scholarly journals University of Cambridge Modern and Medieval Languages: response to COVID-19

Author(s):  
Silke Mentchen

This case study will describe and analyse how the experiences of online language teaching at the University of Cambridge gained during the first UK lockdown helped to inform planning for the next academic year. Emergency measures implemented for the third term of the academic year 2019/2020 were evaluated. A curriculum of blended teaching combining synchronous and asynchronous modes was developed and is being implemented now. Particular attention will be paid to modes of examining and teaching, the role of the teacher, and the use of technologies. It will become clear that inclusive and interactive teaching will continue and that some of the newly acquired skills may stay with us. However, other aspects of language teaching such as building a sense of a learner cohort have been found to be much more difficult to replicate online.

2009 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 83
Author(s):  
Cecilia Goria

<p>This paper presents a case study on the role of ePortfolios in enhancing Integrative Learning within the context of the Year Abroad program. The Centre for Integrative Learning at the University of Nottingham has funded the project “Integrating the Year Abroad” which involves the creation and the development of a computer based portfolio template, the Year Abroad ePortfolio, to assist the students of Modern Languages who spend the third year of their studies in one or more foreign countries. The purpose of this paper is to outline how the ePortfolio created for the project takes the role of a learning and reflective tool promoting Integrative Learning within the context of a Year Abroad program and language learning.</p>


2019 ◽  
pp. 195-217
Author(s):  
James Karlsen

In the last decades, the discourse about universities and their engagement with actors in their host regions has increased. Concepts such as the third mission and the entrepreneurial university aim to describe the engagement between the university and regional actors as a change in the role of the university. In theory, this is described as a transformation of the university. In practice, this is organised as an add-on of a range of different knowledge-transfer and market-oriented activities, which do not interfere with the core activities of teaching and research. These normative concepts have a significant influence on how universities are developing their regional engagement. In a case study from a university in Norway, University of Agder, the study shows a university that gradually is transforming from an ivory tower model towards more regional engagement. However, the transformation is taking time. At present, the university has a dual strategy for its regional engagement. One part is organised as an add-on activity, while the other is organised within the academic core of teaching. In the latter, students are co-creating knowledge together with regional actors. The study demonstrates that it is possible to organise regional engagement as co-creation of knowledge also within the academic core.


Imbizo ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 92-98
Author(s):  
Faith Mkwesha

This interview was conducted on 16 May 2009 at Le Quartier Francais in Franschhoek, Cape Town, South Africa. Petina Gappah is the third generation of Zimbabwean writers writing from the diaspora. She was born in 1971 in Zambia, and grew up in Zimbabwe during the transitional moment from colonial Rhodesia to independence. She has law degrees from the University of Zimbabwe, the University of Cambridge, and the University of Graz. She writes in English and also draws on Shona, her first language. She has published a short story collection An Elegy for Easterly (2009), first novel The Book of Memory (2015), and another collection of short stories, Rotten Row (2016).  Gappah’s collection of short stories An Elegy for Easterly (2009) was awarded The Guardian First Book Award in 2009, and was shortlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, the richest prize for the short story form. Gappah was working on her novel The Book of Memory at the time of this interview.


2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (3/4) ◽  
pp. 227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Genecy Moraes Coelho Junior ◽  
Branca Terra ◽  
Elaine Cavalcate Peixoto Borin ◽  
Mariza Almeida

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 56
Author(s):  
Saray Busto ◽  
Michael Dumbser ◽  
Elena Gaburro

