This article introduces a novel approach to pedagogy within an art school in the UK HE sector, based upon a synthesis of perception theory and communication theory. It is argued that art students' drawing is empowered by strategies of teaching informed by aspects of James J. Gibson's ecological approach to visual perception relevant to…

This research study explores the assessment practices in two higher education art and design departments. The key aim of this research was to explore art and design studio assessment practices as lived and experienced by art and design lecturers. This work draws on two bodies of pre-existing research. Firstly this study adopted methodological…

The current study takes an exploratory approach to investigate which situational factors influence perceptions of psychological contracts, as well as the content that comprises psychological contracts in the dance training industry. Semi-structured interviews ("n"?=?10) were conducted with students enrolled in a higher education institution in…

This article reflects my journey as a performing arts student and intern both in Portugal and abroad. It is not intended as a personal journal, but rather a reflection and an aftermath comment on my experiences and learning processes. First it provides a context regarding my university education in a Southern European country, against a previous…

Despite reading being recognized as a core academic skill, surprisingly little research has been undertaken into university lecture reading requirements. This article reports on the trial and evaluation of a minimalist reading model developed for students in arts and education subjects. Comprising annotated extracts from full texts…

The inclusion of cultural and contextual approaches in the study of literature has long been accepted as imperative in the literature classroom, fostering, as it does, the sensitization of students to diverse worldviews. This article aims to explore the way in which literature could affect students' preconceived notions of communities and…

Lee Shulman's concept of signature pedagogies in the professions has captured the imagination of many researchers and educators. In higher education, the concept has been extended to teaching in particular disciplines, and it is here argued that the concept of signature pedagogy can be usefully extended to an influential teaching system in…

This article reports on the results of a project which used a social network site to support students on a year abroad and foster informal learning, particularly in the area of intercultural communication. The project employed a peer-mentoring structure to solve the problem of role conflict, in which users of these sites may feel some tension as…

Drawing on empirical research done in the early 1980s, Donald Schon developed the theory of "reflective practice", putting forward the idea that the design studio teacher is a "coach" who helps students align with disciplinary norms and start to "think like an architect". Drawing on actor-network theory as a tool of analysis and way of thinking,…

This article addresses the silences and anxieties provoked by the gendering of English Studies as a subject taught by men to women. I reflect on my own experience as a female student and lecturer within a subject that has been "professionalized" by males. The geographical and social context within which I teach--the South Wales Valleys, a…

This article is both an argument for and an example of portraiture, a methodology for conducting and presenting qualitative research which, though familiar to many social scientists and educational researchers, remains relatively unknown within the humanities. The author details one kind of practice within the scholarship of teaching and…

This article was given as a keynote address to the 2009 conference of the European Association for the Teaching of Academic Writing (EATAW), 30 June to 2 July, at Coventry University, UK. It draws on experiences at Queen Mary, University of London, of developing a "writing in the disciplines" initiative and of working towards institutional…

As Lecturer of Speech in the Institute for Writing and Rhetoric at Dartmouth College, I have joined an ongoing conversation about speech that spans disciplines. This article takes a step back from looking at communication across the curriculum as a program and instead looks at one of the earliest stages of the process--conversations about speech…

The contemporary art college makes a broad range of media available to students, from which writing is conventionally excluded. Writing entered the art college curriculum in the 1960s as a "frame", or means of integrating art and artists into an academic framework, rather than as a medium of potential study. Drawing on the philosophy of Vilem…

The US field of composition studies and the subfields of writing across the curriculum and writing in the disciplines have focused on the relationships between teaching, language and knowledge. The Dartmouth Institute for Writing and Rhetoric develops these relationships through courses in writing and speech, student support and faculty…