“If you want to learn French, you can go to Paris. But if you want to learn Latin, you cannot visit the ancient world; well, with Virtual Reality, now you can!” muses Antony Makrinos, who is an Associate Professor in Classics at UCL.

Dr. Antony Makrinos demonstrates how to use a VR headset to workshop participants.

Across two workshops held in April 2024 at the Object-Based Learning Lab, Antony showed both educators and students how the classics can be taught in innovative new ways through VR.

From current-day Athens to Ancient Rome

Slipping the VR headset over your head, you jerk slightly as you find yourself floating like a bird over the modern city of Athens. You can see the sunny streets of the storied Greek city run into the distant hills as you turn your head carefully from side to side. The shining white pillars of the Acropolis and the Parthenon immediately catch the eye.

This, as Antony says, is only a small part of what VR can bring to our classrooms.

Antony uses the headsets and software of a VR company called ClassVR to take students not only to modern-day Greece but into the Colosseum in Ancient Rome — where students can duck gladiators lunging at each other in a fury of swords and watch lions lunge at them from behind bars.

Alternatively, if you are more inclined, you can also stand on Mount Olympus, home of the Greek Gods, and watch Pegasus soar through the stars.

The ability to explore these virtual environments — where you can move around and interact with objects while physically staying seated — helps enhance immersion and engagement for students, especially when paired with lessons that contextualise the VR experience.

The cube and the amphora

One can even “handle” objects through VR. Holding and manipulating a rubber cube in your hands, you can turn an amphora — a storage jar used in ancient Greece — around and around in virtual reality, peering carefully at its painted design.

A rubber cube that you can physically manipulate to move the virtual image in the VR environment.

This is a form of mixed reality, where physical and virtual environments are combined.

As Antony puts it: “What you feel in your hands is the cube, but what you see when you wear the VR headsets is the amphora. You are instantly introduced to the delights of virtual Object-Based Learning where one can handle any kind of object virtually.”

Incorporating VR into our learning leads us to ask how we can interact with ancient objects — and even opens up questions about what an object is.

For instance, Antony shows us that one can make a 3D object using a phone camera app and then import it into the VR application. An image of a teacup materialises before your eyes, seemingly teleported from Antony’s breakfast table to the headset. The same applies to any other object one wishes.

Students can create their own VR museums with digitised objects. An example shared by Antony has students working at UCL’s Petrie Museum, where they were able to digitise ancient mummy labels.

A digitised mummy label.

Advantages and challenges of teaching and learning with VR

The incorporation of VR into the classroom can make the experience far more immersive and engaging for students. It also allows students to pick up some important and increasingly relevant skills — for example, the application and usage of VR technology and other augmented reality tools in a wide range of contexts.

Workshop participant Jesper Hansen (left) and Antony Makrinos (right) traversing the ancient world while on UCL campus.

There are some drawbacks to consider too: VR headsets are still quite expensive, VR cannot replace face-to-face teaching, and some users complain of vertigo and dizziness while using the headsets.

Additionally, there are also limitations to the virtual environments currently generated. For example, Antony has asked whether graffiti in Latin could be added to the walls of the Colosseum so that students can approach this text and practise their language skills, but it turned out that this would make the file “too heavy”.

As VR technology continues to improve, these issues of cost, usability, and accessibility are likely to be diminished.

Overall, it is therefore not so much a question of replacing large amounts of classroom teaching with VR, but considering the pedagogical benefits some engagement with VR will offer.

For more information about Dr. Antony Makrinos’s usage of VR in teaching humanities, please get in touch with him at a.makrinos@ucl.ac.uk. He also holds VR office hours at the Department of Greek and Latin, Gordon House — please email Antony for more info. This blog post was written by Kellynn Wee.

by Selena Daly (SELCS) 

The second meeting of the Creative Teaching in the Humanities Network, in November 2023, focused on assessments and featured two speakers: Dr Akil Awan, Associate Professor of Modern History and Political Violence in the Department of History, Royal Holloway, University of London and Dr Eleanor Chiari, Associate Professor (Teaching) at SELCS in UCL.

