1
CETL Final Self-Evaluation
The CAPITAL Centre, University of Warwick
Creativity and Performance in Teaching and Learning
CAPITAL Centre, CETL Final Self-evaluation.
2
EVALUATIVE REFLECTION
Question 1 : Please reflect on how effective your CETL has been in contributing to the
objectives set out for the CETL initiative when it started. Be concise and do not exceed
1,000 words for the whole of the question
1.1 To reward practice that demonstrates excellent learning outcomes for students.
See 2.8 below on Creative Fellowships.
1.2 To enable practitioners to lead and embed change by implementing approaches that
address the diversity of learners’ needs, the requirements of different learning
contexts, the possibilities for innovation and the expectations of employers and others
concerned with the quality of student learning.
a. CAPITAL has applied, embedded and disseminated practices, methods and modes
that address these approaches (see 7 below for further details). CAPITAL’s
‘workshop’ model of teaching and learning enables students to develop their subject
expertise rapidly and thoroughly, but the social constructivist nature of the work
means that students also acquire and enhance ‘soft’ and transferable skills in areas
such as collaboration, teamwork, dialogue, self-management, and self-direction.
b. Practice-based workshops allow students to work on the content of their disciplines
but in different ways to the standard lecture and seminar format, promoting
diversity of approach. Warwick’s MA in Creative and Media Enterprises (Centre for
Cultural Policy Studies) offers a module entitled ‘Cultural Entrepreneurship’ and
CAPITAL’s task was to replicate the difficulties associated with pitching a business
idea. We were asked to suggest ways in which participants could be taken out of
their ‘comfort zone’ and forced to confront difficult situations. The purpose was to
prepare participants for difficult situations they might encounter in the workplace
while pitching a challenging, unusual or complex idea/product/service. The group of
21 students participating this year (there were 24 last year) represented 14 different
nationalities and a range of learning styles. Feedback was almost universally positive
with 80% of participating students over two years saying in their evaluations that the
sessions had improved confidence and forced them to address the notion of ‘risk’.
c. Similar practice-based workshops have been devised and/or delivered for the
Graduate School Skills Programme (GSSP) and the University’s Learning and
Development Centre (LDC) on ‘Networking’ and ‘Performing Expertise’. Both
sessions are designed to offer postgraduates, researchers, and early-career
academics the opportunity to develop confidence, communication skills, and selfmanagement skills by confronting them with a simulation of an academic
conference then working through their responses. The sessions are supported by
CAPITAL’s student ensemble (see 12.2 for further details). 500 individuals have taken
part in these generic vocational sessions.
d. For the Warwick Business School MBA programme, CAPITAL has devised sessions on
‘Presence’ to develop in participants the skills they require to command attention
and present themselves with confidence in the workplace.
1.3 To enable institutions to support and develop practice that encourages deeper
CAPITAL Centre, CETL Final Self-evaluation.
3
understanding across the sector of ways of addressing students’ learning effectively.
CAPITAL has disseminated its findings across the sector in three ways:
a. Exemplar sessions: to demonstrate developing models of good practice, conducted
at the University of Hull, the University of Central Lancashire, Oxford Brookes
University, the University of Liverpool, the University of Sheffield, the University of
Strathclyde, University of Newcastle, University of Teesside.
b. Conferences and colloquia: A major dissemination event in September 2009,
‘Creativity and Performance in Teaching and Learning’, brought together high level
players in innovative practice from diverse institutions from Russell Group members
to post-1990 Universities: Kings College London, The University of Wolverhampton,
University of Chester, Nottingham University, York St. John University, Northumbria
University, Queens University Belfast, and the University of Surrey, the HEA,
National Union of Students, English and Media Centre, English Subject Centre and
UKLE. As a result workshop events were requested by Queen’s Belfast, Hull, York St
John. A tour of Warwick partner universities in the USA is planned in spring 2010 to
include Vanderbilt, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Loyola (Baltimore) and
San Francisco State.
c. Work with the English Subject Centre: co-organisers of ‘Devise Wit; Write Pen’:
Teaching Shakespeare conference (Stratford-upon-Avon, 2006); contributing to
Renewals: Reconfiguring English in the 21st Century (Royal Holloway London, 2007)
and to Sounding it Out (Leeds Metropolitan, 2009).
1.4 To recognize and give greater prominence to clusters of excellence that are capable of
influencing practice and raising the profile of teaching excellence within and beyond
their institutions.
a. Exploiting the work of award-winning teachers: working with Warwick’s National
Teaching Fellows (Professors David Morley, Jonothan Neelands and Ed Peile, Paul
Raffield, and Robert O’Toole), and holders of Warwick Awards for Teaching
Excellence (Professors Carol Rutter, Gary Watt, Tony Howard and Drs Nick Monk and
Jane Kidd), to produce innovative teaching and learning.
b. Recognising good practice in other departments: Warwick’s School of Law offered
innovative performance-based learning in two of its modules: Law and Literature
and Origins, Images, and Cultures of English Law. CAPITAL provided the module
leaders with open teaching spaces and collaborative support from the RSC\Warwick
Playwright in Residence, Adriano Shaplin who offered a professional perspective on
theatre practice. From this emerged an interdisciplinary module available to English
and Law students, ‘Shakespeare and the Law: On Trial’ which is recruiting
successfully (18 in 2009/10; 6 in 2008/9). Both module leaders subsequently
received Warwick Awards for Teaching Excellence (WATEs); one has a been awarded
National Teaching Fellowship that was based on this work and one has been
promoted to full professor.
c. Forming special interest groups: CAPITAL’s Space, Performance and Pedagogy
termly seminar brings together innovative teachers from across the University to
discuss and demonstrate new methods in teaching and learning. The SPP group has
CAPITAL Centre, CETL Final Self-evaluation.
4
65 members, working alongside the Faculty Teaching and Learning Fora, and
includes academics from heads of department to postgraduate tutors from all
faculties. Collaborations with the Medical School on the ‘Sleep Special Study’
module (60 trainee GPs over two years) have emerged from these sessions, as well
as work with the University’s commercial managers (30 individuals).
d. Work with other CETLs: Collaborations have included work with Reinvention Centre,
CILASS and QUB’s Centre for Excellence in the Performing Arts.
1.5 To demonstrate collaboration and sharing of good practice and so enhance the
standard of teaching and effective learning throughout the sector.
See 1.3 a-c above; 4; 8.5 and 10.
