My course is a series, and what is yours?

Abstract

Everybody is talking about the newest episodes on Netflix, Amazon Prime or other channels. While the cultural phenomen of a “series” is nothing new, it has never been so popular as today. The “lockdown” era brought more streaming, more time at home and more online teaching. Starting with the idea that our students (and many of our teachers) are now part of the “Netflix generation”, we have been integrating serial elements in education and training. This contribution describes the first experiments of using the elements of a series in teaching. Regardless of whether online and offline teaching, teachers and trainers can use some classical methods of series, such as recaps and cliffhangers, teasers and mysteries to make the courses not only more interesting but also more consistent. Encouraged by the positive results of our experiments, we will be taking the series a step further in the upcoming semester and  include elements of an interactive series in our teaching. Together with the students, we will be developing a storyboard outlining the series' episodes throughout the semester.