Conference

No sitting in lecture halls, no coffee at the JuCa: Leiden Law School students will have to follow lectures and do exams from home for the time being. A huge transition.

Until last year the Archaeology Field Techniques programme for first-year students consisted of a number of two-hour lectures. Now they spend a whole day on the programme. Assistant professor Jasper de Bruin is enthusiastic about this new approach. ‘You can do a lot more with the students, and that…

Conference

With his dance routine and YouTube clips, he even manages to make grammar fun. His infectious enthusiasm and innovative teaching methods have won Thijs Porck, a lecturer in Old and Middle English, a nomination for the LUS Teaching Prize.

Around the world, there is a growing movement to decolonise university curricula, with both students and educators seeking to disrupt existing epistemic hierarchies within higher education. This research project aims to unravel what decolonising means in general and what it means for the International…

During the summer break, three lecture halls at Wijnhaven were equipped with advanced equipment and an education system in order to provide the best hybrid teaching possible during the upcoming academic year. The Learn Anywhere pilot will take place within the FGGA, which Koen Caminada is very happy…

Lecture, Tuesday Talks: Science Insights

Thanks to Ian Cook’s ‘Who Made My Clothes?’ MOOC, thousands of students have researched where their clothes come from. How does this geographer from the University of Exeter manage to inspire such enthusiasm in his students? He and his student Zahra Ali will explain all during the Education Festival…

Didactics

In large numbers, lecturers from the History study programme responded to the call to share tips for online and hybrid education. Everyone can now take a look at these tips on the university website, says chair of education Kim Beerden.

Niloufar Rahim, from Afghanistan, fled to the Netherlands with her family. She studied medicine in Leiden and now shares her knowledge with students of medicine in Afghanistan.

Workshop

How do I conduct research? How do I structure, conduct and record what I’ve thought of and done? The Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences Programme didn’t just want students to perform a series of tests for the Cellular Biochemistry practical course. After a complete re-vamp - ‘From traditional cookbook lab…

Feeling nostalgic, Professor in Public Administration Science Bernard Steunenberg explains how some years ago he would occasionally show a TV broadcast to his students, first removing the videotape from its big box and putting it in a VHS player. Today, a student from Maastricht, sitting in the train…

‘One lecturer stood out in particular,’ said Dirk van Vugt, Chair of the Leiden University Student Platform (LUS), at the opening of the academic year. ‘Despite the hurdles of remote teaching, she managed to inspire her students with the aid of knowledge clips, challenges and topical lectures about…

How to deal with the most challenging design question of your life: what do I want to be when I grow up? The ‘Designing Your Life’ method teaches students how to craft their own future. The project will start next academic year, thanks to a Comenius grant. ‘Everyone interested should be able to borrow…

Many of us are working from home at the moment, but our children are at home too. While this can be fun, parents sometimes need a bit of peace and quiet. Leiden computer scientist Felienne Hermans has developed Hedy, a programming language that teaches children how to program. An educational way to…

Vice-Rector Simone Buitendijk doesn’t believe for a single moment that Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are just hype. This is what she said on 13 March at Campus the Hague’s InspirationLab on ‘Open Education’. Buitendijk wants Leiden University to be at the leading edge. ‘MOOCs and online innovation…

Due to the corona crisis, they had to switch to online education halfway during their course: associate professor Marcel Schaaf and PhD candidate Michiel Hooykaas of the Institute of Biology Leiden talk about digital practicals, online lectures and their biggest obstacle: exams.

Putting our interns to work’ is the third-year slogan for the Master’s Programme in Medicine at Leiden University. After their regular residency periods, students are encouraged to find an internship in demanding sectors where they would like to work after completing their studies. In the MasterMindsChallenge,…

How small steps can lead to big change: that was the theme of the Leiden Education Festival. Students and lecturers came to Scheltema on 9 May to share their experiences of educational innovation.

The Master of Medicine at Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) has won the national biennial award for best educational innovation in medical teaching. It was awarded the prize by the Netherlands Association for Medical Education (NVMO) for its MasterMinds Challenge (MMC).