Developing the ‘Unessay’

Akil presented his use of the ‘Unessay’ as part of the assessment for his module on the history of terrorism from the 19^th century to today. Instead of submitting a traditional written essay, students were asked to complete an ‘Unessay,’ essentially a creative and critical engagement with any theme from the module. Possible formats could include a piece of artwork, a documentary, a graphic novel, a website, or a short story, among many other possibilities.

Among examples of some of the best work students submitted as ‘Unessays’ were the following: a debate between a perpetrator and victim of terrorism in Northern Ireland written as a play; a board game in which you get to play as British colonial forces or the ‘Mau Mau’ or Kenyan Land and Freedom Army; and a musical composition focusing on the immediate public responses to the 9/11 attacks and remembrance of victims of terrorism. Students were also required to submit a 500-word self-reflexive essay worth 25% of the grade.

One of Akil’s students created a board game as an “unessay”. Photo by Aksel Fristrup on Unsplash

Engaging with trauma in visual culture

Eleanor presented an assessment that features as part of an undergraduate module entitled ‘Trauma in Visual Culture,’ which had similarities to the Unessay approach presented by Akil but adapted to her particular module’s context. Its aim was to encourage students to reflect more critically on emotive side of visual culture.

Students were required to submit a portfolio of work that responded to the module’s themes and theories examined. Examples of student work included: a graphic novel-style reinterpretation of Art Spiegelman’s Maus to explore the theme of post memory in the context of the Troubles in Northern Ireland; a visual journal exploring the haunting legacy of Nic Ut’s ‘terror of war’ photograph from the war in Vietnam; and a video essay which explored the idea of the ‘illogical spectator’ using family home videos from before the Syrian war. If students opted to submit an entirely abstract piece, they were required to submit a 1,500-word essay on their work.

The cover of Maus by Art Spiegelman

Both Akil and Eleanor identified similar advantages to adopting these kinds of creative assessments. Both highlighted their value in catering to a diverse student cohort and the way that they foster creativity, imagination, and experimentation. Creative assessments also allow students to make use of skills they may have developed in other aspects of their lives (e.g. music or art), allowing for more holistic learning.

The approach also encourages students to engage more personally with the module content and Eleanor highlighted how, for some students who accessed family stories, the assessment helped them see how the visual could facilitate processes of grief and healing. Another major advantage is the fact that these assessment types are ‘ChatGPT-proof,’ as an AI system would be unable to produce the creative outputs required of the students.

Navigating difficulties as a module convenor

Although both speakers emphasised how rewarding and stimulating these kinds of creative assessments can be, both Akil and Eleanor also highlighted some issues that any colleagues should be aware of when considering an assignment of this type. Both of these modules confront difficult and potentially upsetting topics so sensitivity is required of the module convenor in navigating these issues, especially if students opt to focus on a topic that is related to their personal experience. Both Akil and Eleanor always offered students an ‘escape option,’ in the form of a traditional essay, if they decided they did not want to attempt the creative assignment, although Eleanor said no student had ever requested it.

There is also a significant time commitment involved for the module leader. Each project must be individually approved, often through a number of meetings with students. And finally, but perhaps most importantly, was the issue of how to ensure parity between students. Marking criteria are thus crucial. Akil’s assignments were thus judged on a non-standard set of the criteria, including the following: suitability (use of a medium appropriate to the topic); engaging (the submission is readable/watchable/listenable); and originality (the submission adds something new rather than summarising existing information).

Assignments of this type require us to ask whether it is even possible to measure creativity, or, as Akil said, ‘how can we compare a watercolour and a short story?’ The answer is with careful handling, precise marking criteria and motivated and committed instructors.