In this article we present a case study concerning a simple but efficient technical and logistic concept for the realization of blended teaching of mathematics and its applications in theoretical mechanics that was conceived, tested and implemented at the Department of Civil, Environmental and Mechanical Engineering (DICAM) of the University of Trento, Italy, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The concept foresees traditional blackboard lectures with a reduced number of students physically present in the lecture hall, while the same lectures are simultaneously made available to the remaining students, who cannot be present, via high-quality low-bandwidth online streaming. The case study presented in this paper was implemented in a single University Department and was carried out with a total of n=1011 students and n=68 professors participating in the study. Based on our first key assumption that traditional blackboard lectures, including the gestures and the facial expressions of the professor, are even nowadays still a very efficient and highly appreciated means of teaching mathematics at the university, this paper deliberately does not want to propose a novel pedagogical concept of how to teach mathematics at the undergraduate level, but rather presents a technical concept of how to preserve the quality of traditional blackboard lectures even during the COVID-19 pandemic and how to make them available to the students at home via online streaming with adequate audio and video quality even at low internet bandwidth. The second key assumption of this paper is that the teaching of mathematics is a dynamic creative process that requires the physical presence of students in the lecture hall as audience so that the professor can instantaneously fine-tune the evolution of the lecture according to his/her perception of the level of attention and the facial expressions of the students. The third key assumption of this paper is that students need to have the possibility to interact with each other personally, especially in the first years at the university. We report on the necessary hardware, software and logistics, as well as on the perception of the proposed blended lectures by undergraduate students from civil and environmental engineering at the University of Trento, Italy, compared to traditional lectures and also compared to the pure online lectures that were needed as emergency measure at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The evaluation of the concept was carried out with the aid of quantitative internet bandwidth measurements, direct comparison of transmitted video signals and a careful analysis of ex ante and ex post online questionnaires sent to students and professors.


2012 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 899-938 ◽  
Author(s):  
ALEXANDRA WALSHAM

ABSTRACTThis article is a revised and expanded version of my inaugural lecture as Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge, delivered on 20 Oct. 2011. It explores how the religious upheavals of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries reshaped perceptions of the past, stimulated shifts in historical method, and transformed the culture of memory, before turning to the interrelated question of when and why contemporaries began to remember the English Reformation as a decisive juncture and critical turning point in history. Investigating the interaction between personal recollection and social memory, it traces the manner in which remembrance of the events of the 1530s, 1540s, and 1550s evolved and splintered between 1530 and 1700. A further theme is the role of religious and intellectual developments in the early modern period in forging prevailing models of historical periodization and teleological paradigms of interpretation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (S1) ◽  
pp. S14-S17
Author(s):  
Clinton Warren

This case study asks students to assume the role of a ticket sales strategist hired to work as a consultant for the University of Minnesota Golden Gopher athletic department. In this case, you will be asked to work with members of the Gopher Fan Advisory Board to develop service innovations in the area of ticket sales. As a sales and marketing consultant, you will examine existing data on spectator attendance trends and focus group interviews to determine the current issues facing the athletic department. Then, you will be asked to suggest the manners by which the athletic department should innovate the ticket service, using a design thinking approach to grow ticket sales and spectator attendance for the men’s hockey program.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lwando Mdleleni

Purpose This paper aims to explore the role of university in promoting, generating and sustaining social innovation (SI). It aimed to understand how higher education institutions have extended their contribution beyond the traditional function of teaching and research to perform in socio-economic problem-solving. It looks at the kinds of contributions which universities potentially make to SI processes, and the effects that this has on the direction and magnitude of SI, and by implication social development. This was done by drawing lessons from a SI project that the University of the Western Cape has been involved in, i.e. Zenzeleni Networks Project. Design/methodology/approach To address the research question with this framework, the author adopted an exploratory research design using a case study. This research is qualitative, exploratory and descriptive, based on a case study built with secondary data. Findings This paper submits that universities can potentially function as key role players in promoting SI initiatives and fostering social transformations. Universities contribute with different kinds of resources and inputs to foster new SI ideas. Originality/value The paper suggests that socially innovative university projects may contribute to community social sustainability maintaining social cohesion by increasing social capital and providing resources for the empowerment of the marginalised communities. In so doing, they contribute to overcome social exclusion and promote more sustainable forms of development at community level. More research is needed on how universities can build community networks with local community partners, who can use the insights of academic research to replicate interventions and move to scale.


2008 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
pp. 697-713 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. C. LUBENOW

The question in 1898 of the recognition by Cambridge University of St Edmund's House, a Roman Catholic foundation, might initially seem to involve questions irrelevant in the modern university. It can, however, be seen to raise issues concerning modernity, the place of religion in the university and the role of the university itself. This article therefore sets this incident in university history in wider terms and examines the ways in which the recognition of St Edmund's House was a chapter in the history of liberalism, in the history of Roman Catholicism, in the history of education and in the history of secularism.


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