The online cross program event was delivered by Judy Willcocks & Georgina Orgill covering ‘Object based learning’ this was a coincidence as my reading from the previous workshop was all about OBL and the role it has in uncovering complexities for online learning environments (Willcocks & Mahon, 2023).
In the OBL session I learnt about the CSM museum and study collection and the history of the object based learning approach. In Georgina Orgill’s (2024) session we tried different examples of object based activities using three different sources, one tangible in front of us, and two digital and online. Our group discussed what we found the most effective, I seemed to be drawn to the still image (the digital source), this offered a lot of room for ambiguity and storytelling to form as it didn’t offer a lot of clues around what it was. The aspect of ambiguity reminded me of a lecture around the power of ambiguity in crafting more thought provoking designs (Gaver et al., 2003) I had witnessed whilst studying on my masters program.
I considered how to employ an OBL methodology in an upcoming teaching session I had to give around approaches to prototyping to our year 1 cohort. I thought of showing them two images of different prototypes of different fidelities one being DIY and rough, another more refined and then getting them to explore the aesthetics, materials used and explain what it meant for their practises. I later abandoned this as I thought it might be too confusing.
I did apply what I had learnt from the OBL session in a later session I co-hosted around visual communication using the Gillian Rose analysis, in this session we introduced our students to the analysis with an example and then allowed them some time to swap and analyse their own images with this method, uncovering new ways of viewing them (Central Saint Martins Museum and Study Collection, 2021). Based on what they learnt we introduced an image foraging activity where students pieced together images of their projects and their peers to form new narratives.
I am not sure if this was a useful session for this cohort as I did not receive much feedback around the methods we used. My co-host in the session pointed out that I tended to step in too early with the students and didn’t leave enough time for them to digest and take in the method themselves, this was an important realisation for me in my teaching practise. Going forward I think OBL is a useful interactive tool. I tried it on a visual level but I would like to try it again on a more tangible level when doing workshops around process and prototyping, perhaps this could be an opportunity to get alumni in to show their final work so current students can analyse the materials and wider themes the work uncovers.
References:
Central Saint Martins Museum and Study Collection (2021) ‘Some activities and resources’, Rose visual analysis method. Available at: https://arts.ac.libguides.com/c.php?g=686452 (Accessed: 31 January 2023).
Gaver, W.W., Beaver, J. and Benford, S. (2003) ‘Ambiguity as a resource for design’, Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 233–240. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1145/642611.642653.
Orgill, G. (2024) How we incorporate Object-Based Learning into the online classroom at the ASCC [Lecture]. University of the Arts London. 24 January.
Willcocks, J. and Mahon, K. (2023) ‘The potential of online object-based learning activities to support the teaching of intersectional environmentalism in art and design higher education’, Art, Design & Communication in Higher Education, 22(2), pp. 187–207. Available at: https://doi:10.1386/adch_00074_1.