How does learning happen? Are teachers still necessary in today’s learning environments? Two questions crucial to learning and teaching are addressed in an article by Kirschner and van Merriënboer. The authors engage with current but established thinking about the learning journey, and implicitly, about the role of teachers on that journey. [Urban Legends in Education
Read on »Archives: 2014
Rules of collaboration – a few ‘big ideas’
While browsing through a book called ‘Invent to Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom’ (Sylvia Libow Martinez & Gary Stager), I came across a passage dealing with lessons learnt from a research project from 1999 led by Seymour Papert. He laid out his ideas in a document designed for a visitor to the
Read on »Reflection as creative process
An issue that has always intrigued me is that of ‘creativity’. One of my favourite sources on this topic is Ken Robinson, in particular his book “Out of our minds: Learning to be Creative”. Over the next couple of posts I will be exploring this topic a little further, side-by-side with my current work on
Read on »Prokofiev’s ‘Fiery Angel’ and modernism
I was recently asked to deliver a paper on Prokofiev’s opera The Fiery Angel within the context of contemporary aesthetic views on modernism. I’ll be exploring this topic further as I’m working on a big project focussed on the composer’s operas but I thought I would put down some initial ideas here. I think Prokofiev’s relationship with
Read on »Prokofiev’s early manuscripts
The music of Prokofiev’s juvenile period (although there is really nothing juvenile about it!) spans around c. 1896 – c. 1908. The works he wrote at this time can be broadly categorised into three types: works for solo piano; theatrical works; miscellaneous works. My PhD traces the composer’s development of a distinctive compositional voice using
Read on »Innovative Conservatoire Seminar 10: Student as Teacher, Dartington 2014
The innovative conservatoire seminar is always such an inspiring space to inhabit. Over three days key members from various European institutions gather at Dartington Hall to share practice and ideas creating a vibrant and supportive community of practice. In this positive place, fear is cast aside and experimentation is encouraged. I find that this kind of
Read on »Writing…getting started (WAA)
One of the courses I will be teaching next academic year is entirely focussed on writing within the arts. As part of my preparation for this course, I’ve decided to collect my ideas and experiences on both writing and reading. As a result the following posts are really written with my students in mind (hence
Read on »Curiosity (my first teaching principle)
As teachers we are often in a position of needing to teach a subject that students do not consider as being immediately valid to their current practices or necessary for their experience. Yet, (and they may not know this or be able to visualise this yet) it may be an area that they will come
Read on »Creativity in teaching
How important is creativity in today’s teaching spaces? It’s a question that is gradually coming more into focus and one which is certainly worthy of our attention. As 1-1 teachers, or eve small group facilitators is this something we need to be thinking about? Perhaps because I work in an arts environment, it has always
Read on »Thoughts on the reflective practitioner
In the article “Focus: Becoming a reflective practitioner”, http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/detail/subjects/medev/Focus-_Becoming_a_reflective_practitioner the Higher Education Academy interrogates the concepts of reflection and reflective practice identifying them as “two of the key buzzwords in professional and education practice at present”. They provide their definition of reflection, in the process breaking down what they see as the “key stages in reflective
Read on »Research supervision…a few personal thoughts
Research supervision is pretty much always exciting for me. Not without its challenges, but exciting nonetheless. I’m a relative newcomer to supervising graduate research projects – I’ve only been doing it for four years – but it’s a part of my teaching commitment that I greatly relish. The term ‘supervision’ continues to strike me as
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