PALATINE News Sheet No 1 (Summer 2000)

Contents:

Introduction

PALATINE, the Performing Arts Learning and Teaching Innovation Network, is the national subject centre for Performing Arts in Higher Education. Based at Lancaster University, it is one of 24 subject centres set up by the funding bodies to support learning and teaching in Higher Education in the UK. PALATINE will work across the areas of Dance, Drama/Theatre Studies, Music and Performance. The work of the centre has three primary functions:

PALATINE’s aim is to become a ‘one stop shop’ for colleagues and departments, providing a proactive and responsive service to the needs of the performing arts community in Higher Education. Hopefully PALATINE will become the main point of contact within the community for information and advice on good practice and innovation in all aspects of teaching and learning.

These are some of the services and activities we aim to provide:

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PALATINE Staff

Director: Professor Roger Bray
Co-director: Geraldine (Gerry) Harris
Co-director (2000-20001): Dr Kate Newey
Associate Directors: Paul Kleiman, Lisa Whistlecroft
Centre Administrator: Barbara Hargreaves

Contact:
PALATINE
The Great Hall
Lancaster University
Lancaster LA1 4YW
Tel: 01524 592614
E-mail: palatine@lancaster.ac.uk

PALATINE Personnel

Roger Bray: Director

Roger was for ten years closely associated, as Secretary and later Chair, with the Music subject association NAUMS in the ’80s, and is committed to the future development and strengthening of the subject. He brings to PALATINE his experience as a Head of Department for most of the past 21 years, during which many changes have been made and some unmade, and as an External Examiner for undergraduate programmes at more than a dozen institutions.

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Geraldine (Gerry) Harris: Co-Director

Gerry has been teaching in HE for twenty years now, working at a variety of institutions before coming to the Department of Theatre Studies at Lancaster thirteen years ago. In the course of her career she has taught on a massive variety of different courses ranging from Ancient Greek Drama to Contemporary Performance Art–always combining practical and theoretical approaches. Her most recent teaching has focused on Television Drama and Gender and Sexual Politics in Performance, and her research also falls into these categories, although she has also published on French 19th Century Popular Theatre, specifically Le Café-concert and Le Music Hall. She also writes text for performance and, more recently, film and directs devised shows whenever she gets the opportunity. To her great delight she has just finished a three-year term as Head of Department and is looking forward to life after admin. She will also be on sabbatical during the academic year 2000-2001 during which time her colleague Dr Kate Newey will be taking over as Co-director of PALATINE.

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Lisa Whistlecroft: Associate Director

Lisa has a technical as well as a musical background and has worked in the support of teaching in Higher Education since 1979. For the last ten years she was the Coordinator at CTI Music, developing an information and advisory service on the use of new technology in teaching in Music and editing the journal ‘Musicus’. She designed and teaches an undergraduate musicology module at Lancaster, focusing on electroacoustic music. In the last year, she has made conference presentations on the Evaluation of First-time Teaching, on Digital Resources for Music in HE, and on Women in Music Technology in the UK. Her practical music-making is entirely amateur–as a soprano in an early music chamber choir and as a composer of acousmatic music.

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Paul Kleiman: Associate Director

Paul joined PALATINE in July 2000 as Associate Director on a long-term secondment from LIPA (Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts), where he still retains a part-time (25%) post as Head of Performance Design. Paul trained as a theatre designer at the Wimbledon School of Art from 1971-74. He then worked as a designer, director, performer and administrator, working mainly in Theatre-in-Education, Political and Community Theatre from 1974-1989. He combined his theatre work with part-time lecturing until 1989 when he joined City College Manchester to lead the BTEC Performing Arts course. In 1992 he set up and ran the Technical Theatre Arts degree course at the Arden School of Theatre, and then joined LIPA in 1995 to set up and lead the Performance Design degree course there, where he is also Head of Assessment. His primary research interests are: Assessment in the Performing and Visual Arts, Creativity and Innovation, and Performance Theory. Recent conference presentations include Assessing Creativity in HE, and The Performative Image.

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Barbara Hargreaves: Centre Administrator

Barbara has a non-academic background, but has had 30 years’ work experience, starting with 10 years as a bank clerk followed by 20 years in various administrative roles including, for the last 6 years, being Centre Administrator of CTI Music.

