News, inspiration, background information and more about the Learning@LeidenUniversity vision on teaching and learning.

In a rapidly changing world it is crucial that our teaching keeps pace with the dynamics of society.

The Learning@LeidenUniversity vision on teaching and learning is about what we want our future graduates to be and what that means for our curricula and our learning environment. It offers a long-term framework for the further development of our education and marks the start of a process of innovati…

The core of Leiden University's vision is to train students to become academic professionals and engaged, responsible citizens. Once they have graduated, out students will then be able to make a contribution to resolving the challenges currently facing society - both within and outside academia.

The active learning ambition is based on the idea that knowledge is more likely to ‘stick’ when students are actively engaged with their learning and research. This active student participation has implications for how we teach: less consumption of knowledge and more efficient use of contact hours.

Lights out, spotlight on, the LU talks begin. In the small Imperium Theatre, next to the Leidse Schouwburg, students take turns walking up to the round blue carpet. There they have five minutes to present their first LU talk to lecturers, fellow students, and the camera. ‘Extremely useful and instructive’…

The research project focuses on teachers’ learning motivation and learning performance in professional learning activities.

Here you will find an overview of the Spaces for Active Teaching and Learning already implemented at Leiden University and LUMC. These rooms vary in size, location, material affordances, and technological affordances, and thus vary in the forms of pedagogy they best support. You can use this site as…

Can the academic year be structured in such a way to give students, lecturers and researchers a bit more breathing space? To find out, Leiden University is taking part in ‘smarter academic year’ pilots.

The Learning@LeidenUniversity vision on teaching and learning proposes eight ambitions and their associated actions.

The University’s Vision on Student Well-Being outlines how the University plans to promote student well-being in the coming years.

Leiden University is aware of its role in society and wants to create a green, healthy and inclusive campus and have a positive impact on the field of climate and circularity.

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.

Within the Vision on Teaching and Learning, one of the 8 ambitions is Activating Teaching and Learning. With the support of the Vice-Deans and Vice-Rector, Hester Bijl, the Saltswat project is working on accelerating this ambition. What is the purpose of this site? Being effective…

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,…

In their vision trajectory, the Office for the Senior Civil Service (in Dutch: Bureau Algemene Bestuursdienst) communicated its plan to renew its vision on public leadership. Over the course of 2021, the Leiden Leadership Centre contributed as a scientific partner to the substantiation of this visio…

One of the ambitions of the Learning@LeidenUniversity vision on teaching and learning is to foster an international and inclusive educational community in which everyone feels welcome, regardless of religion, sex, sexual orientation or cultural background. One student service that promotes inclusion…

History lecturer Giles Scott-Smith is enthusiastic about the new pitch-to-peer programme (P2P), for which students have to make an original, creative assignment and evaluate one another’s work. This is part five in a series of articles about lecturers and innovation in teaching and learning.

Do you have a creative idea for improving contacts between Dutch and international students? Work out a plan and you could win the Van Bergen Prize and earn 5,000 euros to put your idea into practice. Deadline 22 October.

A number of calls for proposals have been launched to finance innovative educational projects. An overview is given below.

The Senior Teaching Qualification is for experienced lecturers who have done more than lecturing alone. Ten quotes from the first ten lecturers to receive the STQ award.

What is “teaching excellence” in Higher Education? Which different teaching excellence training, promotion and reward schemes exist across Europe? How can a common European teaching scheme look like? The e-NOTE project led by Leiden University seeks to answer these question in cooperation with five…

Engaged, active students who can see the links within their discipline. These are key aims of the University vision on teaching and learning, but how do you achieve them? An interdisciplinary research team led by ICLON has developed an inventive method that helps lecturers do just that.

This dissertation aims to establish a dialogue between ethnomusicology (more specifically indigenous organology), the anthropology of art and the culture of the Apinaye peoples, in order to understand how the musical objects of these peoples are learned and taught, and thus to understand its musical…

Leiden University has taken 18th place in the SustainaBul, the sustainability ranking of universities and universities of applied sciences in the Netherlands. A total of 32 institutions took part in this the tenth edition of SustainaBul. Although Leiden University is two places higher than last year,…

This doctoral thesis comprises four studies on the content and structure of physics teachers’ belief systems about teaching and learning physics in secondary education in the Netherlands.

The Academy for Professionals project started in November. The project will focus on further developing existing and new educational programmes for professionals. ‘This is part of taking valorisation seriously.’

Leiden University offers students the opportunity to follow online courses that award study credits, thus avoiding the necessity of travelling abroad.

On Monday 13th March, the YAL organized an interfaculty lunch meeting together with the Leiden Teacher Academy (LTA) about teaching.

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.

The labour market has seen significant changes in recent decades, not least in terms of greater flexibility and digitisation. Leiden University is keen to prepare students for a working life in which flexibility, resilience and adaptability will be essential qualities. The university’s vision on teaching…

She has held office for over a hundred days, and is enthusiastic about what she has seen of the University thus far. Bursting with energy, she has plans aplenty for the teaching. An interview with ‘new’ Vice-Rector Magnificus of Leiden University, Hester Bijl.

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,…

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…

A number of developments within and outside the University make it necessary to treat the issue of innovation with greater urgency. An overview of these developments is given below.

It was time for a celebration in the Faculty Club on 11 December. Twenty driven lecturers were awarded their Senior Teaching Qualification by Vice-Rector Magnificus Hester Bijl.

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.

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…

In our new strategic plan (Innovating and Connecting – 2022-2027) we focus on stronger connections: between disciplines, with society and within our university community.

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…

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’.

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…

When do you submit a thesis proposal to the Ethics Committee? And how do you ensure that students save their data properly? On 9 June, thesis supervisors will be able to ask these questions at the Ethics Education Afternoon. Professor Herman Paul and policy officer Marcel Belderbos will tell us more…

Lecturer in Old and Middle English Thijs Porck was awarded the annual Leiden University Student Platform (LUS) Teaching Prize at the opening of the academic year. The jury praised his endless supply of innovative teaching ideas.

Everything around us is in motion. Students, the University, technology, society, the labour market and the world. These developments provide an impetus to experiment with new forms of education. This article samples a small selection of the many dozens of innovative educational projects. What is striking…

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.

From ‘challenges’ at ministries to reflection sessions where students coach each other. Students, study advisers and other employees shared their best practices regarding labour market preparation at the Employability Working Conference on 24 January.