1.6 To raise student awareness of effectiveness in teaching and learning in order to inform
student choice and maximize student performance.
a. Over 10,400 FTEs have now experienced the practical teaching and learning
methods developed at CAPITAL, and special events, word of mouth and internal
advertising ensure regular contact with students pass. CAPITAL has excellent links
with the Students’ Union through the University’s four student drama societies. The
SU Educational Officer is ex officio a member of the Advisory Board.
b. There have been 9 student performance projects. Students are invited to propose
projects which support and demonstrate an active connection between student
drama and the curriculum engaging with learning through performance. Projects
should emphasise learning experiences and be interdisciplinary: e.g. a continuation
of an idea coming out of an academic course; performance of a set text or courserelated text; new writing connected to academic work; collaborative work exploring
the process of learning through performance.
c. A longitudinal study of the compulsory 3rd year Shakespeare module in the
Department of English, begun in 2007, has shown a 10% increase 1st class degrees
among students who selected the performative seminars that use CAPITAL’s
methods.
d.
An annual survey of prospective students in the Department of English, begun in
2010/11, seeks to measure CAPITAL’s impact on students’ choice of university.
Based on a sample of 20% of those attending interviews for places on the courses
offered by the Department, 18% said that the existence of CAPITAL would/had
influence/d their decision to attend.
e. CAPITAL 's collaboration with the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and English Speaking
Union on The Great Shakespeare Debate is in its fourth year. This event for UK
schools was inaugurated in 2006. Encouraging students to embody and perform
their ideas in debate, to participate actively with Shakespeare and to work together
as a team, is central to the CAPITAL ethos. AS and A2 students are supported and
mentored by students from Warwick, Birmingham, Oxford, Exeter and other
universities. Since 2007, 23 students (15 from Warwick) have served as mentors
and 36 schools have participated in the finals in Stratford-upon-Avon. In 2009
Warwick hosted the regional heats involving 120 school students.
CAPITAL Centre, CETL Final Self-evaluation.
5
Question 2: Please set out the aims and objectives specific to your CETL at the start; and
for each one reflect how well these have been achieved. Be concise and do not exceed
1,000 words for the whole of the question.
Please See Appendix 3 for CAPITAL’s two-year aims and objectives (2005-2007) and 13
below, and Appendix 4 for CAPITAL’s Five-Year objectives. Please see, also, Appendix 5 for a
list of all CAPITAL events and activities.
Reflection:
2.1 The CAPITAL Centre was originally conceptualised on the double foundations of
‘Shakespeare’ and ‘performance’. Under the motto ‘Good teaching is like good
rehearsal’, it set up a partnership between the Royal Shakespeare Company and the
University of Warwick to bring the creative and working practices of each organisation
into play in the partner’s domain.
2.2 While CAPITAL’s initial focus was on English and Theatre Studies, one of its key
objectives was to draw in expertise and excellence across the University to share
experience and disseminate creative practice. The Space, Performance and Pedagogy
Group set up by CAPITAL has achieved this and has gone on to set the agenda for
interdisciplinary collaboration across the University. CAPITAL currently works with the
Warwick Writing Programme, the Institute of Education, Philosophy, Chemistry,
Medicine, Law, Warwick Business School, Cultural Policy Studies, the Institute of Health,
the Learning and Development Centre, the Graduate Skills programme, Warwick Arts
Centre and ELab, and is in discussion with Psychology about future collaborations.
2.3 From the first, CAPITAL aimed to build on Artistic Director Michael Boyd’s vision of the
RSC as ‘a learning organisation’, to enhance the company’s education programme, and
to effect a rich knowledge transfer, both for students and actors. Its ambition was to
take Warwick’s internationally-recognised Shakespeare scholarship, most significantly,
Shakespeare performance studies, into the heart of the acting company while, in the
university, establishing a notional ‘third room’. This space would certainly not be a
classroom but not, exactly, a rehearsal room either. Rather, it would be a space that,
inventing a rigorously academic HE workshop model of learning, would put students on
their feet, working practically on Shakespeare’s scripts, testing the claim (that shifts
literary studies from passive to active learning) that ‘all writing is performance’; that
‘until the writing is performed, it isn’t really read’.
2.4 The CAPITAL team has achieved all but one of its 2-year objectives and all but three of its
5-year objectives (see Appendices 3 and 4). It has re-formalised its partnership with the
RSC (the company having made the strategic decision, two years into the CAPITAL
project, not to develop an HE programme but to concentrate its education initiative on
under-19s). CAPITAL continues to contribute informally to the RSC’s Artists’
Development programme. The RSC at CAPITAL now comprises the RSC/Warwick
International Playwright in Residence, a number of Fellowships in Creativity, the RSC
Learning and Performance Network, Post-Graduate Certificates in Teaching Shakespeare
for Teachers of Drama and English and Postgraduate Awards in Teaching Shakespeare
for Actors. By 2010 over 120 teachers and artists will have graduated from the
CAPITAL/RSC postgraduate programme that is based in the Institute of Education. When
the new Royal Shakespeare Theatre opens in 2010 over a quarter of the actors on stage
CAPITAL Centre, CETL Final Self-evaluation.
6
will have gained a PG Award from Warwick. In addition, the success of the CAPITALfunded and inspired relationship between the RSC and the Institute of Education has
attracted external research funding (see Section 1.7).
2.5 CAPITAL has introduced own-brand modules that develop open-space teaching and
learning (‘Shakespeare without Chairs’; ‘Teaching Shakespeare: A Practical Approach’;
‘Shakespeare and the Law’; ‘Drama, Performance and Identity Post 1945’), introducing
innovative forms of assessment, examination, and evaluation (creative projects;
commonplace books; group projects; practical demonstrations). It has appointed
Creative Fellows from within the University and outside whose practice-led research
feeds back into curriculum development and training: e.g. Tom Abbott
(Communications) on digital communication; Claudette Bryanston (Institute of Health)
on the cost of dying; Tony Howard (English) on Paul Robeson and black theatre history;
Rob Clare on verse-speaking; Perry Mills on boy players. It is contributing to the
development of IGGY (which replaced NAGTY).
2.6 CAPITAL is collaborating across the university, delivering innovation in teaching and
learning impacting every faculty, and CAPITAL staff have disseminated its practice across
Britain and beyond, delivering conference papers and workshops. In the last year it has
organised a major dissemination event, presented at the British Shakespeare
Association, the Shakespeare Association of America, the Renaissance Society of
America, the International University Theatre Association and at pedagogy conferences
in the UK. The Director has by invitation given Shakespeare workshops and high-profile
public lectures in the USA and the CAPITAL team will tour five US universities in the
spring.
