The experience of the day of Microteaching sessions was an intensive experience for anyone who stayed for the entire day. Many different methods were employed in a wide variety of teaching contexts. This was both inspiring and a little exhausting. I learned a great deal about what the space of object-based learning looked like. My previous experiences of this mode of learning had been in a professional context of filming for the MA Fashion Curation department on a day of workshops they arranged over the summer of 2021. The context of these sessions was very clear as the students were all engaged in with the view of designing an exhibition in response to an object. I feel that this experience contextual relevance hindered my exploration of my own session, as I tried to be too direct in what I was trying to elicit from the room, rather than exploring the teaching method itself. However, the collection of experiences that my cohort offered during the day has given me a much broader and deeper appreciation of what s possible and what sorts of engagements we can tailor. Below are some highlights I have gathered from my notes:
“Now!” – This was a presentation of a film as the object (something that in retrospect may have been more fruitful for me in choosing my session, as it is something that I employ regularly in my teaching). The film was a protest film that used archival/news footage and music as a montage about civil rights and civil unrest in the United States. The conversations that emerged from this were very interesting and covered various areas from the technical to the political, however, the element that really struck me in this session was that we were invited to stand to watch the film. This simple change of perspective offered a new sense of how we watch, the separation we experience from a subject in the position of the audience. Standing felt like taking an action to view, which in the context of the film created new sensibilities in the audience.
Smartphone – replacing everything, costing everything. This session looked at the hidden costs of smartphone ownership through two lenses. Firstly, we were asked to consider the things that the smartphone had replaced in our lives. This gave rise to an illuminating list of processes and behaviours we have replaced through our relationship to this technology. The second part of the session explored the hidden costs of the manufacturing of such devices.
Scarfs and balaclavas – This session invited the group to explore three different garments, two scarfs and one balaclava. This was followed by a discussion about materials, uses, and cultural meanings. It was very interesting, when discussing our experiences in small groups, how many had been tempted to wear the garments, yet held back for fear of insulting anyone through improper execution of this in the context of cultural religious practice. This proved to be an effective way of raising and exploring this issue of discomfort and our relationship to such feelings, without this being the intention of the session.
Personal Objects – Storytelling: This was an interesting exploration of reading objects (donated by those in the room) to try to decipher who the object belonged to. This was slightly uncomfortable, since we knew we were discussing items that belong to people in the room, which made us feel sometimes that we were judging the type of person, etc., however, getting past this it introduced really inciteful ideas around the storytelling we do in relation to ownership, identity, and the objects we carry around with us.
Sculpture – In this session we were asked to empty our bags and consider the contents. We were then asked to build a sculpture out of what we had. We then spent some time looking at what people had built. It was very interesting to look at something so personal and every day in a different context. I experienced the performance anxieties of producing that I suffer from in any immediate create context where I am out of my comfort zone but was ultimately less interested in the approach to the sculptural aspect (I ended up making a ‘pile of things’) than in the attention to what I keep in my bag. We discussed how we don’t tend to do this. I was surprised to note how functional and necessary everything was in my bag. It usually feels like something that is full of unnecessary things, a mess really. But it turns out I only carry around things that have a purpose!
In terms of my main experiences from sessions that I will take away and explore further in my own teaching context, the positioning of the viewer and the use of film as an object (not just in the obvious sense, but in the context of Object-Based Learning), is something I am going to use to reconsider the way I approach using film example in lectures.