The first-year course Introduction to Criminal Law of the Bachelor of Law was taught in blended form during the first semester of the 2020-2021 corona year. Students of the program rated this course as the best digital course. They cited as reasons: the great structure, the variety of work formats, and the clear communication to students. A well thought-out course design is especially important in online education because social cues are more difficult to interpret and the social norms that apply in the traditional classroom cannot be translated to the online learning environment without difficulty (Anderson et al., 2001). Research on faculty and students’ experiences with online education at the UvA during the COVID-19 pandemic found that clear information about what was expected of students, where to find learning resources, and what deadlines applied helped students better structure and plan their learning (Meij et al., 2021). Within such a structure, online and face-to-face learning activities can be alternated; we refer to this as blended education (Means et al., 2013).

Mr. Maike Steen: lecturer in the bachelor and master Law, Section Criminal Law (UvA), policy duties as diversity officer (UvA), and deputy judge (North Holland District Court).

More information about Mr. Maike Steen

The ‘blended learning’ format gave the new batch of freshmen a good start

Initially we were going to go completely online, but I really fought to be able to offer this course in a blended learning format. The blended form was a “luxury” and cost extra resources, people and time, but I still got the green light because everyone recognized that a good start for the new batch of freshmen was essential. Because we were still in the strict 1.5m time frame, blended learning could only be realized if the work groups were halved in the week of physical education. Normally there are 30 students in a working group, now only 15. It also meant that we had to double the number of teachers. So it didn’t happen overnight and this situation was exceptional because of Covid-19: it’s very luxurious to be able to give attention to 15 instead of 30 students in a working group. Of course, that luxury also played a role in the quality and assessment of the course.

A lot of preparation to spare te teachers

The blended form, adapted to Covid-19 measures, took me a lot of preparation. Because the blending concept and the Covid-19 situation already demanded so much from lecturers, I wanted to spare them in it and offer a spread and comfortable bed, so I wrote everything out in detail for them. For the group of 30 students, the classes were divided into one week on campus with 15 students per class (so that class was taught twice), and the other week with 30 students online in Zoom. I had made two types of worksheets for all the lecturers. One for working on campus and the other for the online classes.

Working in Zoom requires such a different way of preparation: the layout of your study group, the instruction you give to lecturers, what information they should give to students before they go into the breakout rooms. Sometimes students had to do an assignment beforehand – where do you put that information? – and things like that. I had made all the Powerpoints, explanations and the introductions that lecturers could use at the beginning of the classes. So I had made very comprehensive lecturer readers, because especially with online education, you have to think even more about how you organize it. I wanted to spare the lecturers and this way you also get a more uniform approach and structure when you work with different lecturers.

I took a shorter vacation and started very early to get all of this done, but I wanted to do this for the lecturers ánd the students necessarily. Many of the freshmen had already had a messed up corona highschool graduation year and I didn’t want to put them back in sweatpants alone behind a screen; that has nothing to do with studying. I wanted to give them that community feeling of studying by bringing them to campus anyway and that worked very well and paid off. The students studied hard, it went well and we received good evaluations. That’s what you do it for, that gives you energy, you get a lot in return.

New forms of work

We replaced 4 hours of lectures with videos and knowledge clips about the material to be studied and skills they needed to master. Because students are entitled to a certain number of contact hours with instructors, we introduced the response lecture. This extra response lecture was basically a Q&A session with a professor who answered questions from the students. Students could submit their questions online in advance and the professor would review these questions in advance as well. During the session, students could ask further questions.

Another additional work format we introduced this year were supported self-study groups. Every year we received quite negative feedback on the study material that students had to learn by means of self-study. This time, for the first time, we supported and guided them through this process by deploying a battery of student assistants who supervised these study groups online. I had also created an instruction format for the student assistants. However, the 1-hour study group was not mandatory, so we did see some attrition toward the end of the block, but for those who did stay until the end, it worked well this way.

