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Two doctoral students supervised by Dr Christopher Wiley present at a major international conference

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Two doctoral students supervised by Dr Christopher Wiley presented papers at a major international conference, ‘Imagining Communities Musically: Putting Popular Music in its Place’, held by the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM) last week at the University of Salford.

Sini Timonen, who is in the closing stages of her PhD on women musicians’ contribution to popular music in England between 1962 and 1971, gave a paper entitled ‘The Girl Singer in 1960s London: the Position of Female Vocalists within the Pop Music Industry’. Drawing on original interviews conducted with lesser-known ‘Brit Girls’ active on the London pop scene in the sixties, Sini explored the major challenges they faced, the strategies by which they navigated them, and the implications of the essentially male-oriented contexts in which they worked.

Alexander Jeffery presented the paper Reconfiguring Prince: how online fan communities are taking back control of the album, in which he examined traditions amongst Prince fans active in online forums of proposing their own alternative track listings for landmark albums such as Purple Rain as well as abandoned album projects. Alex, who has recently entered his second year on the doctoral programme, is conducting research on manifestations of the long-form musical work in contemporary popular culture.

Dr Christopher Wiley delivers paper at International Conference on Learning, Institute of Education, London

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The Institute of Education, University of London, LondonDr Christopher Wiley presented his paper ‘Divided by a Common Language? Evaluating Students’ Understanding of the Vocabulary of Assessment and Feedback at a Single UK Higher Education Institution’ at the Nineteenth International Conference on Learning, Institute of Education, University of London on 16 August 2012.

Dr Wiley’s paper, which discussed the changing context of Higher Education in the UK and its implications for assessment and feedback, fell on the same day that students across the country received their A-level results and found out whether they had been accepted to their chosen university degree course.

Presenting some of the findings of interviews conducted with students across City University London in the past academic year (previously discussed here), Dr Wiley questioned many aspects of current assessment and feedback processes, enriching his talk with reference to innovations implemented this year in his own academic practice.

The Nineteenth International Conference on Learning welcomed some 600 delegates from 40 countries across three days.

Dr Christopher Wiley addresses Turning Technologies User Conference 2012, Denmark

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Dr Christopher Wiley addressed the Turning Technologies User Conference 2012 at Aarhus University, Denmark on 19 June 2012, delivering a presentation entitled ‘Using Electronic Voting Systems in the Arts and Humanities’.

In the first Turning Technologies Conference to be held in Continental Europe, Dr Wiley argued for the largely unrecognized potential for electronic voting systems to enhance teaching in disciplines other than the sciences and business, drawing on his use of the technology as a music lecturer as well as his original research.

Dr Wiley was one of six speakers to lead parallel breakout sessions during the conference, selected from over 50 proposals received. Participating delegates were drawn from countries including the US, Denmark, the UK, France, Germany, Holland, and Spain.

The full programme for the event may be downloaded here.

Turning Technologies User Conference 2012

Dr Christopher Wiley receives Student Voice Award at City University London

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For the second year in a row, Dr Christopher Wiley has received a prestigious Student Voice Award, presented by City University London. He thus becomes only the second person in the history of the Award to have been a recipient in two consecutive years.

Chris was one of twelve members of academic and professional staff across the University to win the prize. Competition was, as ever, extremely fierce with a total of over 200 nominees.

Dr Christopher Wiley receives the Student Voice Award 2012The scheme is intended to reward ‘exceptional teaching practice and outstanding support services’, and to recognize excellent contribution to the student experience. Nominations are made by the students themselves and winners are decided by the University’s Students’ Union.

See this post for news of Chris’s being awarded a University Student Voice Award in 2011. Further information about the Student Voice Awards 2012 is available here.

Chris was separately awarded a School of Arts Learning & Teaching Recognition Prize for his excellent module evaluation feedback in the 2011-12 academic year.

The prizes were announced and formally presentated at a prize-giving ceremony at the close of the Fourth Annual ‘Learning at City’ Conference on 13 June 2012 (see picture above).

Dr Christopher Wiley presents paper on assessment and feedback at ‘Learning at City’ Conference

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Dr Christopher Wiley presented a paper on assessment and feedback at City University London’s Fourth Annual ‘Learning at City’ Conference on Wednesday 13 June 2012.

Dr Christopher Wiley at 'Learning at City' ConferenceEntitled ‘Divided by a Common Language? Evaluating Students’ Understanding of the Vocabulary of Assessment and Feedback at City University London’, Dr Wiley’s paper asked whether certain key terms used routinely in assessment and feedback practice might hold a subtly different meaning for students than for staff, presenting evidence from a series of consultations with students from across the University.

A video of Dr Wiley’s presentation may be viewed from YouTube here. The full programme is available here.

Dr Christopher Wiley presents paper at the Sibelius Academy, Finland

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Sibelius Academy logoDr Christopher Wiley has presented a paper at the Radical Music History Symposium 2011 hosted by the Sibelius Academy, Helsinki on 8-9 December 2011. His paper was entitled ‘Musical Biography and the Myth of the Muse’, and discussed the portrayal of women in biographies of the Great Composers who, though silenced throughout much of the text, suddenly came into view at critical junctures in life-writing on their male associates as rhetorical signifiers of the increasing power of their creative genius. Chris argued that musical biography thereby became complicit in women’s historical effacement by casting them in the role of vessels for the stimulation of artistic creation in men, implicitly denying them the possibility of undertaking such activities themselves while simultaneously linking them inextricably to those of associated male composers. Chris concluded by demonstrating some ways in which this model, for its longevity and the robustness with which it has been perpetuated, yields profound consequences for more recent writing of the lives of women composers as well as for contemporary feminist musicology’s project to deconstruct and critique musical canon.

Dr Christopher Wiley wins University Student Voice Award at City University London

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Dr Christopher Wiley has won a prestigious Student Voice Award (so named because all nominations are made by the students themselves) at City University London.

Staving off fierce competition from hundreds of nominees, Chris was one of 12 meChristopher Wiley at the teaching podmbers of academic staff across the University to win the coveted £1,000 prize.

The Student Voice Award scheme is run by the University’s Students’ Union in conjunction with the Learning Development Centre, to acknowledge lecturers who have demonstrated great commitment to top-quality teaching, learning, and assessment over the past year, and who have made a positive impact on the student experience. Students are required to complete a one-page application by way of nominating a staff member.

Chris’s nomination was made primarily on the basis of excellence in dissertation supervision, together with quality and timeliness of feedback on written work.  The students also commended him for the ‘buzz’ they feel after his lectures, for his listening and communication skills, and for the support he has given to student activities both on and off campus.

Chris was formally presented with the award at the prize-giving ceremony with which the annual ‘Learning at City’ conference ended on 23 June 2011. Earlier that day, he had delivered a presentation at the same conference based on his research on institutional handbooks for postgraduate research students.

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