Video labs and narratives of future conflicts: two lecturers receive a Comenius Grant
Lecturers Marjo de Graauw and Malte Riemann have both received a Comenius Teaching Fellowship. The €50,000 grant will enable them and their project teams to carry out an educational innovation project within their teaching at Leiden University.
De Graauw aims to transform laboratory teaching and Riemann hopes to get students thinking creatively about future conflicts. The Comenius Teaching Fellowships are awarded annually to teaching professionals in higher education and senior secondary vocational education to promote innovation in education. The scholarships are funded by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, and are visible recognition of outstanding and passionate teaching. The programme is administered by the Netherlands Initiative for Education Research (NRO) (NRO).
Video labs for stress-free laboratory learning
Marjo de Graauw is an assistant professor on the Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences bachelor’s programme. She aims to transform the way laboratory teaching is delivered.
Laboratory teaching is essential for preparing students for a career in which research plays a central role. But for many students, this type of teaching is stressful. They are often expected to learn in a very short time how to carry out safe and effective experiments, and how to analyse and interpret the results. Time constraints and other factors mean students are often worried about making mistakes in the lab, which makes them feel uneasy and can impact their learning outcomes. De Graauw and her team are designing interactive video labs that enable students to observe and carry out laboratory techniques beyond the confines of the physical lab.
If students make a mistake, they receive feedback and can repeat the experiment, this time making different choices – something that is not an option in the real lab, where time, space and materials are limited. The video labs are used as a pre-lab activity in laboratory teaching. By familiarising themselves with experimental procedures in advance, students find that their lab days are less stressful and their learning outcomes improve.
Less anxious
A user test of a video lab has shown that students prefer this new way of preparing over the usual pre-lab activities, such as standard instruction videos. Students seem to be less nervous about making mistakes in the lab. This project will look in more detail at student perceptions of the video labs and the effects of these labs on students’ well-being and learning outcomes. Given their broad relevance, the video labs and research results will be shared with other institutions that offer laboratory teaching.
Narratives of future conflicts
Foresight and Fiction: Narratives of Future Conflict is a project by international relations expert Malte Riemann, in which students write speculative fiction about the future of conflict. Reimann teaches Security Studies, Crisis and Security Management, and War and Peace Studies.
Students will participate in workshops led by Riemann and a fiction writer with experience in TV and film production. The workshops cover narrative development, real-world building and the unique challenges of writing about future conflicts and will therefore go beyond standard academic exercises.
The inclusion of a NATO planner introduces students to the practical challenges of military strategy, providing them with a direct link between creative thinking and real-world applications.
Communicating to practitioners in the field
After the workshops, students develop their fictional accounts. The project culminates in a final workshop where students present their projects to a panel of military and government professionals. As such, students are not just developing their creative skills but are learning to communicate complex ideas to practitioners in the field. This experiential approach fosters critical thinking, adaptability and the ability to engage with professional audiences.
Riemann believes the project not only enhances student employability by developing a broad range of transferable skills but also serves as a model for integrating creative and professional development in higher education.