Achieving learning goals and a soft landing

The alternation between online and on campus teaching, being able to work in a small and a large group, and offering different online and offline learning activities worked well. A big advantage is that it provided extra moments to check if students were “up to date.” You can see better and more personally in the physical class what has been left out during the online class and then pick up on those things. When you’re with 15 students, everyone is on board and you can’t dive away. In Zoom, you can literally dive away by turning off your camera. I have to say that the Zoom sessions did get more and more personal, because you got to know each other in those small sessions on campus. The face-to-face work groups also helped students develop a sense of belonging somewhere.

Because of the clear course structure, students knew exactly what was expected of them, where to find information online, what material to process, and what learning goals to achieve each week. This allowed them to take charge of their own learning, while still being supported to keep up and gain study skills. Because the structure was so clear, and learning resources could be easily found within this structure, this course was a fine study start for students. Along with the opportunities for face-to-face contact, this provided a soft landing for freshmen.

Tips from Maike:

I would like to advise to think carefully about what you want to achieve and to adapt the work format (online or offline) to the learning activity and the goals. So consider well in advance which goals can be achieved online and which goals are better achieved on location. If you want students to work, if you want there to be a lot of exchange and you there to guide them, then I would not choose a digital variant, but if that is less important and it is more about transfer or low-threshold exchange, for example, then you can go digital.

Alternating learning activities and providing structure are very important, especially in digital education. We have limited resources at the university if you compare it to the United States where there are buckets of money available, so they can put a lot of teachers on small groups, so be smart about the resources you have. Like the study groups, for example: put in a student assistant and you have something new to offer, a new opportunity that allows students to meet and learn together. It’s something small, but it’s easily set up that way. You only have to prepare it once and then you pull it out just like that. All you have to do is have someone who will do it.

The online study group with student assistants worked really well and we’re going to offer this online as long as the resources are there. Especially since it’s voluntary and only takes an hour, so students don’t have to travel for it. Digital makes it more accessible. We’ll also keep working with knowledge clips on skills like “how to read a judgment,” “how to answer a case” and things like that, which students can keep repeating as they need to. Also, things like reviewing exams and objections work great online. I would also recommend working out a detailed schedule for each study group that includes deadlines, when you have to do what, and especially hammering away at the learning objectives. Online it is more difficult to check whether the material is landing, so it is nice that students are given the resources within a clear structure that helps them to study autonomously.

Student experience

Student Ruben Peetam

BA of Law, Member Faculty Student Council 2021-2022

Impressed by the detailed course structure in the reader

I was very impressed with the structure and organization of this course. It contained both digital and physical components, but everything was written out so well that there could be no confusion. Because of the good communication to the students in the reader, the clear communication of who-what-where-how, we knew exactly what to expect. Where there was frequent confusion in other courses, in this course everything was written out in detail and completely clear when you had to be where, what you had to do and where you could find the information. I was also impressed with the choice of what was offered digitally and what was offered physically; it worked out very well. One week you had physical work group with half the group and the next week you saw everyone digitally. The lectures consisted partly of recordings from last year and partly were re-recorded. Knowledge clips on skills were also used and we received additional information through the study group sessions. You can take in the digitally available information just as long as you need to repeat it.

As a student, it is made very easy for you to come along with such a clear structure and opportunities to check your knowledge

It was varied to work with different forms of work. It was all made very easy because Canvas was set up by week. Each week there was one or more learning pieces covered. You could watch and review the lecture, whether or not divided into clips, possibly sometimes a case clip, with practical examples that you went on to develop in your worksheet with reference to literature that you then had to read yourself. In the worksheet you made assignments in advance of the study group which you had to hand in digitally the day before the study group. You also often got a number of multiple choice questions to test if you had understood what the text was about. That’s really an advantage, that this structure creates so many moments in the week where you can check yourself to see if you’re on track.