2.7 But more than meeting its targets, CAPITAL has exceeded the bid’s original vision in
ambitious ways to develop practical research into performance and curriculum. It has
supported novice and experienced teachers in new creative methodologies of teaching
and learning by contributing to the Learning and Development Centre, especially to
PCAPP and to the Graduate Skills programmes. Through the “Re-Performing
Performance” project, it has explored new pedagogies for digital archives (including reformulating the MA ‘Shakespeare and Performance’ module) and is developing autointuitive search strategies for digital resources through the AILAS project, a collaboration
with STPCPS, Computer Science and the University Library. It has created a diverse
programme of content-rich webcasts (now available on iTunesU); has embedded a
theatre company – Fail Better – in CAPITAL to deliver a range of performance-based
learning experiences, producing high-profile theatre projects with students as
collaborators and developing an ensemble to contribute to inter-disciplinary teaching
and events; and has appointed an Artist in Residence who is also CAPITAL’s first research
student (which means that CAPITAL is now operating across BA, MA, and PhD
programmes). It has established new collaborations with theatres and theatre
companies like Cheek by Jowl, Northern Broadsides, Footsbarn and Shakespeare’s
Globe. It is sustaining conversations about future work with the V&A, Advantage West
Midlands and Stratford upon Avon District Council; collaborating on projects and grant
applications with The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust (including student involvement as
mentors and specialist advisers for the annual schools Great Shakespeare Debate); has
scoped an International Shakespeare Summer School in Venice and is developing new
MA modules.
CAPITAL Centre, CETL Final Self-evaluation.
7
2.8 What all of these projects share is a stake in CAPITAL’s core mission: to take the lead in
changing the culture of teaching and learning. We deliver, via open-space learning,
creative and innovative pedagogy (including proposing and testing new forms of
undergraduate research, assessment and examination) that is content-rich, subjectexpanding, and student-driven.
Question 3: Please add any objectives that emerged as the CETL developed, and
reflect on these as for question 2 (500 words maximum).
3.1 Developing interdisciplinarity in teaching and learning across the University.
a. CAPITAL has undertaken practical teaching and learning projects based on OSL (see 7
below) with the following academic departments: Law, English and Comparative
Literary Studies, Theatre Studies, Cultural Policy Studies, Philosophy, Chemistry,
Psychology, History, The Medical School, The Warwick Business School, the Institute
of Education, and Biology. Also, individuals from the following departments have
attended demonstrations and seminars: Physics, Mathematics, Engineering, German,
French, Italian, Statistics, Computer Science, Sociology, and Economics.
b. In addition we have worked with the University’s academic and staff training body,
the LDC); the University’s training programme for postgraduates; the University’s
commercial managers, and University administrators. Sessions for the LDC and the
GSSP have fed directly into the training of academics across the University.
c. CAPITAL is collaborating with Chemistry, Philosophy and Cultural Policy Studies on
articles concerning teaching methodology.
Evaluations show that 80% of academics and staff involved in these practical and
experiential sessions feel they have benefited from the sessions, and a further 60%
express an intention to incorporate the methods used in their own teaching.
3.2 The development of a co-ordinated teaching and learning strategy for the academic
work of the University. CAPITAL’s regular and frequent discussions with other key
players in Warwick’s teaching and learning strategy, the LDC, GSSP and the Teaching and
Learning Grids, reflects this.
3.3 Promoting the idea that closing the gap between teaching and research at all levels in
HE will assist the University in addressing the impact agenda. CAPITAL’s contract
with Bloomsbury for a book entitled Open-space Learning: A Study in Interdisciplinary
Pedagogy is the first step towards developing the publication and dissemination of this
research in a ‘global’ fashion.
3.4 Improvement in the exploitation of the University’s open and creative learning spaces.
The example of CAPITAL’s theatre-style teaching spaces and its writers’ room have
demonstrated clearly the potential of non-traditional learning spaces. Increased demand
for such spaces has led to the conversion of traditional teaching rooms into ‘open
spaces’.
3.5 The development of a unit that is entrepreneurial in its outlook, a motor for the
generation of income from research councils and from the commercial sector.
A market for new learning styles has been identified. A summer school programme
based on OSL is currently being devised, as is a Master of Fine Arts programme that
CAPITAL Centre, CETL Final Self-evaluation.
8
features a significant range of contributions from CAPITAL: new performance-based
modules, for example, and support for pedagogy across the project. See also 2.15.
Question 4: Irrespective of your answers to questions 2 and 3 above, please reflect on, and
draw out the achievements and benefits of the CETL (1000 words maximum) (Think about
different audiences, types of output, impact internal and externally, on professional / staff
development, on student learning, work over an extended period, use of money for
facilities development etc).
4.1 Participants in the CAPITAL project have included undergraduates, postgraduates
(10,400), early-career academics (150), senior academic staff (60), and non-academic
staff at the University (200), as well as members of the public who have attended special
events, and professionals from outside the University who have experienced training
sessions here (1,500 in total for both the latter categories). CAPITAL’s dissemination
programme has reached 500 individuals working in HE outside the University. 1.2, 1.5
and 7 detail why this has been beneficial.
4.2 In schools, the RSC Learning and Performance Network (LPN) designed by the RSC’s
Education Department and supported by Warwick’s Institute of Education was created
to mobilise the pedagogic and artistic principles underpinning the RSC’s Stand Up For
Shakespeare (SUFS) manifesto. The manifesto challenges the status quo of Shakespeare
teaching, performing and learning in schools at all ages and stages. It identifies an active
approach based on the RSC rehearsal room experience. The LPN provided the means for
the RSC Education Department to develop and embed this best practice in a wide range
of schools many of which faced challenging circumstances or which were unlikely to
access the RSC’s resources by other means. The LPN also offered hub teachers M level
accreditation through a PG Certificate in Teaching Shakespeare (60 CATS) delivered in
partnership with Warwick Institute of Education. LPN has operated in 300 schools since
2006, directly reaching at least 7,500 young people.
4.3 By 2010 over 120 teachers and artists will have graduated from the CAPITAL/RSC
postgraduate programme that is based in the Institute of Education. When the new
Royal Shakespeare Theatre opens in 2010 over a quarter of the actors on stage will have
gained a PG Award from Warwick.
4.4 More recently CAPITAL has also been an active participant in Warwick’s International
Gateway for Gifted Youth (IGGY), and the Aiming for College Education (ACE) and
AimHigher programmes.
4.5 CAPITAL’s specialist teaching spaces provide a lasting legacy for the culture of the
theatre rehearsal room and the development of Open-space Learning projects. The same
is true of the Writers’ Room, the design and layout of which promotes innovative
teaching in itself (see 6b).These performance spaces have created an environment that
has exposed 13,000 individuals from across higher education and schools to CAPITAL’s
methods.
