Using Cross-disciplinary Object-based Learning to Create Collaborative Learning Environments

Our chapter, contributes to the book, Teaching and Learning Innovations in Higher Education, by presenting a process innovation we have implemented in the discipline of museological teaching in higher education. Our process innovation draws on pedagogy and curriculum development and explores object-based learning in a collaborative learning environment fostering cross-disciplinary exploration and exchange. The chapter asks ‘how can working with objects in a collaborative cross-disciplinary environment introduce students to new ideas and new ways of working and thinking in an art and design setting?’

Our chapter describes a collaboration between curriculum development staff and the Museum & Study Collection at Central Saint Martins (CSM), one of the six colleges that comprise the University of the Arts London (UAL). Together we developed an innovative object-based learning and teaching intervention (described throughout as an ‘event’). The 'event' was implemented in the Bigger Picture, a four-week collaborative Unit for second-year BA students that explores the University’s values in relation to questions of design theory and practice through cross-disciplinary and intercultural interaction. Our ambition was to introduce a new methodology to be used with and by students in crossdisciplinary groupings to teach them the value of engaging with a wide variety of disciplines, knowledge bases and cultures.

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