Sarah Harkins PG Cert

Object Based Learning Workshop

Attending: Lindsay (Course Leader), Sarah Harkins, Sakiko Kohasi. Marion Lagedamont, Emilie Loiseleur, Matthew Needham. 

I was quite anxious about this particular workshop. I hadn’t appreciated that the workshop would be with a small group of peers from my PGCert cohort. The pressure felt real! When I discovered that Lindsay structured it for 5 of us – I was SO RELIEVED. I don’t mind talking in front of a large group & my student group is over 50, but I felt anxious about this. I suppose it’s that feeling of being judged, or not knowing enough to be interesting. However, the people involved in this workshop were articulate and engaged with their feedback – which was constructive and thought-provoking.

I prepared for this session by discussing the workshop with one of my ASD (Architecture and Spatial Design) teaching partners Ursula Dimitriou and by reflecting on a project, Heterotopia (worlds within worlds). The ASD students had worked in collaboration with the CSM Museum & Study Collection¹. The project objective was to design a public engagement space for the CSM Museum; investigating and reinventing this institution within the University. There was a pre-selected range of objects from the archives to trigger a speculative design exploration through experimentation with form, material and narrative to activate social engagement and design a space where the public can interact with the chosen object(s). Referencing Gillian Roses’s ‘Visual Methodology’², she suggests a four-staged approach to analyzing artworks and images; describing four stages as four sites; the site of production, the site of the image, the site of circulation and the site of audience. Students were asked to cross-reference further aspects of analysis: Technological, Compositionality and Social; to help them develop an approach to their Heterotopia socially interactive program.   

For this session I decided to use the object of a toilet; a socially interactive object, vessel for the most basic of human functions and is a fundamental architectural consideration in most architectural projects. I would position this exercise as a collaborative discussion to stimulate further research, informing a design proposal.  

I introduced the toilet and the notion of ‘public convenience’ and asked the participants to work in pairs, investigating and interrogating the object and, I asked them to consider the following themes: historical, political, social, cultural, behavioral, economic, and environmental. The outcome would be a mind-map. I then asked them to discuss and consider/ apply the themes what the object could become?  It was quite fast-paced (20mins) and I feel it initiated some interesting discussions and I got some good critical feedback within the Developmental & Affirmation feedback sheet; “how do you include students who feel uncomfortable to talk about that object”. This comment would impact designing/planning and teaching/support aspects of teaching that I seek to include in future planning, ensuring that discussions about potentially sensitive issues are inclusive for students ‘with diverse educational backgrounds and achievements’ (Grace and Gravestock, 2009)³ 

All the presentations instigated insightful discussion. Some I was more engaged with others – Matthew’s workshop looking at t-shirts, made me consider sustainability and disposable fashion more consciously. Emilie’s was really complex and challenging, asking us to consider objects less laterally. We arranged objects according to age, size, use, emotional value. Marion’s presentation asked us to consider ‘Desire Lines and Affordances’ and she asked us to be ‘design detectives and identify flawed designed objects. I didn’t fully engage with this activity but it did provoke me to do more research on affordances after the session⁴. Sakiko’s presentation extended from a studio project. Asking us to question human scale in our space using architectural scale models of people – place it, photograph it, title it and discuss our outcome. I felt it got us excited, moving around the room – what could we use? How could we represent human scale in this dull, small room? Lindsay’s outcome was incredible, she managed to capture her scale model, all of us and herself in her panoramic photograph. I enjoyed this most because it was intrinsic to the subject I teach. To give the exercise a deeper context, Sakiko referenced the work of Abigail Goldman⁵, a Journalist and investigator with the Public Defenders Office (Bellingham, WA) who makes ‘Dieoramas’ reflecting her attraction to the macabre, capturing gruesome murder scenes in miniature (diorama)⁶. 

refs

1 https://www.arts.ac.uk/colleges/central-saint-martins/about-us/museum-and-study-collection

2 Rose, G. (2001). Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

3 Grace, S and Gravestock, P (2009). Inclusion and Diversity: Meeting the needs of all students, Routledge, London. 

4 https://medium.com/@chiwonkim/14-examples-of-desire-line-314576d97c94

5 https://www.abigailgoldman.com

6 https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/diorama

Lindsay Jordan & John O’Reilly 

Today was the first time I actually met my cohort in person and it was such a relief to meet them. I realised pretty quickly that none of them had two heads or were ogres and that I had a very over-active imagination. Phew. However, I also realised pretty quickly that due to work commitments I had also not done the preparatory reading or prepared resources for today. (This rather put me on the back-foot). We started off with an introductory ice-breaker looking at with quotes about education and learning. We worked in groups of three, we had to pick one quote, discuss and evaluate it. I was working with Ellen and Ernesto. We picked the following quote no.4: 

