I’ve been having flashbacks to that time in my previous outfit when I was sent to have a word (with extreme prejudice) with a Faculty Education Director who’d stopped answering emails. Professor Kurtz was a fine academic manager, combining military efficiency with a broad background in the Humanities, the Arts and Sciences. He viewed his career as the dedication of his talents to bringing our values and way of life to those darker, less fortunate people – students. He’d been sent out to survey student ideas about feedback and assessment, after rumours of NSS discontent had reached senior management. (more…)
Posts Tagged ‘feedback’
The Horror, The Horror
Posted in Musings, tagged assessment, feedback, higher education on November 4, 2021| 2 Comments »
Oh! You Pretty Things
Posted in Musings, tagged assessment, feedback, jazz, teaching on May 14, 2021| 2 Comments »
I am feeling tired and useless and miserable, and my nose hurts. The latter is due to being swiped by Olga, who took exception to being removed from the study windowsill where she was happily watching birds; the rest is seriously over-determined, but at least one contributing factor is the effort of trying to take on board the feedback on my latest bit of jazz composition. All this term we’ve been working on a piece based, however loosely, on rhythm changes [note for non-jazz people: the basic structure of George Gershwin’s I Got Rhythm, which formed the basis for numerous other compositions, especially in the bebop era, and interminable jam sessions]. I’ve been struggling to develop something that doesn’t just sound like a pastiche of Charlie Parker or Duke Ellington – there simply don’t seem to be many models for more contemporary rhythm changes, apart from Thelonius Monk, and if you follow that you just sound like second-rate Monk – but had written something that I thought was actually interesting and with a strong melody line. So it was a little disheartening – getting close attention from the tutor is always a double-edged sword – to be told that, while the rhythm is interesting and the bass line is good, and the melody has a good rhythm, my note choices are much too nice and safe, and by implication boring. (more…)
Sphinx 