PALATINE Briefing March 2003

Contents:

Future Workshops

30 April 2003 Theatre Histories, De Montfort University @ Milton Keynes

2 May 2003 Creativity and Criticality: integrating theory and practice in third year final practical projects, King Alfred's College, Winchester.

7 May 2003 Teaching Using Video-conferencing, University of Warwick

11 July 2003 Creative Tensions: pedagogic challenges in HE dance education, Laban Centre, London

These workshops are free.

To book contact Barbara Hargreaves: palatine@lancaster.ac.uk

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PALATINE/FDTL3 Conference:

LEADING PRACTICE IN THE PERFORMING ARTS

2 x One Day Conferences on Learning and Teaching in Higher Education

Monday 23 June 2003 Rose Bruford College, Sidcup, Kent

OR

Wednesday 25 June 2003, The Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA), Liverpool

Organised by FDTL3 projects in performing arts (ANNIE, Assessing Group Practice, ReP) in conjunction with PALATINE.

Conference chaired by Professor John Cowan.

Key project workers from three FDTL Phase 3 projects in Performing Arts will lead conference presentations and workshops to address:

All three projects have identified and developed successful practice in learning, teaching and assessment in the Performing Arts in Higher Education. This one day conference provides an opportunity to find out about the projects’ key achievements and to engage in ongoing debate and research. Each conference delegate will be able to participate in two of the following workshops:

Although the conference focuses on Performing Arts the workshops will be relevant to academic staff and educational developers from a wide range of subject disciplines.

Conference fee: £40.00 for one delegate.

Group Discount: A group booking (i.e. two or more people from the same institution booking together) will be charged at the rate of £40 for one delegate plus £10 for each extra delegate.

To book contact Barbara Hargreaves: palatine@lancaster.ac.uk

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Higher Education White Paper Consultation.....your views are important.

As you will probably have noticed, there has been a recent burst of high-level activity to do with learning and teaching matters: specific developments are proposed in the Government's White Paper, more immediate developments are indicated in the HEFCE grant letter, and there has been a Report of the Teaching Quality Enhancement Committee jointly to HEFCE, UUK and SCOP. A HEFCE Strategy Paper is expected very soon, which may add further to this.

Although some of these issues are specifically for the English university system, there are related developments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and so colleagues in those countries may wish to comment on developments in England.

Briefly, the chief proposals are as follows: -

the establishment of a 'teaching quality academy', to be responsible for supporting teaching enhancement. Final details of its responsibilities are not by any means settled, but it is proposed that it take over the ILTHE (members are being consulted separately on this), the LTSN, and responsibility for various enhancement functions, such as National Teaching Fellowships.

the creation of 70 'centres of excellence', each being awarded a grant of 500k per year for five years. We understand that the way these may operate is even less settled, and therefore there may be a way of influencing how they will work.

The organisational position of PALATINE and the LTSN Centres in all this is not finally settled, but there is some suggestion that they will move into the new 'academy' lock stock and barrel, at least at first.

We at PALATINE shall continue to act as honest brokers in all this, a role we would seek to maintain whatever the outcome. If we do have a chance of commenting to HEFCE we want to be sure that we have a picture of people's views, and so we invite you to comment on:-

- the 'academy': how should it run?
- the 'centres of excellence': how should they operate?

- PALATINE: our role in the discussions and our role in the future (and changes you would like to see in the way we operate).

The subject associations, SCODHE, SCUDD and NAMHE, which are strongly represented on our Management Committee, will also welcome comments, but we have put in place this, our own, method of receiving personal views in addition.

Please send your comments by email to palatine@lancaster.ac.uk or by post to:
Professor Roger Bray
Director
PALATINE
Great Hall
Lancaster University
Lancaster LA1 4YW

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PALATINE Impact Survey

We sent out the (quite short) PALATINE IMPACT SURVEY to all our contacts at the beginning a February. Thank you to those who have taken the time to reply. We'd still like to gather as many as possible before 7 March - whether we've had an impact on your work or not. or contact Barbara Hargreaves palatine@lancaster.ac.uk / 01524 592614 and we'll send you one.

