CILASS: Centre for Inquiry-based Learning in the Arts and Social Sciences

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Clare Rishbeth

Clare Rishbth, Academic Fellow, CILASS
0114 222 0606
email: c.rishbeth@sheffield.ac.uk

I am a lecturer in the Department of Landscape, arriving at academic life through a side door having previously trained and practiced as a landscape architect. I have now been here for ten years, and it´s great to take on a new challenge as a CILASS Academic Fellow. Due to recent faculty changes, Landscape is a fairly new addition to the list of departments within the CILASS remit. I like to think that we (and our `sister´ departments of Architecture and Town and Regional Planning) have something to offer as well as something to learn from engagement with IBL initiatives and networks.

Within the Department of Landscape I am involved with teaching design projects at both undergraduate and post graduate level. You may find me in the studio demonstrating landform using a tray of sand, out in the Rivelin Valley with a class role-playing different perspectives from site users, discussing student work in module reviews and, usually, trying to do lots of photocopying at the last minute. My research focuses on how first generation migrants perceive local landscapes and the challenges for the landscape architects in designing for an ethnically diverse society. My most recent project was called Walking Voices where I worked in collaboration with BBC Radio Sheffield to facilitate residents of Burngreave in making on-site audio recordings of their experiences of their neighbourhood.

In my role as CILASS Academic Fellow I´m undertaking research on extra-curricular locations of inquiry based learning, and how this might be related to developing professional identities. Extra-curricular activities have always played an important role in students´ experiences of university life, but often these are perceived as purely social in nature and unconnected with academic progress. I´m suggesting a more integrative model, which questions how students might use non-prescribed activities to enrich, extend or challenge their disciplinary perspective. In particular, I will focus on the scope of exploration of the local environment for students from environmental design/planning and place based disciplines. The research project compliments and furthers research which I carried out for my Masters dissertation (MEd in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education): "Field Trips: learning and teaching on the outside". The thesis identified three guiding principles: the benefits of informality, the opportunities for inquiry based and networked learning, and the requirement for status.

I´m looking forward to helping out with CILASS activities over the year, and will particularly be involved in implementing the CILASS Undergraduate Research Bursary Scheme. I am also heading up a CILASS IBL grant project in Landscape called Place as Precedent. We are designing a web-based resource for students to support independent field trips to modern and historic landscapes in the Sheffield area.

As an enthusiast of Landscape it´ll be no surprise that I like getting out and about in my spare time, exploring cities, climbing hills or just pottering in the garden. I am interested in most things art and design related, both seeing and making, and throw myself into Bollywood dancing once a week. I love reading books and am just getting started on writing them… a new creative departure.