4.6 See Annex A for CAPITAL’s publications.
4.7 CAPITAL methodology has been introduced in core 1st, 2nd and 3rd year modules in
CAPITAL Centre, CETL Final Self-evaluation.
9
English (‘Shakespeare and Selected dramatists of his Time’, ‘Literature in the Modern
World’; ‘European Theatre’, ‘British Theatre Since 1939’; ‘Teaching Shakespeare a
Practical Approach’) and core 1st year modules in Philosophy and Literature and
Chemistry. Also in optional modules in English and Law (‘On Trial: Shakespeare and the
Law’), WBS (‘Critical Issues in Law and Management’), Cultural Policy Studies (‘Cultural
Entrepreneurship’). CAPITAL methods have impacted upon 45 modules across the
University curriculum in 16 different departments (see 3.1). They have been
incorporated into the LDC’s Postgraduate Certificate in Academic and Professional
Practice (PCAPP) for early-career academics, and its Introduction to Academic and
Professional Practice (IAAP) for postgraduate tutors. According to a senior member of
the LDC team these interventions have created a ‘shift in culture’ in teaching and
learning across the University, with academics increasingly willing to think about
embodiment, space, learning styles, and the development of creativity in teaching and
learning.
4.8 At undergraduate level the entire cohort of English Literature students (600) across 3
academic years have been exposed at least once to CAPITAL’s methods. In Chemistry, 2
entire cohorts have had a similar experience (240 students). The Warwick Business
School’s 1st year cohort of MBAs have taken part in a workshop at CAPITAL (80 students)
(see 1.2.d). These activities will continue should the University decide to continue to
fund the Centre. CAPITAL, through the OSL project, is now conducting longitudinal
research into the activities of a sample of students across the faculties after they have
left the University in order to track the effects of their exposure to OSL.
4.9 ‘Re-performing Performance’ online resource (see 10.2 for details). Since its launch in
April 2009 the site has received over 15000 page views with 75% from outside the
University.
Question 5: Have there been any disappointments in how the CETL has developed/what it
has achieved. What are they, why did they happen? (600 words maximum).
5.1 That the take up of the CAPITAL approach and methodology has been limited in the
CETL’s home department (English and Comparative Literary Studies) where the relevance
of this approach to interpreting text might have been most attractive. CAPITAL’s work
has been embedded in only 25% of undergraduate English modules available in 2009/10.
5.2 That despite using a number of dissemination methodologies (presentations, openregistration conferences, colloquia by invitation, website, personal contact) other UK
HEIs have been, to date, somewhat reluctant to engage practically with CAPITAL’s work.
Interest in the US has been much more positive with 10 US institutions in the last two
years inviting CAPITAL staff to offer exemplar sessions.
5.3 That the RSC made the strategic decision, two years into the CAPITAL project, not to
develop a formal HE programme but to concentrate its education initiative on under-19s.
Question 6: Please reflect on the difficult and easier aspects of getting the CETL going and
of getting your messages across. For example: Has action/change followed; where and
why did you meet success or resistance. What worked, how did you discover this, how do
you know it worked? (1000 words maximum)
Difficulties:
CAPITAL Centre, CETL Final Self-evaluation.
10
6.1 Timing:
a. The April start date for the CETLs, clearly meant to allow for preparation time before
the beginning of the academic year in October, did not provide sufficient time to
plan the implementation of the CETL proposal, recruit and train staff and put in
place a coherent embedded programme for the first year. Activities focussed on
enhancement of modules in the core departments of English and Theatre Studies, as
outlined in the bid. This had the unwished-for effect in the University community of
associating CAPITAL exclusively with those disciplines and with theatre performance
which it took some time to dispel.
b. The RSC Complete Works Festival (April 2006-April 2007), and the redevelopment of
the Stratford theatres (begun in 2006 and due for completion in 2010) created a
challenging environment for the establishment of the CAPITAL collaboration. RSC
resources (practitioners, spaces, time) were stretched and for two years the
repertoire was exclusively Shakespeare. This limited opportunities to in
nvolve
Warwick students in placements with a range of RSC activities and community
theatre/creative projects as hoped nor was there capacity to offer a wide range of
performance practice across the disciplines and beyond the formal curriculum.
6.2 Location:
a.
The obstacles presented by the physical separation of the University in Coventry
and the RSC in Stratford-upon-Avon were underestimated. It proved impossible to
negotiate suitable workshop space in Stratford-upon-Avon nor would it have been
practicable to bus large numbers of students there although it might have facilitated
a closer engagement with members of the RSC.
b. However, perhaps the most important factor in the ultimate success of CAPITAL is
the HEFCE-funded accommodation on campus: a self-contained suite of six offices
clustered around a reception/work area, an IT room and three open learning spaces:
a black-box studio with basic lighting and sound equipment, a white box rehearsal
room and the so-called Writers Room, a large room dedicated to the University’s
community of writers. And inspired by the Arvon Foundation’s retreats, furnished
flexibly with sofas, work tables, informal lighting. The essential feature of all three
spaces is that they are limitlessly flexible places, where teachers and learners can
create a number of different environments to suit their work.
c. CAPITAL’s brief was to develop arts of creative thinking through forms of teaching
and learning that emphasise active performance on the part of both teachers and
students. The delay of nine months in the availability of these spaces for CAPITAL’s
work had three outcomes: the delay of full implementation of CAPITAL’s teaching
programme; the encouragement of valuable collaborations with other Stratford
organisations, the Shakespeare Institute of the University of Birmingham and the
Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, whose spaces were utilised; but, most importantly,
the realisation of the crucial importance of specialised open learning spaces to
kinaesthetic pedagogy.
What worked:
CAPITAL Centre, CETL Final Self-evaluation.
11
6.3 Shakespeare:
Shakespeare has always been at the heart of the CAPITAL project (naturally so in a
collaborative project with the Royal Shakespeare Company) and the University’s
Shakespeare teachers have, through their use of CAPITAL’s spaces and a will to innovate
in their undergraduate and postgraduate teaching, become a motor for creative
teaching that CAPITAL’s staff have been able to apply to other disciplines. The use of
Shakespeare, however, had to be carefully managed. Workshops on Shakespeare’s
Comedy of Errors, for example (used with the University managers to explore barriers to
communication), were not wholly successful and consideration of events such as this,
combined with the RSC’s strategy to avoid involvement in leadership training such as
provided by Olivier Mythodrama Associates, led to an approach in which models of good
practice derived from Shakespeare teaching became more generic as demand increased
for University-wide pedagogical support and training. (See 1, 7, 10).
6.4 To promote its interdisciplinary work the CAPITAL team made direct contact
with University departments offering to tailor learning interventions to the curriculum,
working in collaboration with module and course convenors. The successful outcome of
this approach is the embedding of CAPITAL methodology across the University. (See
also 1.2, 3.1, 4, 7.6).
