Diden teaches musicianship courses and leads ensembles like the Symphonic Band. But students also know him as a talented baker. Several years ago, Diden began delivering his signature Snickerdoodle cookies to the members of his ensembles before each of their concerts. It became a tradition.
Two years ago, he started another cookie tradition - he holds live baking demonstrations for the students of Tau Beta Sigma, a band service organization, once a year. This year’s session was supposed to happen right after Spring Break, but Georgia Tech’s campus closed and shifted to online -only learning around the same time.
So, instead, Diden used videoconferencing to hold an online cooking demonstration for interested students.
“I thought this was a way for all of us to learn about this new [online class] system and still have the activity take place," he says. "It was something that was fun but it also gave students an opportunity to see how this program was going to work, since they were going to use it in probably all their classes."
More than 20 students signed in to watch, and many even followed along in their kitchens at home. “You could see a few people following along as someone was in the background making dinner,” he said.
The virtual event gave students the chance to reconnect with their classmates in a more relaxed, informal setting. “You could just see the excitement between the students when one of their friends would pop up on the screen. It was such a positive thing and took away from their stress a little bit,” Diden says.
While Diden's bands won’t be able to play together for the rest of this semester, he plans to hold video meetings during their normal rehearsal times. It is important to him and his band to check in on each other and see how everyone is doing during isolation.
He also created a playlist of recorded concerts and performances for his students to watch, even if they don’t have their instrument with them to practice.