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The Management Committee is:

Professor Graham Barber, Head of Department of Music at the University of Leeds and Chair of NAMHE.

Mike Huxley, Head of Department of Performing Arts at De Montfort University.

Professor Martin White, Theatre Studies Department at Bristol University and Chair of SCUDD.

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New FDTL Projects in Dance and Drama

PALATINE is supporting three Fund for the Development of Teaching and Learning projects. The FDTL is an important HEFCE initiative designed to disseminate and embed high quality practice in subject-based learning and teaching.

Assessment in a Collaborative Context

Consortium of:
Central School of Speech and Drama
Dartington College of Arts
Goldsmiths College, University of London
University of Salford
University of Ulster
Bretton Hall College

A two-year project which aims to:

Project Director: Cordelia Bryan

Note: Cordelia Bryan will be leading a session at our Assessment Workshop on 8 November.

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Performance: The Reflective Practitioner

De Montfort University

Aims:

Project Director: Jayne Stevens

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Accessing National and International Expertise (ANNIE)

School of Theatre Studies at the University of Warwick and the School of Drama, Film and Visual Arts at the University of Kent at Canterbury.

Aims:

Project Directors:

Professor David Thomas (Warwick)
Professor Christopher Baugh (Kent)

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FDTL Projects in Music (Completed)

These were the projects which were financed under the first round of funding after the Funding Councils set up this initiative in 1996.

Peer Learning in Music

Department of Media and Performing Arts
University of Ulster

An excellent, comprehensive and nicely packaged study of peer learning and assessment in music, which is of relevance across the performing arts disciplines. Contains book, conference papers, video, handbook.

Note: Dr Desmond Hunter will be leading a session at our Assessment Workshop on 8 November.

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Making Music Work: Professional Integration Project (PIP)

Royal College of Music
Anglia Polytechnic University
Birmingham Conservatoire
Dartington College of Arts
Huddersfield University
University of Leeds
Trinity College of Music
University of York

Musicians increasingly work as freelancers, or on a self-employed basis, and their ability to generate work, emphasising their particular talents, becomes crucial to their sustained professional success.

The consortium was charged with defining the attributes and skills necessary for a musician’s professional integration. Each institution contributed a course description that shared with others ideas as to how professional attributes could be developed. The materials produced, while specific to music, will have potential for wider use within the Higher Education sector.

Available online at: pipdbs.rcm.ac.uk

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CALMA (Computer Assisted Learning for Musical Awareness)

Department of Music
University of Huddersfield

CALMA grew from previous work at Huddersfield in innovatory approaches to the teaching of aural skills, making the study more creative and relevant to real-life musical situations, and in the development of interactive computer assisted learning resources for teaching sound synthesis.

The project brought together expertise in these two areas to develop a resource which can be used either on its own by students in private study or as a support to class work as part of an existing course (e.g. aural training, aural awareness, analysis, musicology etc.)

CALMA provides:

The courseware package includes specific applications dealing with particular aspects of aural training, and a customisable shell for the creation of critical listening exercises. The CALMA Editor and Player enable the easy creation and use of listening exercises that link text to specific time points on any CD. Uses include the creation of listening guides, commentaries and listening exercises. The software could also be used to create dictation exercises and stylistic recognition tests. Lecturers can use the exercises provided on the starter CD (containing copyright cleared audio from Hyperion, Naxos and EMI) in their courses, modify them slightly, or make their own exercises with the simple editor.

The software has applications in any other subject areas where primary audio and video sources are vital to the learning process.

Online information: www.hud.ac.uk/mh/music/calma/calma.html

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LUMEN (Leeds University Music in Education Initiative)

Department of Music, Leeds University

LUMEN aims to improve the experience of music graduates by addressing a range of complementary issues in teaching and learning in HE Music. Project includes a Study Skills Module paradigm with accompanying Handbook, Recording and Reviewing Software and a Year Abroad Log Scheme and Document Pack.

Website: www.leeds.ac.uk/music/Info/Lumen/lumen.html

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POP: Assessment Strategies for Popular Music Performance

Department of Music
University of Salford

The Department of Music at the University of Salford recognised that the assessment practices in place to assess music from the Western European classical tradition were not appropriate for the assessment of popular music performance.