6.5 Length of the funding period.
a.
One of the greatest benefits the CETL programme conferred was the generous
length of the funding period. Five years has enabled us to understand and develop
practice and research in ways that would have been impossible in a shorter time. It
was not until midway through the funding that it became possible to identify what
was working, what was not, what needed to be developed and what needed to be
abandoned. Clearly, innovations in teaching and learning do not become an integral
part of university practice overnight. Five years offered the freedom to adapt the
initial objectives in the light of practical experience, and to embed new work and
ideas in modules that take a year or more to realise from the original idea to the
delivery of the first seminar.
b. New initiatives have to be ‘sold’, first internally, then externally, and then to the
sector more broadly, if active and committed interest is to be generated to put them
into practice. Collaborating with departments ‘on the ground’ is an excellent method
of discovering quickly what works and what doesn’t. A practice-as-research agenda
of this kind is entirely performative of CAPITAL’s methodologies. (See 7.)
c. HEFCE’s light touch has allowed for failure on the path to the creation of models
that work for both students and tutors: ‘Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again.
Fail again. Fail better’ (Beckett).
6.6 Using University teachers to teach University teachers.
CAPITAL’s first experiments in bringing together theatre practitioners and students met
with limited success. Actors, directors, voice and movement teachers and learning
practitioners offered inspiring and energising interventions in the teaching of
Shakespeare which were enthusiastically received by many students but feedback
CAPITAL Centre, CETL Final Self-evaluation.
12
indicated simultaneously that students (and their teachers) wanted more course-related
content, and content delivered at an appropriate academic level. Attempts by members
of the RSC’s Learning Department and Warwick English teachers to formulate a jointly
delivered HE model workshop led to academics taking what they had learnt directly into
their classrooms, resulting in the ‘Shakespeare without Chairs’ seminars now embedded
in the core 3rd year Shakespeare module, and new modules, such as ‘Drama,
Performance and Identity’, which incorporate active learning and creative performancebased assessment. For some subjects and teachers, as the methodology was extended
beyond Humanities into other Faculties, that immersive experience was not appropriate
so a third scenario was created: for members of the CAPITAL team to devise and in many
cases to deliver course-specific work, for example with Philosophy, Chemistry, Law,
Cultural Policy Studies.
6.7 Using theatre learning practitioners to teach generic teaching and learning skills.
The CAPITAL collaboration has brokered successful input from RSC staff and associates to
University training programmes for teachers, from postgraduate tutors to early career
academics to experienced academics. The kinaesthetic and practical methodology used
in the rehearsal room transfers effectively into HE pedagogy and resulted in high scores
in participants’ feedback: routinely, 90% of participants rate these sessions as ‘good’ or
‘excellent’.
6.8 Having a resident theatre company.
A number of different strategies were tried to engage theatre practitioners in the
teaching and learning process: a dedicated member of the RSC Education Department to
develop and deliver HE programmes; a part-time Artist in Residence drawn from the
RSC’s Assistant Directors; a part-time Artist in Residence from outside the RSC; the
International RSC\Warwick International Playwright in Residence, ad hoc visiting artists;
Fellows in Creativity and Performance. These strategies were successful in providing
enhancements to the curriculum mainly in the core departments of English and Theatre
Studies, to a relatively small number of students (210 FTEs). However the most effective
means to embed a performative element across a wide range of subjects has been
CAPITAL’s resident theatre company whose Artistic Director is also CAPITAL’s Research
Associate (see 12.2). Responsive to the requirements of University module structures
and assessment requirements, experienced in practical theatre techniques and available
to suit the teaching timetable, the company has made a substantial contribution to the
Centre’s interdisciplinary work through direct interventions in modules in Philosophy,
Chemistry, Business, and Cultural Policy Studies. 1,250 FTEs have been exposed to
CAPITAL’s methods in this way.
6.9 Providing tailor-made postgraduate courses, qualifications and evaluation for theatre
education projects. See 4.2.
Question 7: Has your CETL adopted/used/been based around any specific theories, e.g. of
change, or of student learning? If so, what, how have these underpinned your work, have
they been useful? (1000 words maximum).
7.1 CAPITAL has focused on three areas in which it has developed or applied theory:
CAPITAL Centre, CETL Final Self-evaluation.
13
creativity, space, and performance-based embodied/kinaesthetic learning. CAPITAL has
combined these areas to form a theory of Open-space Learning (OSL) in which each
informs the others. OSL develops directly from the practices of the theatrical rehearsal
room, and Michael Boyd’s re-invigoration of the ensemble at the RSC has proved
particularly relevant to much of this activity: ‘At the heart of our developing practice at
the RSC, there’s a set of values and behaviours which we have found are both required
and enabled by ensemble working. They are the foundations of our ability to achieve
community amongst wildly diverse artists, as well as our creativity’.
7.2 Creativity:
CAPITAL’s practice demands that students are offered the opportunity to ‘create’ their
own knowledge with the guidance of tutors. Students are now increasingly required to
come up with ‘a question worth answering’ (Jackson 4). CAPITAL’s focus on studentcentred learning allows them the space, the freedom, and the means to devise these
questions, and this is fostered by a commitment on the part of tutors to ‘uncrown
power’, to temporarily suspend hierarchies, and to create a laboratory in which
knowledge is discovered and owned by the group as a whole. Without an authority
figure ‘play’ is much more likely to occur, and out of play develop ideas. This
combination of mindfulness and playfulness has been significant in our work, and is
another practical way we have tried to render ‘creativity’ tangible.
7.3 Space:
CAPITAL acknowledges and incorporates recent thinking around the design and
implementation of specialised learning spaces. ‘Universities recognise the importance of
providing smart and exciting environments in order to attract and retain students. This is
combined with a growing awareness of the educational value of providing spaces which
enhance students’ learning – in terms of both experience and outcomes’ (Lambert). The
construction and implementation of these spaces tend to be predicated on shared
theoretical notions concerning the ‘passive’ versus ‘active’ role of students as learners.
These notions have informed – if not determined – the University of Warwick’s specialist
teaching and learning spaces: the CAPITAL Centre, the Teaching Grid, the Learning Grid,
and the Reinvention Room. As Lambert suggests, students become ‘producers’:
‘hierarchical academic/student relationships change to produce more fluid and elaborate
collaborations between producers of scholarly work’. CAPITAL’s ideas concerning space
have connections with the thinking of Lefebvre and Foucault.