When the corona epidemic broke out, Nuno Atalaia, a teacher of Portuguese, ‘democratised’ his lectures. He is one of the three nominees for the LUS Teaching Prize. What is it about this approach that appeals to students?

The eight ambitions of Leiden University's vision on education - Learning@LeidenUniversity - were the key theme of the packed Education Festival on 19 June. More than 200 lecturers and students came to PLNT, Leiden's innovation hotspot, for inspiration and best practices in the field of educational…

Students at Leiden University College (LUC) learn about biodiversity not only in the lecture hall, but also in the natural environment. University lecturer Thijs Bosker and student Sebastiaan Grosscurt talk about using camera traps in a teaching and research project.

Sustainability challenges don’t just call for environmental scientists – they require expertise from many academic fields. Thijs Bosker and Paul Behrens have made it easier for university lecturers to integrate sustainability into their courses. Their initiative, Local Actions, offers ready-made teaching…

Lecture, CMGI Brown Bag Seminar

In line with tradition, at the opening of the academic year the LUS Teaching Prize will be presented to the University’s best teacher. Get to know the nominees. This week: Thijs Porck.

Study information, Workshop

Conference

The experiential expertise of people with a disability needs to be integrated in diversity & inclusion policy. This message was the common thread at the annual Diversity & Inclusion symposium. Students and staff members engaged in conversation about how the university can become more accessible.

An online course offered by Leiden University on the European Union is among the top 50 MOOCs in the world. This was announced recently by MOOC platform Class Central.

LUC has the best professors of the large university programmes in The Netherlands. Sharing the first place with University College Maastricht with 90/100 points, LUC scores significantly better than all other programmes. This year, next to the general Dutch university ranking, weekly magazine Elsevier…

In zijn oratie bepleit Joachim Koops dat de toekomst van Security and Global Affairs ligt in onderzoek, onderwijs en academisch bestuur.

For a lot of students, the covid crisis means that a sense of community is hard to find during their studies. Lettie Dorst, university lecturer of translation studies and English linguistics, explains how she tries to create a 'community of learners’.

A celebration was held in the Tabú restaurant: Mark Rutgers, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, was presented with the first copy of LEAP, a journal where Humanities master’s students can prepare for an academic career by publishing articles themselves.

As a lecturer of a block 4 course, osteoarchaeologist Dr Rachel Schats is preparing to give her education remotely. For this she uses Kaltura, Leiden University’s video platform. While she is new to remote teaching, like most of the University’s lecturers, she already has some tips and tricks based…

Lecture

Associate Professor Paz González had two things she wanted to improve for students: collaboration and publication opportunities. Her solution? A scientific journal for and by students. She received a Senior Fellow Comenius grant to put the plan into action.

This autumn Leiden University is launching eight new MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) that are available free to the general public. You can follow courses on the theory of evolution, mindfulness, political economy, international law, music, cultural heritage or archaeology.

One person can already make a difference, and if all students and academics were eco-friendly, the world would be a much more sustainable place. Plastic Soup Surfer Merijn Tinga opened the academic year in Leiden with this message.

From the new Hortus botanicus podcast to conference call bingo: all the students, lecturers and other members of staff from Leiden University had to switch at breakneck speed to working and studying from home this week. That meant decluttering offices, getting your head around remote teaching and installing…

PhD defence

PhD defence

On 11 and 19 April, the International Leiden Leadership Programme students got together to participate in a Business Game: a simulation game where the participants get a business case-study they have to solve. The goal? An agreement between all stakeholders – but most importantly: to employ the different…

There are not many classes in which students can talk about their fears, self-critique, or their own happiness. In the Bachelor Honours Class ‘Personal Flourishing and Happiness’, this is exactly the plan.

During the opening of the academic year, true to tradition the LUC Teaching Prize will be awarded to the best lecture at the University. Get to know the nominees. This week: Christine Espin.

Why do we give students fictional assignments when there is a multitude of real-world problems just waiting to be solved? Leiden University, Leiden University of Applied Sciences and the Municipality of Leiden are joining forces with partners from the public sector in the Learning with the City project,…