Contextual Background

In my role as the Curriculum Development Curator of the CSM Museum & Study Collection, a key challenge I have with regard to assessing or exchanging feedback is that I rarely teach the same group of students. Therefore, I only have one opportunity to do this with them, which is usually during and at the end of the workshop. While students engage in the activity, I ensure there is a continuous and supportive dialogue exchange. This approach aligns with Brooks, K (2008) findings that students appreciate one-to-one discussions as “they motivate and engage you emotionally.” However, the key exchange is actually from students to me so I can assess how to improve the overall experience of object-based learning for future students.

Evaluation 

Over the last six months, I have identified various physical cues that help me understand whether students are engaged and enjoying the workshops. The main ones are: remembering object handling instructions, not checking their phones, and actively participating in group discussions. In the feedback my peer, Danielle Radojcin, wrote for the workshop she observed with Courtauld BA History of Art students, she said that my object reveal at the end “pleased students to the extent that, on several occasions, they broke into spontaneous applause” and that the “questions from the students at the end were manifold,  and surprising in their number, thoughtfulness and range.”

However, my curiosity and the reflective nature of the PgCert encouraged me to establish a formal way to request and record student feedback while students were still in my workshops. In the last month since creating and implementing my short online feedback form, I have recorded over 100 responses. This strategy has helped me identify strengths and areas of improvement in my teaching, some of which are outside of my control.

Moving forwards

As an educator at the start of my career, the feedback form has been a great tool to validate my teaching practice, boost my confidence and reflect on my object-based learning approaches, which I don’t typically find the time to do. For example, I now send a list of key reminders to students one day before their workshop to prevent common issues arising and share my written object notes afterwards so they can be present and focus on listening and handling objects instead. Another key success of this strategy has been acquiring anonymous quotes to incorporate in an exhibition we have pitched about the significance of object-based learning in art and design institutions.

The only limitation I can identify for now is that the majority of constructive feedback requires action beyond my control. For example, I am not able to run longer workshops because this would prevent me from teaching a large cohort in one day. Moreover, I am not able to have more than 15 students during a workshop because we have very limited space in the study room. However, my senior colleague, Judy Willcocks, has decided to leverage the feedback I have accumulated to persuade the college to give us more teaching space and resources in order to meet the increase in demand from students.

Following what I’ve written in case study 2, I will also try to evaluate the effectiveness of my workshops and students’ learning according to constructive alignment theory (Biggs, J. and Tang, C, 2011).

References 

Biggs, J. and Tang, C. (2011) Teaching for Quality Learning at University. 4^th edition. Maidenhead: Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press. [e-book in library]

Brooks, K. (2008) ‘Could do Better?’: students’ critique of written feedback’, Networks, pp. 1-5. Available at: Brooks 2008 – Students critique of feedback in AD (1).pdf (Accessed: 15 March 2024).

Tohidi, D. (2024) CSM Museum & Study Collection Feedback Form. Available at: CSM Museum & Study Collection Feedback Form – Google Forms (Accessed: 29 Feb 2024).

Contextual Background

In my role as the CSM Museum & Study Collection’s Curriculum Development Curator, it is both an opportunity and challenge to teach object-based learning workshops for such a broad range of students of varying ages and disciplinary backgrounds. In the first half of my year-long maternity cover contract, I have already taught foundation, undergraduate and postgraduate students across the majority of courses at CSM and other UAL colleges. As the primary educator in the team working 4 days a week, coupled with the increasing appetite for object-based learning, this means I have very limited time to develop and satisfy a lot of learning outcomes.

Evaluation

Most of the time, course leaders approach me to deliver 1 hour object-based learning workshops with a specific learning outcome in mind. When planning these workshops, I usually curate my object selection according to the brief and choose the most appropriate methodology to achieve the learning outcomes (Chatterjee, H. and Hannan, L, 2015), which is usually by Jules Prown or Gillian Rose. In some instances, course leaders want to collaborate with me for the entire duration of a project, such as Foundation’s Heterotopias project and MA Culture, Criticism, and Curation’s archive unit. These requests are much more time-consuming as they have higher stakes and require a greater level of attention to detail and careful planning. Given that the Heterotopias project was my first experience of this request, it was a significant learning curve that required an experimental and reflective planning approach.

To begin with, I had a couple of meetings with the project lead, Gabriel Birch, to understand the brief and intended learning outcomes from my object-based learning workshops. Together, we reflected on the effectiveness of the pilot that ran last year and identified areas of improvement for this iteration. We decided to drop 1 theme (gender) and update the object curation for the remaining 4 themes with new items acquired through the Graduate Award 2023. Overall, this was a successful strategy as it led piques students’ interest and led to them creating diorama models inspired by new objects for the subsequent window display. However, the drawback was that the planning took considerably more time which was sometimes stressful to manage with my other teaching and curatorial commitments.

Moving forwards

Since being introduced to constructive alignment theory by my PgCert tutor, Dr Kwame Baah, and after doing further reading on the subject (Biggs and Tang, 2011), I would like to use the upcoming MA CCC archive unit as an opportunity to formally implement this approach in the planning and delivery of my teaching. This will require me to read the unit brief carefully and holistically plan each session to ensure that my teaching aligns with the unit’s learning outcomes and assessment methods. For example, as my group will focus on the museum’s jewellery collection and have been allocated the 3D scanning digital outcome, I ran my object shortlist past my senior colleague, Judy Willcocks, to ensure the pieces are suitable for 3D scanning. Willcocks approved most of the objects, but flagged a couple that were too fragile or reflective to achieve the desired outcome. Moreover, like with the Heterotopias project, I created a comprehensive object fact sheet document for my students to facilitate their independent research which will later be integrated to produce the group curatorial intervention.

References

Biggs, J. and Tang, C. (2011) Teaching for Quality Learning at University. 4^th edition. Maidenhead: Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press. [e-book in library]

Chatterjee, H. and Hannan, L. (2015), Engaging the Senses: Object-based Learning in Higher Education, London: Routledge.

Paris, S. G. (2002), Perspectives on Object-Centred Learning in Museums, New York: Routledge.