7.4 Kinaesthetic learning:
In these open spaces CAPITAL presents a direct challenge to the lecture/seminar format
that dominates in UK universities. At the practical level the ‘workshop model’ (see
Glossary) of teaching and learning is the basis of CAPITAL’s work in this area and at the
theoretical level we use elements from ‘experiential learning’, ‘enactive’ learning,
‘kinaesthetic’ learning and the various methods of teaching developed by practitioners
such as Boal and Freire, and related to the work of thinkers like Vygotsky, Gardner, and
Kolb, and their ideas concerning learning styles and multiple intelligences. Our work has
also been informed by theatre education, ‘applied drama’, ‘applied theatre’, ‘applied
performance’, and ‘ethnodrama’. In addition we have applied work in neuroscience by
academics like Andy Clark and Antonio Damasio who seek to re-connect mind, body and
world.
CAPITAL Centre, CETL Final Self-evaluation.
14
7.5 Open-space Learning:
In addition to the ideas and practices mentioned in 7.2-4 above, OSL is grounded in social
theory and notions around a ‘third space’, in which teaching and learning take place in
‘between’ spaces that are both actual and metaphorical. They exist separate from
traditional teaching rooms, for example, but are not ‘real’ rehearsal rooms either. Such
spaces free participants from the constraining roles of omniscient pedagogue and eager
acolyte, as knowledges and skills from students, subject experts and practitioners, are
brought into constellation in the creation of understanding. OSL addresses, thereby,
intelligences other than the merely linguistic, and learning styles beyond the auditory, as
the teaching spaces draw participants into an acknowledgement of their physicality. This
has the effect first of radically unsettling them, but then of liberating them. Working
collaboratively, sharing ideas, moving around and through the open space where they’re
doing their thinking, students see themselves ‘trying things out’, rehearsing possibilities.
They are freed to be provisional, to take risks, to offer and own ideas, but also to make
mistakes, and to change their minds. Students learn not only the detail of their academic
speciality, but are permitted to discover for themselves an understanding of how to ‘be’
in an increasingly complex world.
7.6 An example of OSL theory and practice joining to create change is in CAPITAL’s OSL work
with Chemistry.
The collaboration over two years has been successful because teaching in the ‘openspace’ environments of the CAPITAL Centre has enabled students and teachers to
challenge boundaries to creative thought that are generated by their disciplines – the
common view of the solitary scientist experimenting and recording findings entirely
unaided is one such boundary. These boundaries tend to be reinforced by the
lecture/seminar/laboratory model as the system continues to rely on the ‘banking’ or
‘download’ theory of education in which knowledge is fed by well-informed minds into
less well-informed minds. There is a growing body of evidence that the ‘download’
model is inefficient and benefits only particular types of learner, e.g. 70% of Chemistry
students who have experienced workshops with CAPITAL tell us that their knowledge of
inorganic Chemistry has been expanded as a result of their sessions. In other disciplines English for example - there has been a rise over three years in students choosing a
practical version of the Department’s compulsory 3rd year Shakespeare module from
20% to 50%, and students are 10% more likely to achieve 1st class marks for essays in
which OSL methods are consistently employed. In all, 17 departments have now
collaborated with CAPITAL on OSL projects.
7.7 OSL has also been extended into academic and staff development (see 1.2.c).
Question 8 : Reflecting on the last five years what other important messages are there that
you want to convey about your CETL - its successes, difficulties, impact etc. (1000 words
maximum)
8.1 That bringing external practitioners/facilitators into modules, workshops or training
sessions can often have an enriching and positive effect but, if the intention is to embed
work rather than simply enhance it, there must be direct collaboration between subject
specialists, students and practitioners.
CAPITAL Centre, CETL Final Self-evaluation.
15
8.2 That increasingly students entering Warwick as undergraduates already have experience
in studying English Literature (and other Humanities subjects) in a ‘practical’ or
embodied way, and that HEIs should position their teaching and learning to exploit and
build on this. Of the 70% of students in the 2008-9 third-year cohort who responded to
CAPITAL’s survey, 60% had experience at school of learning Shakespeare beyond reading
and discussions.
8.3 That in any group of individuals (who are not self-selecting) across the disciplines who
participate in a well-run practical workshop, roughly 70% will find the experience
rewarding and beneficial, 15% will be ambivalent, and 15% will see no academic
benefits. Factors in the latter two statistics include outright resistance to anything that
might be construed as ‘acting’; an inability or unwillingness to see embodied learning as
relevant in an environment in which academic work is wholly centred in the brain and
the body is merely a mode of transport; and the fact that in any group there will be
several different learning styles.
8.4 That the planning and execution of a successful practical workshop requires as much – if
not more – detailed planning than a seminar or lecture and more time to deliver,
normally between 90 minutes and 3 hours. A single workshop which accommodates a
maximum of 20 students cannot reach the same number of students as a single lecture
and is, therefore, less cost effective.
8.5 In response to increased demand, the CAPITAL Centre is now proposing a 30 CAT
postgraduate module to be available in October 2010. The module is a PG Award in HE
Workshop Pedagogy and will be made available internally to current academics and
postgraduate tutors, and to practitioners from outside the University.
8.6 That new methods of assessment are needed to match new methods of teaching (see
10.3 below).
Question 9: Reflecting on the last five years what important messages are there that you
want to convey about the experience of being part of a wider ‘movement’/experience of
other CETLs. (600 words maximum).
9.1 Beyond the initial excitement over this generous and welcome investment in teaching
and learning, CAPITAL did not benefit from the CETL ‘movement’ in its early stages.
Attention was focussed on internal challenges: the recruitment of the right people, the
discovery and development of best practice in our field, and the clarification of the
collaboration between the partners. Even within our own institution, where there are
now plans to merge its two CETLs, collaboration was not operationally active during this
period. As the funding period draws to an end and the imperative to disseminate
findings and practices become urgent, there has been a greater sense of a collective
experience, and it has been useful to compare CAPITAL’s experiences with those of other
CETLs and to work with them to disseminate our findings. The CETLs provided valuable
support, and we hope that a long-term repository of information and resources will
ensure that the good work made possible by the CETL initiative does not simply melt
away. Clearly this is most important for those CETLs that will not be funded beyond
HEFCE.
9.2 Warwick has another CETL, the Reinvention Centre, whose aims and objectives
CAPITAL Centre, CETL Final Self-evaluation.