This FDTL project developed a staff development resource to explore issues arising from the assessment of popular music performance. The POP CD-ROM aims to encourage discussion about the assessment of popular music performance and to assist staff with the development of appropriate assessment strategies.

The CD-ROM represents the culmination of discussion and debate with colleagues from music, theatre, and art and design disciplines from departments nationally.

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LiTMus Learning and Teaching Music
(formerly the Performance Teachers' Development Project)

University of Southampton
Royal Holloway, University of London
University of Surrey

A pilot professional development and teacher-accreditation scheme developed specifically for instrumental and vocal teachers and musicians who are employed (predominantly part-time) in university music departments and conservatoires in the UK.

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Website

Our Website: www.palatine.ac.uk/

Although our website is to be completely overhauled during the Autumn, we are continuing to develop it in its present, basic form, adding items which we hope will be of interest to you. We would welcome any suggestions you may have for what we might usefully include on our web pages.

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Help us to Help You

PALATINE needs a constant supply of information and news about activities and developments in the performing arts HE sector. One of the drivers for setting up PALATINE was the recognition that there is a great deal of interesting, and often unrecognised, work in areas such as performance projects, curriculum developments, assessment methodologies, research etc., that deserve wider dissemination.

PALATINE has identified a number of key issues or themes which we hope to explore in the coming year through workshops, seminars and conferences. These include:

We also need suggestions from you, our colleagues in the sector, as to the issues and themes you would like PALATINE to address with you.

Please e-mail us at palatine@lancaster.ac.uk with information and suggestions.

Recommend a Friend!

One of our aims is to be able to reach everyone working in the sector, and sometimes beyond. We recognise that, while it is relatively easy to establish who and where the well-established colleges and departments are, there are many colleagues who work in small or ‘sub’ departments or, in some cases, work alone attached to other departments e.g. a French drama specialist teaching and directing plays in a French department.

If you know someone who might be interested in hearing of our work, please ask them to contact us, or pass this newsletter on to them. We will be happy to send you a replacement copy.

E-mail: palatine@lancaster.ac.uk

It Came Across Our Desk

Music Education Research
Carfax Publishing
ISSN 1461-3808

Journal with international perspective; wide range of contributors; focus on music teaching and learning in styles outside the European 'classical' tradition.

Assessment Issues in Higher Education
Department of Employment 1993 83pp

If you can get hold of it, a still-relevant and interesting review, undertaken by the University of Newcastle. Considers assessment in relation to the various purposes of higher education and puts forward a number of practical suggestions for improving assessment–suggestions aimed at individual lecturers, at departments and at institutional managers.

Evaluation Cookbook
LTDI Institute for Computer-Based Learning
Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh
ISSN 0 9528731 6 8

A practical guide aimed at lecturers interested in evaluating materials for their effectiveness in achieving specific learning objectives.

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Conferences

7 OCT 2000 HAN 2000 CONFERENCE
Subject Knowledges and Professional Practice in the Arts and Humanities

"The conference will debate the question: is contemporary Professional Practice–with its emphasis on delivery of learning outcomes and information, on skills acquisition, etc., across all academic disciplines–at odds with traditional conceptions of subject knowledges in the arts and humanities, how and why they are taught and learned?"

Conference venue: The Berrill Building, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK.

Contact: Kelvin Lack
Email: k.j.lack@open.ac.uk
Telephone enquiries: +44 (0) 1908 653488

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16 OCT 2000 SEDA ONE-DAY EVENT
Reflection in Learning and Professional Development

This conference will attempt to answer some of the questions which arise as reflection and reflective writing have increased in prominence as learning and assessment strategies.

Conference venue: RIBA, London.

Conference url: www.seda.ac.uk/events/reflect/reflect.htm

Email enquiries: office@seda.demon.co.uk
Telephone enquiries: 0121 415 6801
Fax enquiries: 0121 415 6802

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10-12 NOV 2000 An international symposium on the writer as creative artist within contemporary theatre and the media

A symposium designed to address the current position of the writer within the creative arts industries.

Venue: The Department of Drama, Goldsmiths College, University of London.

Email enquiries: write@gold.ac.uk
Telephone enquiries: 020 7919 7423
Fax Enquiries: 020 7919 7413

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Assessment

Extracts from a selection of the e-mails PALATINE received in response to our request for views on assessment to inform the 8th November Assessment Workshop.