You can test your knowledge through that digital workbook with that questionnaire on Canvas, you can ask questions in the study group or the response lecture, you can discuss things with your fellow students in the breakout rooms, you have the study groups under the guidance of a student assistant. That whole comprehensive package that is offered does make it easier to come along. You have all the knowledge at hand, you can watch and review everything digitally – knowledge clips, case clips, lectures – whenever you want. It’s great when you’re learning difficult material that you can watch a clip again or play the video slowly. Even though the material is sometimes difficult, it is not impossible to catch up if you don’t understand something. There was so much in front of you and if you follow that you can keep up. That whole package makes the world sit at your feet and you’d have to go pretty wild as a student to not be able to keep up, I’d say.

Looking forward to physical lectures

Especially after a lockdown, you look forward to the physical lectures the most. One week you see each other on the screen and the next week you see each other in real life. Physically getting together then is so rare that you really want to make something of it and don’t get it into your head to show up on campus unprepared. There is also a rule from year 1 that if you come unprepared in the study group, it counts as absent. It was made quite possible to keep up because of the structure, but you also keep up for each other, for fellow students, for professors. After a weird high school graduation year with sitting at home because of the lockdown, it’s very exciting to be able to get back to work and you also like to get to work.

The structure and communication of Introduction to Criminal Law also contributed to the achievement of my learning goals and to my learning experience in general

The course structure of Introduction to Criminal Law gave us, “corona students” a very soft landing in college. We were given a lot to work on, which made it very easy for us to be pulled into the university machine after high school. In high school everything is so different and the pace goes up a lot in college. But at some point your own responsibility comes into play. I now use the weekly schedule from this lecture in other courses as well, by filling it out again for those courses. I often still pick up knowledge clips from the 1st block. This soft landing has taught us how to study at University, which makes it easier for me to achieve learning goals in other courses as well.

Introduction to Criminal Justice has taught students how to work at the university and provided guidance on how to achieve your learning goals more easily. The first courses lay the foundation in the program. It was very nice that the learning goals were always mentioned beforehand and at the end: what are we going to learn and what have we tried to teach you. You can then always check with yourself whether you succeeded. If you do not recognize yourself in the objective you know you have to take a step back. This check-up gives the student control over their own learning process. I do recommend it, then you understand what you have come for and where you are.

Tips from Ruben:

I found it works well, if you are using lectures from previous years, to have some passages revoiced by the professor. That way you can be sure that you are working with current information. Also, breaking up lectures into videos and knowledge clips instead of posting them in full is a good idea, it makes it more manageable for us students. More variety is needed in Zoom classes. A teacher should think carefully beforehand how to convey information digitally as clearly as possible. The clear structure of this course was very nice. I do favor work groups being physically on location, because the social function of the lectures is so important. We must not forget that for many students studying is the center of life. Therefore, think about a social component even in online classes.

If you only have Zoom classes for a whole block, then towards the end of the block this causes a disconnection and there is no more mutual interaction with students from behind that computer screen. Everyone is then secretly doing something else. What Maike also said; it’s good to think beforehand and decide for each activity whether something is better done online or physically. You can continue to do such a response lecture, review or Q&A session digitally in the future. I would also continue to offer the study group, which is not mandatory, digitally. This is only 1 hour a week and if this group was not offered digitally I would not attend every week because I do not live in Amsterdam and would otherwise have had to travel back and forth by train for three hours. I would like to keep the best of both worlds, the low threshold of online for short contact moments, or non-mandatory moments and the important, longer contact moments physically.

Be clear about the layout of your digital education. For example, don’t put everything in 20 places in canvas and make a schedule in canvas that is organized by week. Explain how the course is set up. Make sure it is accessible. For many students, there is not a complete resistance to digital education, as long as there is a healthy balance between the two. Online opportunities can sometimes provide a solution.

Reaction Maike:

The evaluations show a diffuse picture: there are students who like integral old lectures best and there are students who ask for less static lectures. Students have different needs, so it remains a search.

Blended learning in the course “Introduction to Criminal Law”