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Become a PALATINE Contributing Editor

...and help build a resource for the whole performing arts academic community.

The PALATINE Directory of learning and teaching resources has been attracting over 2500 'genuine' visits a week. However, we are aware that there are a number of areas that need enhancing, and that the WWW provides us with an opportunity to involve those we aim to support in building what we aim to be an excellent resource for the performing arts in higher education.

Whilst anyone can suggest a link for the website via the 'Submit a Link' facility in the PALATINE Directory (and please do!), we are inviting colleagues to become Contributing Editors, willing to spend a little time keeping an eye on their specialist area in the Directory and suggesting additions and improvements.

For further information contact Paul Kleiman: palatine@lancaster.ac.uk / 01524 593775

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ARCHES (Antiquity Related Collections Harnessed for Educational scenarios)

ARCHES is a collaborative project between the University of Warwick’s School of Theatre Studies, Centre for Academic Practice and IT Services elab together with City College Coventry. The project, which started in January this year, has been funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) under the Exchange for Learning Programme (X4L).

ARCHES will support and link institutions, departments, courses and modules as they introduce, evaluate and disseminate exemplary, transformative and innovative pedagogy through re-purposing new and existing collections of digital resources pertaining to ancient Greece and Rome. Arising from research projects led by Professor Richard Beacham and Dr Hugh Denard in the School of Theatre Studies, the project will make available for national use a substantial new collection of Virtual Reality objects relating to Greece and Rome prepared by the University of Warwick over the course of five years. These objects will be of immense value to disciplines such as Classics, the Performing Arts, Art History, Architecture, IT Modelling, and others. No other VR objects of such high quality or pedagogical value currently freely exist in the public domain. Moreover, enabled by a number of recent grants from the University of Warwick, project members in Classics and Theatre Studies have created a collection of 1,500 original digital images of Roman artifacts. Through this project, these two collections will become freely available to FE, HE and international educational sectors for the first time.

Over a two year period, the ARCHES Project aims to imaginatively re-purpose an exciting range of materials on ancient Greece and Rome between three educational contexts (FE, HE, and an International Online Resource), three subject areas (Theatre Studies, Classics, VR Modelling) and seven modules. Using a variety of delivery modes in modules over a range of learning levels in FE and HE and beyond, creative use of these resources will transform aspects of traditional pedagogy and introduce innovative teaching practices.

Visit the ARCHES website at www.warwick.ac.uk/ETS/arches/

Project Contact:
Dr Jay Dempster
Centre for Academic Practice
Tel: 024 76524670
Email: Jay.Dempster@warwick.ac.uk

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'Successful Student Diversity'

....get your free copy of this HEFCE Report

This free 22 page document provides examples of practice to improve planning at a school or departmental level in widening participation (including disability) and learning and teaching. It is not prescriptive, but identifies common principles that institutions can adapt to their own circumstances, to help them recruit and support a diverse range of students, PALATINE has a number of copies of this report. Please e-mail Barbara Hargreaves at palatine@lancaster.ac.uk if you would like us to send you one. In the first instance we shall restrict it to one copy per department.

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PALATINE Development Awards

We have funds available (up to £5000 per project) to help colleagues investigate and introduce new ideas in learning and teaching, and we invite you to apply for funding for small projects. Currently we are funding twelve awards details of which are on the website.

A typical model of our Development Award scheme will be for PALATINE to award to a department a sum of money enough to buy in some replacement teaching, releasing a staff member to invest the necessary time to prepare the new materials.

The application process is relatively informal in that there are no closing dates for applications. We ask that you tell us what you want to do, how and when you want to do it, why its introduction is particularly timely, and what the outcome is expected to be. We also ask that you produce a report on your project. PALATINE will establish a panel of colleagues to judge the value and timeliness of proposals, and to make the awards.

For information see the website or contact:

Lisa Whistlecroft at palatine@lancaster.ac.uk

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(c) PALATINE 2003