system.
‘Future-proofing involves moving with the times, which is something I’m very interested in. One of the courses that I teach is Orientation Artificial Intelligence, which is a basic course for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence students. The course focuses on students‘ broader development by asking questions such as: What is artificial intelligence? Why is it important? How can we ensure that people and machines are connected in a certain way, so that they can do the things they’re good at? We try to train students for the professional field in a way that we truly support.’
Alette Vonk, Lecturer, Institute for History
‘I’m delighted to be here because it encourages us to think about the education we provide and how it can be improved. I teach part of the International and Intercultural Management minor programme, and we’re having to switch from a minor spread over the whole academic year to a minor that lasts a single semester. And so our programme needs drastic innovation as the minor is currently structured in stages. We need to think about how to compress it into just one semester. That’s a challenge, which is why it’s important to be open to different teaching methods.
‘Shortly, I’m going to the workshop on fieldwork, as in addition to theoretical courses, our minor has a very practical element. Students are allocated an assignment for a company, organisation or association based in the Netherlands. I’m curious whether I’ll gain any new ideas.’
Michael Meffert, Assistant Professor, Political Science
‘I wanted to attend this conference to get some new ideas and make my lessons more interesting for students. I’ve just been to a workshop on the Carousel method, which involves a number of alternating assignments and tasks. Each student does all of the assignments at some point during the course but not at the same time as everyone else.
‘I think it’s really interesting, but the challenge is implementing this concept in a course that has a more traditional structure. That means I need to make adjustments, and it will take some time to figure out how to do that.’