The team are lecturers on the BA (Hons) Applied Music and Masters Music and the Environment at the University of the Highlands and Islands. The team is made up of Anna-Wendy Stevenson, Simon Bradley, Peter Noble, Dr Miriam Iorwerth, Andrew Wardle and Dr Neil Davidson. Both staff and students are based around Scotland, working remotely, coming together for student residencies five times a year.
The courses are practical music degrees taught using blended learning, which includes a blend of online, video-conferenced and face-to-face teaching, the latter of which happens at the residencies. The team ethos is based around community, collaboration, and a sense of belonging and this is embedded in everything the team does; with their students and within the team itself. They operate across many layers of the community; their student cohorts, the university community, geographical communities and the wider music scene of Scotland. The courses are collaborative in nature, and in particular, the student residencies are a chance for students to come together to work on creatively and academically challenging tasks with short deadlines and high-stake outputs (such as compositions or performances). These are in collaboration with external stakeholders, who provide briefs for the students to work to and which feed into module assessment.
The team’s work has an impact on the students’ teaching and learning, gaining 100 percent overall satisfaction in the National Student Survey (NSS) in 2019 and 2020, through student engagement in course, assessment and residency design. The team has impacted on the institution by mentoring colleagues in other creative areas on blended learning in practical arts subjects. The team are firmly based within the Scottish music scene and involve students in cultural exchanges further afield, developing knowledge exchange and sharing best practice.
