Review of: David Kinloch and Richard Price, La Nouvelle Alliance

No abstract available

First in class: Crichton student profile 1999-2005

No abstract available

Applying university strategic objectives at the school level

University Teachers at the School of Interdisciplinary Studies are working together on the Teaching, Learning and Participation Project. This project encompasses three strands: widening participation, student experience, and innovative learning and teaching; all key aspects of the University’s strategic objectives. The widening participation strand has focused primarily on partnership with local schools. This includes Campus Days whereby pupils who have the ability, but perhaps not the confidence, to enter higher education come to the University's two campuses and experience a day as a student. Additionally this strand is seeking to conduct a comparative study of assessment and feedback processes in secondary and higher education. The student experience strand has concentrated on employability and internationalisation. Examples include working with the local education authority to extend student learning and provide staff CPD opportunities via the establishment of an annual education lecture, and developing opportunities for internships overseas. Finally, the innovative learning and teaching strand has sought to review current teaching practices within the School, and to identify and trial innovative methodologies in an effort to engage learners more fully and thereby to enhance both the student and staff learning experiences

‘Do you ever get this feeling…?’ University teacher narratives from a research-led university

In 2002 a contractually differentiated teaching–focused post, University Teacher (UT), was created within my Russell Group HEI. This interpretivist study seeks to explore the impact of the ‘lived experience’ of this recent post on both myself and a group of 11 colleagues, some of whom were transferred and others employed as UTs. A narrative approach is adopted to evaluate existing public stories of the UK HE sector and changing definitions of academic functions and identities alongside original private stories, both my own and those co-constructed with participants. My primary research comprised in-depth narrative interviews with four Senior UTs, six UTs and one research-focused Lecturer recently transferred from a UT post. The interviews sought to elicit participants’ storied accounts of professional identity construction and management on the career paths towards their current posts and beyond. The interview data was examined reflexively using a pragmatic hybrid model based on a range of narrative analytic lenses: structural and linguistic narrative analysis of three case studies, together with thematic analysis of narratives across all 11 interviews. The participants shared highly personal, emotional and reflective accounts. The case study analysis centred on the identification and scrutiny of overarching plotlines, key episodes, genres and characterisation. The thematic analysis revealed common concerns around the job title, the relative weightings and status of teaching and scholarship, the nature of scholarship and career progression. The complex connection between intra-, inter-, cultural and structural dimensions proved key; personal values and agency, relationships with peers and managers, and institutional and sectoral priorities were all essential to the achievement of a progressive, as opposed to a regressive or static, UT identity typology. UTs clearly had some control over their own agency. However, institutional leaders and line managers were seen to have more significant power to promote or inhibit identity growth for academics on differentiated contracts. Changes have recently been made to the UT post in relation to the job title and promotion criteria. In the conclusions I suggest that further research is needed on the effect of these changes and on the impact of contractual differentiation on staff and students across the HE sector. Implications for institutions and staff on how to facilitate teaching-focused academics’ positive identity growth are also put forward

Elsa Triolet et le Prix Goncourt 1944: consécration littéraire ou expédient politique?

On 2 July 1945 Elsa Triolet became the first woman ever to win the Prix Goncourt, awarded for 1944 only in the months following the victory in Europe.<p></p> This paper in French aims to examine the various questions raised by this particular choice at this particular point in history. Can it really be considered as a truly literary consecration, crowning a work in prose for literary reasons, as stipulated by the last will and testament of Edmond de Goncourt, that it be awarded ‘à la jeunesse, à l’originalité du talent, aux tentatives nouvelles et hardies de la pensée et de la forme’, or in this case is it not rather to be evaluated as an act of political expediency aiming to respond to various imperatives of an extra-literary, socio-political nature? <p></p> Via an analysis of various primary and secondary sources I attempt to uncover possible answers to these questions - complex and constantly evolving answers - from the point of view of Elsa Triolet herself, the French Communist Party with which she was so closely associated, the press and other critics and commentators

Assessment of Achievement Programme

No abstract available

Elsa Triolet et le Prix Goncourt 1944: consécration littéraire ou expédient politique?

On 2 July 1945 Elsa Triolet became the first woman ever to win the Prix Goncourt, awarded for 1944 only in the months following the victory in Europe. This paper in French aims to examine the various questions raised by this particular choice at this particular point in history. Can it really be considered as a truly literary consecration, crowning a work in prose for literary reasons, as stipulated by the last will and testament of Edmond de Goncourt, that it be awarded ‘à la jeunesse, à l’originalité du talent, aux tentatives nouvelles et hardies de la pensée et de la forme’, or in this case is it not rather to be evaluated as an act of political expediency aiming to respond to various imperatives of an extra-literary, socio-political nature? Via an analysis of various primary and secondary sources I attempt to uncover possible answers to these questions - complex and constantly evolving answers - from the point of view of Elsa Triolet herself, the French Communist Party with which she was so closely associated, the press and other critics and commentators

Review of: David Kinloch and Richard Price, La Nouvelle Alliance

No abstract available

Motivation in language learning: a Glasgow snapshot

Jane O'Reilly-Cavani looks at motivation from the pupils' perspective. Within a teaching context that displays many of the worrying characteristics to which many teachers can relate, the pupils help her to identify a number of positive features and some negative, covering many aspects of Dörnyei’s framework. How can the positives be built upon and the challenge of tackling the negatives be taken up

First in class: Crichton student profile 1999-2005

No abstract available