{"id":122960,"date":"2021-02-16T12:00:12","date_gmt":"2021-02-16T11:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=122960"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:25:24","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:25:24","slug":"this-rsm-lecturer-built-a-high-tech-studio-himself-from-which-he-now-teaches-his-lectures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2021\/02\/16\/this-rsm-lecturer-built-a-high-tech-studio-himself-from-which-he-now-teaches-his-lectures\/","title":{"rendered":"This RSM lecturer built a high-tech studio himself, from which he now teaches his lectures"},"content":{"rendered":"

Florian Madertoner, 41, received the Rotterdam School of Management (RSM)\u2019s 2020 Innovative Teaching Award. Previously, he was voted best lecturer of the year by his students for several consecutive years. Madertoner calls himself a \u2018teaching machine\u2019 and went into overdrive when the pandemic began. \u201cWhen my series of lectures kicked off, I told my students: in the next nine weeks, all my time will belong to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cLecturers are a university\u2019s soldiers fighting on the frontlines. Before the Christmas break, I finished teaching the Corporate Finance course, which is taken by all 1,800 Business Administration and IBA students. I decided to give the lectures live, as I prefer doing things that way. I love interacting with students, joking around and having a beer with them afterwards on campus. Many of my students have moved out of their parents\u2019 homes for the first time, but they\u2019ve never come to campus. I feel responsible for those kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

Terrible quality<\/h2>

\u201cSo after the summer, I was supposed to teach 1,800 students, even though the university was not giving me the right tools to do so. Zoom calls can only be attended by three hundred users at a time, so basically, I would\u2019ve had to teach the same lecture at least five times in order to allow everyone to attend. Moreover, the image quality of those classes makes my eyes bleed. My students tell me that the sound often is lousy, because of a mediocre microphone. How the hell is that possible?\u201d<\/p>\n

Own studio<\/h2>
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Florian Madertoner.<\/span><\/p><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>

\u201cI decided to teach my lectures from a professional studio in Rotterdam-Zuid and to live-stream them using both Zoom and YouTube . This would allow students to ask questions in Zoom. I had a teaching assistant keep an eye on the questions raised in YouTube\u2019s chat function, and he would then pass on the questions to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the end, I built a high-tech studio in my own living room, based on the recommendations given by the people who ran the studio. RSM didn\u2019t pay me a cent to do so, but it allows me to be completely autarkic now. Of course, providing good image quality makes no difference when you\u2019re teaching a bad lecture, but it is the cherry on the cake.\u201d<\/p>\n

Greedy<\/h2>

\u201cI\u2019m disappointed with the way exams are currently being administered. I understand we were all caught with our pants down by the coronavirus crisis. But it\u2019s been a year now, and I\u2019m still having to administer unproctored open-book examinations, where students don\u2019t have to show any ID and I have no idea who is sitting the exam. As far as I\u2019m concerned, online proctoring is the only way to prevent cheating. \u201c<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the university is greedy. They\u2019re like a restaurant that wishes to feed one hundred clients at the same time, but only employs one chef, and is surprised that the quality of the food leaves something to be desired. In such cases, you either hire another chef, or you accept fewer clients. You don\u2019t just take these kids\u2019 money and have them attend Zoom calls with three hundred other students.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn order to prevent cheating, they asked me to come up with sixty more multiple-choice questions, on top of the twenty I already had. And to make it even harder to cheat, they are giving students very little time to sit their exams, so that they have no time to secretly consult others. As a lecturer, I feel very uncomfortable about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Least glorious job<\/h2>\n\t
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