Our thanks to the contributors.

Do we mark how the students perform or what they make?

When assessing practical work, what is the relationship between performance, product and process? Again what do we mark–the student’s contribution to the group product throughout the process or the student’s contribution to the group product in performance? (This may seem like the same point but actually it refers to how we distinguish between students, after deciding what is important about what they do collectively).

How do we define these things and ensure that we apply consistent marking criteria?

What marking system for practical modules is most desirable? (If there is a written element, can this inform marking of practical work? How does this work in practice?)

What is the relationship between learning outcomes and assessment when marking practical work?

Are all learning outcomes of equal significance? Is it possible to standardise marking by use of an assessment grid for practical work? What might this include?

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I am keen to have the question addressed as to whether it is appropriate to equate individual contribution with demonstration of performance skills. If the quality of the group product is of significance for assessment purposes (and it invariably is: the alternative is not dealing in actuality) should we not acknowledge to a greater extent that this is determined by individual contributions throughout the process and not what students evidence as acting skills on the night of a show?

Taking a broad view, we know that performance is only one element of theatrical production. Thus, in order to encourage our students to make effective theatre, we continually stress that they must configure all the resources at their disposal to maximum effect, and not just perform in a way that meets a notional standard of ‘good acting’.

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One of the central concerns when assessing group practical work relates to the question of process and product. For those who value the creative and working processes of the group it seems logical to be able to assess it in some way. We operate quite a sophisticated system of self- and peer-assessment using both face-to-face and virtual learning environments. We would be happy to share some insights and would love to hear how other providers assess process and/or use self and peer assessment.

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There are several question that arise specifically in relation to assessing practical work, which I’d like to put forward.

One is what standard you are marking them against (undergraduates are capable of writing publishable essays, but it seems rarer–and perhaps unreasonable to expect–that students do practical work with the same degree of technical accomplishment). But if we are not marking them against a scale of good professional theatre practice, what are we doing? And if we have a kind of medium-scale level of quality are we doing our students down? and might this lead–as occasionally it seems to–to a kind of house style of British theatre studies; watered down performance art or hammy versions of out-of-the-way plays.

Another is the extent to which the difficulty of the task attempted should affect the scale of marks used. This does also affect more conventional academic work, but it seems particularly acute in practical work; in other words, sometimes you see a piece which is a bit of a disaster but you also realise the students have tried something a bit riskier, a bit more adventurous, a bit more imaginative. Do you give them credit for that? Or should we be thinking in the opposite way, that students should be given credit for sizing up their abilities and fitting their task to them.

Neither seems entirely satisfactory; at either extreme one can imagine a student getting top marks for having wanted to put on a complete version of Robert Wilson’s the CIVIL wars (and failing dismally), and then one can imagine a blindingly unambitious student who knows that they have very few skills and therefore decides to sit on a chair in a darkened room smoking for 15 minutes, having cleverly got the measure of what they are actually any good at.

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As someone quite new to assessing students’ written work, there is a whole host of issues on which I’d like to hear more experienced opinions! Here are the ones that come to mind first:

How do I know that I am assessing to similar standards as my colleagues?

Does my assessment help the students to develop–or is it simply to determine the class of degree they will achieve?

How do I change my teaching to get better results from my students? (Or do I just accept that many students will apparently learn very little?!)

Marking takes a long time. Why do the ‘standard’ time allowances assume that it doesn’t?

It seems to me that I would gain most help with my first issue if I could have access to the assessment criteria for essays and exams that other colleagues and departments use. A quick search on the WWW generated some marking criteria used in other disciplines (History and Environmental Sciences). These were quite reassuring, and I know that second marking and external examiners are both mechanisms for ensuring consistency, but I’d welcome some wider and more open debate on why we give the marks that we do.

I know my second question has many answers–and in the case of exams the answer is depressingly straightforward. But I’m not sure that ‘feedback’ is the answer to the more developmental part of my question. However convincingly I point out that if they don’t listen to the music they can’t write intelligently about it, that in itself will not change the culture of ‘revision=reading the hand-outs’.

Should I revise my teaching in the light of what they write in their essays and exams? Do other people? How do I find out?

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(c) PALATINE 2000