The Creative Teaching in the Humanities Network is led by Dr Selena Daly (SELCS). If you have any queries or suggestions for future events and/or speakers, please do get in touch at selena.daly@ucl.ac.uk.

by Selena Daly (SELCS) 

The first meeting of the Creative Teaching in the Humanities Network got off to a great start in October 2023 with a session on Object-Based Learning (OBL). Dr Thomas Kador (BASc) led all the participants in a fun and enlightening ice-breaker session that was, literally, hands on! Each table had a black box with holes in the sides placed in front of them and we were invited to feel the object inside, to draw it and to describe it. I won’t ruin the exercise for future participants but the objects ranged from the ancient to the modern, from the natural to the mechanical.

1. Consolidating learning through creating a memorable experience 

As Thomas then explained to us, sight is vastly overplayed in teaching and education. Our sense of touch is generally forgotten and yet our fingertips are powerful analytical tools. As one participant commented, an object-handling session is a ‘low stakes way of engaging students,’ while others remarked on how a memorable experience of this kind can stay with them longer, thus consolidating learning.

Photo by Shane Rounce on Unsplash

2. Moving students into non-formal learning spaces

Dr Andrea Fredericksen, Curator of the UCL Art Museum, then highlighted that in her line of work you can’t touch the artworks but explained that working up close with artworks can be a transformative experience for students. She highlighted how OBL can facilitate student wellbeing by getting students into ‘non-formal learning spaces,’ which can help overcome classroom anxiety and combat stress.

3. Allowing students who are less comfortable with traditional academic essays to shine 

Next, a series of colleagues shared insights and examples of how they use OBL in their teaching practice, beginning with Dr Kirsty Sinclair Dootson from SELCS. For a module on film materiality, she has put together her own personal teaching collection of film negatives, which is often the first time students have ever encountered such objects. She encourages them to think about issues such as size, flammability and even scent, asking them what they can learn about film without watching a movie. One of her big takeaways was how the assessment based on this film stock flipped the hierarchy in the room, with those who had performed less well on a traditional academic essay excelling at this task.

Photo by Caleb Minear on Unsplash

4. Helping educators teach difficult histories and topics 

Dr Lucia Rinaldi, also from SELCS, highlighted her use of the UCL Galton Collection in teaching a summer school module entitled ‘The Dark Side of London,’ using objects related to the development of forensic science, fingerprinting and aspects of eugenics. She emphasised how OBL can be a powerful tool in helping educators teach difficult histories and topics, by offering an alternative access point to controversial subjects.

5. Building student confidence through introducing real-world professional situations 

Lastly, Dr Anna Maguire (History) and Jo Baines (UCL Special Collections) presented their integration of OBL into the MA in Public History. They both highlighted the importance of sustainable partnerships between academics and UCL collections and archives. Indeed, the MA in Public History programme was approved to be in collaboration with Special Collections, which, in turn, influenced how the programme was designed. One activity asks students to design a lesson plan using objects in a box they are given, with tutors then intervening with last-minute alterations to the brief, exactly as happens in a real-world professional situation. According to Anna, it was a scenario that helped build students’ confidence and made them more confident in engaging with other creative outputs.

Final reflections: what about digital objects?

Aside from showcasing the exciting work being done in the area of OBL across UCL and providing attendees inspiration for how to embed OBL into their own modules, this session also raised some interesting questions. One of the most pressing was how OBL interacts with the digital world. Kirsty also asks her students to engage with films as digital files, asking what you cannot learn from a film that has been digitised and encouraging them to reflect on the consequences of the move from print to digital.

A broader reflection raised several times was whether we should include digital objects in definitions of OBL. Out of necessity, during the Covid lockdowns work, that was previously in person and hands-on was transferred online which posed some interesting questions for the group such as ‘can digital objects be included in definitions of OBL?’ and ‘what is gained and what is lost when we encounter objects only in digital form?’. Perhaps these are questions that can be tackled at a future meeting of the Creative Teaching in the Humanities Network.

The Creative Teaching in the Humanities Network is led by Dr Selena Daly (SELCS). If you have any queries or suggestions for future events and/or speakers, please do get in touch at selena.daly@ucl.ac.uk.