Like most of his colleagues grappling with the COVID-driven move to online learning last spring, Dan Quint was faced with the challenge of having to teach a very complicated subject—in his case, a highly technical graduate-level class on microeconomic theory—without any of the usual in-person instructional tools.
So he did what any industrious and resourceful associate professor of economics would do.
He built a lightboard studio in his basement office.
“I couldn’t see how I could teach the class online without a writing surface,” explains Quint. “And this was one way for me to create one.”
The desktop-sized setup he created was inspired by a how-to YouTube video one of his handyman friends posted online. Centered around a framed, 44 x26-inch screen side-lit by strips of LED lights, the studio proved the perfect tool to allow Quint to videotape and broadcast his lectures to the 63 students who took his class this fall. As Quint faces a webcam clamped to his desk, the screen functions like a transparent blackboard. Quint uses neon dry-erase markers to write on the glass, and inexpensive video software to flip the feed horizontally in real time, so his students can easily see what he’s written. On their laptop screens, it looks like he’s solving and proving theorems about standard microeconomic models of individual and firm behavior in mid-air.
“The students tell me they wish the board was bigger,” says Quint. “A lot of times, I have to erase what I’ve written to make room for the next proof.”
Quint had a light teaching load last spring, giving him the opportunity to plan a strategy, acquire the necessary materials (almost everything was purchased at Home Depot or through Amazon) and put it all together.
As is the case with most DIY projects, there were a few hiccups. Quint found that putting a strip of LED lights on the bottom of the Plexiglas in addition to the sides made things too bright, clouding the screen. Sound quality was initially rough, until he invested in a high-quality podcasting microphone. Quint’s first rig was designed to fit on his sitting desk, but that felt too restrictive, so he swapped in a standing desk instead.
“It’s much easier for me to maintain the right amount of teaching energy for 75 minutes if I’m standing and able to move around,” he says.
Back in June, Quint put together a how-to document to share with his departmental colleagues. (“A few people expressed amusement,” he deadpans.) He expects he’ll the use the lightboard again in the spring, and then more sporadically once UW-Madison reaches what he jokingly refers to as “the after times.” More than anything, he says, he’s grateful for having gone through the DIY experience.
“It was very good having built this in May, having a concrete thing to do that was proactive,” says Quint. “It was a nice distraction, and it helped keep me calm.”
College of Letters & Science administrators, meanwhile, are impressed by Quint's dedication.
"L&S instructors, faculty, staff and teaching assistants have gone to extraordinary measures to deliver outstanding and engaging instruction to our students this fall semester," says Shirin Malekpour, Associate Dean for Teaching and Learning Administration. "They are the embodiment of what L&S stands for."