On Textiles BA Objects often form the start point of a sketchbook project. In year 1 there is a project called ‘The Order of Things’ which gets students to collate a collection of items which they will thoroughly explore within their sketchbook in Unit 2. This sketchbook work then informs the rotations in Unit 3, where I pick up with the students that have selected to do Knit.
Working with learners who are visually orientated and visual thinkers, and predominantly makers who ‘learn by doing’, I create experiential learning activities (Kolb 1984) to ensure active learning. As Bonwell (n.d.) identifies “active learning involves students in doing things and thinking about the things they are doing” (p. 2).
Often first year students forget that they can apply things that they have learnt in different areas of the course to what they are doing in that moment. When it comes to design and development work they forget that they can explore their fabric they have made through drawing in the same way that the initially explored the objects they were looking at for inspiration. In Unit 1 I run a drawing workshop where students explore the samples that they have made to help them with their design and development work. Because they done see their fabrics as ‘objects’ to work from I constantly have to remind them of the exercises covered in that class which will help them to move their projects along, and to show their understanding, analysis and evaluation of what it is that they are doing.
A student-centred approach to learning encourages students to have more responsibility for their learning and is a process that relies heavily on professional confidence to ‘let-go’ of traditional teaching responsibilities. (McCabe and O‘Connor 2014, p. 350)
Encouraging students to go out to look at knitwear in shops is also a good way of including OBL into the course. This allows students to experience knit fabrics and yarns first hand and to broaden their understanding of knitwear. They can feel and handle the garments to get a sense of what materials and stitches they do and don’t like. This understanding will also help with their design and development work.
Objects can be particularly stimulating in relation to learning processes when handled and studied closely. Objects can act to ground abstract experiences, can enable recall of knowledge, and can arouse curiosity. (Hooper-Greenhill 1999, p. 21)