OBL – Kasia Idzi

Microteaching – object-based session

I had never run a microteach session based on OBL in my practice before. I wanted to use objects meaningful to me. First, I thought of using something from Poland that reminds me of the country and/or my family. Then I thought of the zine collection that I used to work with at the LCC Library and how I can do a microteach session using zines.

Zines were popular in my circle of friends when I was a teenager. In the communist Poland they were our source of information about music and culture. Zines being uncensored and underground publications made them highly sought and very often we had one copy to share between all of us. A lot of zines were published in Poland in the 70s and 80s. Freedom of speech they gave their makers was an especially important feature of this kind of publication at that time.

I want also to reflect here on how great an idea it was to ask us to do a microteach object-based session as an exercise. Every microteach on the day I took part in the workshop was immensely interesting. All the sessions were so different. We witnessed a talking cactus (I know!!), we learnt how to tie a classic bow, had to describe an image to others in a way they could imagine it, wrote stories, screenplays, made zines and collages. I had learnt so much in a short time. For example, I got a new idea for my slides design and learnt easy to follow guidelines for writing Alternative Text.

Creative education

Reading “Killing the Goose: Conflicts between Pedagogy and Politics in the Delivery of a Creative Education” by Ruth Dineen and Elspeth Collins

Lorenz, A. (1997) *Binding ties.* Bologna: Sintesi Edizioni.

I was inspired to read this article from the reading list provided for our introductory workshop, as I am preparing a teaching session for the Research Season 2023 The Value of Creativity. I thought that the theme of the event corresponds well with the subject of the article.

The article defined creativity and the creative process first. It offered a comprehensive definition by Osche (1968) which states that creativity involves ‘bringing something into being that is original (new, unusual, novel, unexpected) and also valuable (useful, good, adaptive, appropriate)’. I was surprised that the outcome of the creative process must be judged as ‘valuable’ by the definition. The explanation that this judgement should be carried out by individual, or a group of experts clarified this bit for me further (still leaving me thinking how many issues it can pose).

Further in the article the authors highlight the importance of the creative process itself and the fact that assessment of the outcome and time constraints present in the higher education can restrain creativity itself. .

Within education the most salient factors affecting creativity are:

the environment and atmosphere
teaching styles, methods and strategies
project types and outcomes
the use of rewards, assessment and evaluation
learner motivation and learning styles
personality traits of the learner

What a huge responsibility we have as teachers! To repeat after the article: “The biggest single influence on the atmosphere in any classroom is the teacher/lecturer. Successful lecturers (in terms of fostering creativity) are themselves self-motivated, creative thinkers, acting as models for their students.”

I agree with the authors that diversity, ambiguity, and uncertainty may support creativity, but it can be increasingly difficult within a target-driven culture of the current education system. However, my reading focus remained on the place of creativity in learning and teaching part of the article.

I found the research about creativity itself and how we can influence it within education, presented here, highly informative and inspiring. It provided me with some ideas for the session: focus on the atmosphere, leave space for speculation and fantasy and provide/facilitate for active or even playful participation. I think that an OBL session using special collections items would give me an opportunity to use and test the above ideas. It would also fit well The Value of Creativity theme of the research season.

Starting my journey on the PgCert Academic Practice

Preparing for the first online seminar

I read two articles on object-based learning (OBL) using special collections. It was inspired by my interest in special collections librarianship and experience I have in running zine and artists books sessions from when I worked at LCC Library. I am based at WCA Library now and thought that looking into OBL would give me an opportunity to get to know our special collections here, especially that it has just become available after being for months and months in the storage, while the library was undergoing a major renovation. Our special collection at Wimbledon is quite small in comparison to the other bigger UAL libraries’ collections and I am a bit concerned about how I can use it for my research on the PgCert. However, I would like to prepare at least one OBL session for my students while on the course using the WCA special collections. Not committing to anything yet but would like to explore the collection to see where it will take me.

Articles that I read for the workshop have provided me with some ideas on the session itself – how I could design the questions to make the session more inclusive and which key words I can use to provoke students’ engagement and response. I was especially drawn to what Lelkes wrote on formulating the questions that can make the OBL relevant to the participants’ lived experience. We can increase the session’s meaningfulness to students and their socio-cultural awareness by considering “what the objects says about gender expression, heteronormativity, racism, ableism, social class, faith, and LGBTQIA+ inclusion, homophobia, biphobia and transphobia.” (Lelkes, p. 80)

Articles I read on OBL for the first week workshop:

Lelkes, J. (2019) ‘How inclusive is object-based learning?’, Spark, 4(1), pp. 76-82. Available at: https://sparkjournal.arts.ac.uk/index.php/spark/article/view/110/196 (Accessed: 12 January 2023).

Winston-Silk, J. (2019) ‘Deaccessioning and reimagining: a novel approach to object-based learning’, Spark, 4(1), pp. 51-57. Available at: https://sparkjournal.arts.ac.uk/index.php/spark/article/view/130/211 (Accessed: 12 January 2023).