16
focus on reinventing the undergraduate curriculum, and with whom CAPITAL has formed
a close relationship. On a formal level, a representative from each CETL sits on the
Management Committee / Advisory Board of the other. On a more informal level, the
Reinvention Centre’s Academic Manager and the CAPITAL Centre’s Administrator (the
equivalent post) hold regular meetings in order to identify any shared areas of work or
potential joint activities. The two teams have collaborated on the formation of a group
interested in ‘Space, Performance and Pedagogy’, and a Reinvention Centre grant has
allowed CAPITAL’s lecturer to develop the ‘Faust’ module (see 2.3 and Glossary). The
CAPITAL Centre continues to make regular use of the Reinvention Centre’s innovative
teaching space at Warwick’s Westwood campus. A joint proposal for sustainability has
been put before the University (see 11 below).
Question 10: Please reflect on work emerging from your CETL that has been ‘transferable’,
i.e. useable beyond the home audience for which it was originally developed. (You may
wish to comment in terms of materials produced, a community created, understandings
that CETL work has illuminated and which are useful to others, etc) (1000 words
maximum). It would be useful to hear ‘messages’ and lessons learnt that you would like to
continue to be disseminated.
10.1 The OSL model of teaching and learning is eminently transferable (see 3.1 and 7.6
above). Universities both in the UK and abroad (Hull, QUB, Chester, Rutgers, and York St.
John) have already implemented elements of the techniques CAPITAL has developed, or
have expressed a desire to do so, and the impact in our own university has been
significant (3, 7.6 and 11) resulting in a proposal to create an Institute for Advanced
Teaching and Learning. Readily transferable materials include module proposals,
assessment, workshop plans, and the practical demonstrations we offer to those
interested in developing their teaching and learning in practical ways – some of these
materials exist on the CAPITAL web site. See also Annex A for publications. An example
of practical transferability is CAPITAL’s workshop on ‘Presence’ (see 1.2 above) for
postgraduate researchers working in 20 universities in the midlands, organised by Vitae,
supported by Research Councils UK.
10.2 Re-Performing Performance: Shakespeare Archives in Teaching and Learning is a
collaborative digital project between the CAPITAL Centre, Warwick Arts Centre,
Footsbarn Theatre Company, Northern Broadsides, and the Shakespeare Birthplace
Trust. Co-ordinated by CAPITAL’s Research Associate, this space offers a range of
possibilities for using theatre records in a variety of performance-based learning
experiences and encourages students to engage practically with the complexities
surrounding performance as well as offering downloadable introductions to specific
collections. Users of the web site are challenged to generate their own content ‘live’ by
browsing the resources and ‘re-performing performance’ in their own teaching and
learning spaces. The project represents a readily transferable example of collaboration
between a university and theatre companies that benefits not only the institutions
themselves but also the wide range of students accessing the resource. The web site
receives an average of 2000 visits per month and provides an interactive space for many
of CAPITAL’s dissemination events.
Beginning with materials from Northern Broadsides, a digital archive of promptbooks,
production photographs, costume bibles, set designs, programmes, and posters (now
available as learning resources) was developed. Working with Footsbarn during their
2008 visit to Warwick with A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a student research team
CAPITAL Centre, CETL Final Self-evaluation.
17
documented the performances and associated events. This material is now being
developed by subsequent students contributing to this unique research-informed
learning resource. The web site is a record of CAPITAL’s pedagogic work with archival
material, structured as a guide of good practice.
10.3 Assessment: Neill Thew’s 2006 report on teaching Shakespeare for The Higher
Education Academy remarks on the ways in which ‘a wider range of appropriate
assessment methods might help promote high quality student learning’. Whilst Thew
refers specifically to the assessment of Shakespeare, CAPITAL interrogated and reimagined assessment procedures more broadly, emphasising the notion of assessment
for learning as rather than assessment of learning across a range of modules. Results
from the 2009 National Student Survey highlighted the fact that students’ most
reoccurring criticism of the academic process was to do with assessment. Of the seven
categories on which students are invited to pass judgment, ‘Assessment and feedback’
receives the lowest satisfaction rating – 65% compared to an average of 78% across the
other six categories.
Students undertaking the CAPITAL-designed ‘Drama, Performance and Identity’ module
in the Department of English , for instance, are required to spend Term Two developing
a performance piece that incorporates the key theories and ideas explored throughout
the module. Students are marked according to (a) the extent to which they ‘show
[through performance] a depth of understanding of some or several aspects of the
material presented and discussed on the module’; (b) a viva with the course facilitator,
discussing the intellectual relevance of the performance; (c) a journal composed of both
written, visual, and online materials recording the development of their performance
piece, which is checked fortnightly by the course leader, with students being expected to
demonstrate a sense of critical awareness and theoretical engagement with their
process. These methods are now being used in interdisciplinary modules such as ‘Faust’
and ‘Shakespeare and the Law’.
10.4 Another important ‘message’ is that the CETL programme has enabled us to work
across disciplines in ways we could not have envisaged at the beginning of the project.
CAPITAL’s work has developed from the ‘enrichment’ and enhancement of existing
modules and courses and has spread across faculties, into postgraduate skills training,
into the training of academics, into interdisciplinary modules, and into other
universities and schools as detailed above. The performative and embodied aspects of
the work have challenged and excited many of those who have encountered them and
something that appears initially difficult or frightening (‘performing’) has enabled
participants to give free reign to the creativity in ways that they would not have
considered possible before. What CAPITAL seeks to do (with rare exceptions) is to make
participants feel safe in workshop environments and to give them permission to ‘fail’.
At its best, the OSL work initiated by CAPITAL echoes the best of the theatrical rehearsal
room in that ‘failure’ is honoured. Failure acknowledges experiment and recognises
risk: it is creativity’s shadow. We have attempted to establish in practical ways,
supported by pedagogic theory, that performance-based or embodied learning
promotes a rich and complex engagement with the subject matter irrespective of the
academic level or the discipline. This is the message we would most like to see
transferred and disseminated.
Question 11: How will the work and achievements of your CETL continue after HEFCE
funding ends (1000 words maximum)? Please reflect on how far you think CETL work has
CAPITAL Centre, CETL Final Self-evaluation.
18
become embedded in your institution or discipline and indicate if any structures have
been put in place to ensure its legacy is not lost (1000 words maximum)
11.1 The University of Warwick’s two CETLs (CAPITAL and the Reinvention Centre) have
offered a proposal for a merger into an Institute for Advanced Teaching and Learning
(IATL) which is now under consideration by the University Financial Planning and
Steering Committees.
Combining the practice and expertise of the CAPITAL and Reinvention Centre teams, the
IATL would be ideally placed to address the challenges of teaching in a research-led
context and provide the locus for delivering curriculum development across the
disciplines, new assessment practices, an international approach, and the promotion of
academic literacy through active student engagement, all grounded in real-world
contexts.
