Teaching with objects logo

A practical guide for teachers and educational support staff

Anouk Nuijten

18 December, 2025

The Netherlands, Amsterdam

This guide is designed for teachers and teaching assistants who want to incorporate objects into their lessons and help students learn through them. Inside, you’ll discover a variety of object-based teaching and learning (OBTL) methods to apply in your classroom, along with practical examples to spark inspiration. With this guide, you can start integrating objects into your teaching right away. 

How to use the guide

This guide was initially developed by the OBTL-team at the University Library of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. More information about our OBTL activities and additional examples of teaching with objects can be found here. The latest version of the guide was released as part of the Digital Impressions project (2025), which also offers lesson plans for teaching with digitized clay tablets and other objects.

Link to the guide

Related sources

Website | Educational resources for Object Based Teaching and Learning:
Lesson plans for teaching with digitized clay tablets & other objects

Website | Object-Based Teaching and Learning | Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU) | 2025

Digital Impressions: Creating 3D Models of Clay Tablets | A digitization & education project at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam (The Netherlands)

Creating an infrastructure for Object Based Teaching and Learning at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. TWO Disseminating Event / Presentations: “Creative OBTL approaches and tools”

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