‘If students’ initial ideas and beliefs are ignored, the understandings that they develop can be very different from what the teacher intends.’ 1

We stated that we felt it was about learning to listen, to encourage not ignore. That building a good working relationship with our students was crucial to enabling learning. We also discussed how we can make time to listen and understand our students. Our group were interesting as we had different teaching experiences where by Ellen had large cohorts (100+ students) and little time. I dealt with a medium size student group (50+) so have more opportunity to get to know more of the students personally and Ernesto had a smaller teaching group and was able to really get to know and understand his students. We felt that the larger the cohort, the chances of building meaningful tutor-student relationship reduced. We also discussed that initial discussions with students played a significant role in building relationships – which when you have a large cohort can be more complex (for say Ellen or myself but easier for Ernesto). 

Following on from this we working in pairs to do the next part of Learning design workshop, where we shared a brief. I worked with Ernesto and although neither of us had not prepared for this, I was able to share a brief that I had developed for foundation and we used that as the example. The brief was for a project called Wearable Architecture. I showed Ernesto the brief and gave him a breakdown of what the project entailed; how students build an understanding of human scale within the built environment; they explore big ideas and problem-solve through collaborative and individual work. It serves as conceptual social interaction where ‘Site, User and Function’ and they are introduced as key elements underpinning spatial practices. The project order is collaborative ideation and knowledge gathering, leading to independent opportunities to develop personal agency. It culminates in students making a wearable structure that forms part of a collective performance that is mapped at a chosen location and group-based critique, where peers give feedback. Ernesto was interested in the project but wanted to have clearer guidance of how the physical choreography of mapping works in terms of teaching. We discussed this and used this as the basis of the next exercise to develop of the workshop, to generate a poster presentation of the possibilities for redesigning your artefact (the brief). We focussed on the performance element as it responded to both our subjects (me = architecture, Ernesto = film) and we agreed on making a storyboard to plan the choreography of the mapping. We didn’t get to finish it and I’m not convinced we actually got the exercise right, when looking at all the other posters that were made by our colleagues, who had addressed approaches to learning. I felt this was a great breadth of response – so much thinking about learning, but when making this comment, Lindsay pointed out that there could have been less broad and that there were maybe too many pictoral responses (but – we are creatives…so….) as they might not connect with learning outcomes and that being too broad they become meaningless. 

We discussed the trying to get student to interpret learning outcomes as a visual understanding – does this help them comprehend questioning and analysing and that we should learn to question what we know. Lindsay suggested we should look at the “Course Designer Toolkit’ which refers to policy and institutional strategy. 

In the afternoon, we worked in groups of 4, in a fast-paced timed exercise. Each table had a large sheet of paper and pens. We had to consider benefits and the challenges of a particular mode of teaching as follows:

• One-to-many teaching / lecture 
• Small group teaching / demo, seminar, workshop, studio
• One-to-one teaching / tutorial
• Crit / presentation

We were given 5 minutes per table/mode. Then we had to complete a second cycle, but this time considering any strategies that capitalise on the benefits/opportunities given and also address or respond to the challenges.

We discussed how can we weave theory policies into our practice(s) and how do we evidence this? across the group we commented that this can happen through developing a manifesto of idealogical theories – in planning and analytical reflection, which is evidence in brief development, – structured learning through lectures and workshops to see progression and realisation and throughout the process encourage feedback (tutor to student, student to tutor) which is crucial. Ernesto made an observation that it was like telling a story ‘In the beginning Jane ….. and Jane lived happily ever after’ – it was a funny comment & made us laugh but he had a good point – you need to build context with ideology and theory to inspire discourse, we need to record processes, reflect and analyse within our teaching structure.

Our final exercise of the day, Lindsay asked us to use a grading matrix to gauge where we felt we were in terms of understanding LO1 (interpret theories, policies and pedagogies in the context of your evolving practice) . We has to write what we felt was the criteria for each of the grades (A-D) and then mark where we felt we were. I felt very much that I was sitting between B & C. I have done some but recognising where I am shows I need to do more!

I feel very much that the learning and assessment criteria is very linear but the creative industries don’t always respond to linearity and are often much more fluid (see below diagram!)

It was a great day – my mind felt stretched and was buzzing with what had been experienced and discussed.

Action Plan:

• BLOG!!! sort it out

1 Bransford, J.D., Brown, A. L., and Cocking, R. R. (Eds). 2000. How People Learn:
Brain, Mind, Experience, and School. National Academy Press: Washington D.C. p.10.
Available as a free Download: How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition

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