It is proposed that the IATL would address the following:
a. Performance-based Learning:
IATL would work with departments to introduce methodologies which promote the
use of intelligences other than the linguistic, and learning styles beyond the auditory;
specifically demanding that students develop both their subject knowledge and
enhance their ‘soft skills’ in areas such as responsibility, sociability, self-esteem, selfmanagement.
b. Academic Literacy:
The IATL would work to promote academic literacy across all its activities to
support students in writing and speaking clearly and effectively and thinking
critically and analytically. It would develop and embed teaching
methodologies and pedagogic interventions using OSL to bridge formal
academic study with the practical, professional applications of theory in
practice.
c.
Students who engage with global culture:
It is proposed that, collaborating with existing partners, e.g. with Warwick’s Centre
for Applied Linguistics (CAL) and International Office, Shakespeare networks,
international theatre companies and practitioners, and other HEIs both nationally
and internationally, the IATL would support:



d.
Initiatives aimed at a globally-oriented curriculum.
A multiplicity of learning styles for different futures.
How students from different educational backgrounds experience practicebased teaching and research-based learning.
Students who participate in interdisciplinary activity:
Collaborating with departments, the Board of Undergraduate Studies and
interdisciplinary Doctoral Training Centres, the IATL would:

Make available to all students the option of an interdisciplinary module.
CAPITAL Centre, CETL Final Self-evaluation.
19


e.
Create a portfolio of interdisciplinary modules developed with departments.
Host interdisciplinary projects and seminars to bring together academics and
research-active students across faculties.
Students who benefit from innovative pedagogy:
Working with departments, Faculty Teaching and Learning Fora, PCAPP, Centre for
Student Careers and Skills, and IGGY, the IATL would ensure that all students
experience innovative pedagogy.
f.
Students who have experienced innovative learning spaces:
The IATL would:





Co-ordinate the provision and further development of effective, flexible, open
learning spaces to enhance the University’s prestige;
Offer a research-informed approach to the planning and use of learning spaces,
exemplified by CAPITAL's Open-space Learning initiatives and Reinvention’s
extensive work on social learning spaces;
Ensure, in conjunction with CPARG, that students in all faculties have access to
spaces which will enable them to benefit from innovative teaching practice;
Develop interdisciplinary Open-space Learning projects.
Inform and support the creation of a landmark Teaching and Learning building on
campus.
g. The IATL would raise the status of teaching excellence and foster a high level of
student engagement with curriculum development.
h. The IATL would work to provide for all teaching staff access to, and support in using,
environments appropriate for open-space and research-based learning.
11.2 CAPITAL’s work is now embedded in modules and training programmes across the
University. Under the leadership of this new Institute this work would continue and
develop. (See 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 10 above.)
Question 12 : Do you think there are any emerging aspects of your CETL activity that will
have greater importance in the future? (600 words maximum)
12.1 Transferable skills: Universities are the ‘providers of life chances for individuals in an
environment where skills and the ability to apply those skills are essential
preconditions for employment’. (Department for Business, Innovation and Skills).
a. In addition to becoming specialist in a particular discipline or area of knowledge,
students in Higher Education must also be equipped to meet the employment
demands of the modern workplace. The 2008 CBI Survey found that 86% of firms
ranked employability skills as the most important factor when recruiting
graduates (CBI 2008). The CAPITAL Centre expects its students to become
participants in the process of education and encourages them to develop and
utilise a range of important and transferable skills. The CBI Survey established that
CAPITAL Centre, CETL Final Self-evaluation.
20
‘employers want graduates who can communicate well and work as part of a
team’, both of which are addressed by CAPITAL’s approach to teaching and
learning.
b.
In addition to being effective writers, students involved in CAPITAL-led teaching
and learning are expected to present their ideas verbally in a confident and
articulate fashion (academic literacy). The CAPITAL Centre’s approach to pedagogy
not only makes use of dialogue and group discussion (as in traditional seminars),
but enhances and expands that dialogue by harnessing the educational potential
of kinaesthetic learning. Ideas and concepts are explored three dimensionally,
with students (as outlined in the CAPITAL Centre’s stage two CETL bid) engaging in
‘role-play and improvisation’, ‘risk-taking and playfulness’, as well as exercises
that facilitate ‘the interconnection of mind, body and emotions’. Students’ means
of articulation are enhanced by undergoing processes of discovery, in which they
try, dismiss and improve their ideas through verbal, physical and creative
expression. Students, therefore, become accustomed to a constant cycle of
involvement and participation with the curriculum content – becoming
increasingly confident, critical and articulate.
12.2 CAPITAL’s Company in Residence Fail Better has led an innovative programme of work
over the two years of its residency which demonstrates the value of such an association
for HEIs. Through the residency, students gain real experience of both creative practice
and the world of work, and the University gains numerous benefits from the integration
of students into the company’s training activities:
a. A world premiere of a new translation of Federico Garcia Lorca’s Play Without a
Title (published by Oberon Books, 2009) performed at The CAPITAL Centre and
the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry by an ensemble of Warwick undergraduates for
students from 4 modules studying Lorca with digital materials on i-TunesU;
b. Practical workshops for 1100 students in 8 modules led by the Artistic Director,
exploring a range of literary texts;
c. An annual new Work Festival which showcases students’ creative projects,
course work and individual writing;
d. The development of a student ensemble, which continually refreshes itself as
students move through the University, to assist in the provision of practical
roleplay sessions for the LDC, the GSSP, and will be a significant element in
future pedagogical collaborations across the University;
e. As part of this work the company delivers applied performance across
disciplines; student production placements and practice-as-research
investigations.
12.3 Impact across the sector. See 10.1 on transferability, and 10.3 on assessment.
Question 13: Any other comments (600 words maximum)
Alongside the ongoing development of postgraduate qualifications for teachers and actors
there are two additional areas of collaboration between Warwick and the RSC which we
hope to continue, though in revised form, supported by external funding: Fellowships in
Creativity and the International Playwright in Residence. Students have benefited from
involvement in fellowship projects and fruitful relationships have developed between
academics and practitioners. In both cases the reward element rested mainly in release from
CAPITAL Centre, CETL Final Self-evaluation.
21
normal duties to focus on a creative project but the lack of structure, seen as a benefit, was
not helpful to some postholders in achieving their goals, especially over a longer period. It is
recommended that future fellowships be shorter and more intensive.
Future collaborations between the University and theatre companies and individual
practitioners will benefit from the experience of the CAPITAL partnership in establishing a
‘shared space’ which demonstrates that a successful outcome is more likely when it is
conceptual rather than physical, when it is cross-disciplinary and when there is clear mutual
advantage.
CAPITAL Centre, CETL Final Self-evaluation.
22
CAPITAL Centre, CETL Final Self-evaluation.