Alma Boyes and Cynthia Cousens

Profile

Alma Boyes and Cynthia Cousens are Senior Lecturers and Subject/Area Leaders in the 3D Design and Materials Practice programme at University of Brighton, and are also professional artist-makers. They have engaged with teaching, research/scholarship and practical demonstration since 1986.

In the past four years, they have formulated and concluded a series of research projects funded by the University of Brighton’s Centre of Excellence for Teaching and Learning through Design (CETLD) and CETL Learn Higher. The research primarily explores the value of live performance in respect of virtual representation, and claims that the richness of non-verbal communication helps form the particular languages used in demonstrating and thereby sustaining craft skills. It focuses on how students in key craft disciplines learn physical technical skills and how these are taught through demonstration. Reading a demonstration, identifying what is critical to enable emulation and applying such information, is recognised as a complex process for learners. Focusing on the importance of experiential learning and non-verbal language, gesture and its link to the haptic process of making, gathering information by touch, the inter-relationship between hand-making and the individual body’s physique, and how temporality and rhythm in making impacts learning, the research seeks to enhance practice-based teaching and the student learning experience, through development of innovative modes of delivery and advanced teaching practice in craft subjects.

They have delivered papers at major conferences nationally and internationally including the CLTAD 4th & 5th International Conferences and at Making Futures a Plymouth College of Art/Crafts Council conference in 2009.

http://artsresearch.brighton.ac.uk/research/academic/boyes
http://artsresearch.brighton.ac.uk/research/academic/cousens

http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/research/cetld/speaking-and-writing-the-visual/exploring-the-relationship-between-teaching-and-learning-through-practice

Project

‘In the hand – the effect of museum handling sessions on student learning’

Alma Boyes and Cynthia Cousens are recent recipients of ADM Teaching Fellowships for their research proposal investigating the effect of handling artefacts from museum collections on learning for three-dimensional design and crafts students. Museum handling sessions involve students learning through seeing and touching artefacts from collections, which are out of public display. Alongside this there is also potential for contextual information to be accessed through curatorial involvement.

The project evolved from a handling session, which took place at the Victoria and Albert Museum as a minor part of the research project ‘Teaching and learning through practice’, (Boyes et al 2008) in which a dramatic impact on the students’ learning was noted but not fully researched.  The handling of a range of pieces from the Jewellery Collections by the students from the 3D Design and Materials Practice Programme at the University of Brighton directly affected their work: for example, one student wrote her undergraduate thesis on handling sessions, and two developed tactile-based research themes for their graduation studio work. The session was cited by students in annual monitoring feedback and noted as an example of good teaching practice by the programme’s external examiner (Margetts 2008).

Building on this, In the Hand proposes to research the effect of handling sessions on student learning, in particular in relation to practice-based work, and evaluate it within the wider student learning experience.

The research will be undertaken in two parts. The first part will be an analysis of raw data collected from the earlier handling session held at the V&A Museum in 2007, and a longitudinal study of the participants ascertaining the impact on their learning experience and subsequent work.

The second part of the project involves development and implementation of further handling sessions at the V&A or Brighton Museum, focussing on immediate response and the before-and-after effect on student work and student learning, thereby enabling an in-depth and comparative study with part one. It also provides the opportunity to focus on specific issues and categories that came from analysis of the initial session, such as the physicality and materiality of object, tactility and personal interaction.

This project builds on new knowledge established in other innovative pedagogic research relating to museums and Higher Education funded by the Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning Through Design (CETLD), a partnership between the University of Brighton, Victoria and Albert Museum, Royal College of Art and the Royal Institute of British Architects. This research includes the recently published book Museum and Design Education Looking to Learn, Learning to See (Cook, Reynolds & Speight 2010) and Sources of Inspiration - How design students learn from museum collections, ( Wisker 2010). In particular, the research project  Behind the Scenes (Cook 2009) evaluated handling sessions from the perspective of the lecturers and the museums potential to deliver but did not consider the effect on the student learning experience and work.

Therefore In the Hand aims more specifically to identify and quantify the impact that museum handling sessions have on the student experience of 3D Crafts and to evaluate the importance of experiential and sensory learning. It places the physical artefact and student understanding of object and materiality at the heart of the teaching and learning experience and helps to inform HE teaching and curricula in order to improve the student learning experience. It also seeks to provide evidence to contribute to improving museum accessibility to HE students and museum education provision for the HE sector.



Student handling session at the V&A Jewellery collection 2007

The research will primarily take the form of a case study of a group of BAhons 3D Materials Practice students, studying at different levels. The sample size will be small, which is partly determined by the nature of the handling session, and therefore will result in individual observations specific to this community, but it is considered that these would also be relevant to wider communities in other universities.

The research will be predominantly qualitative using a flexible approach with some quantitative data produced through questionnaires. The individualistic nature of creativity is reflected in allowing theories to emerge from the research (Corbin & Strauss 1990). Rich, detailed information will be identified through methods such as semi-structured interviews and group discussion. Data will also be triangulated through several methods: self-completion questionnaires, semi-structured interview and student reflective journals (Gray & Malins 2004). Students will be followed across the span of the project and evidence of their learning through practice and 3D work will be recorded through a series of interviews and a variety of media including photography, video and audio.

It is expected that students will benefit from the experience of physically handling historic and contemporary three-dimensional artefacts, for example, key pieces from the V&A Jewellery collections such as the ‘Etruscan Gold Rosette’ 7c BC and Wedgewood 18c Jasperware. That it will also give the students an invaluable opportunity to gather material knowledge through implicit learning and tacit knowledge (Reber 1989) and afford them the opportunity to further understand the making processes that are often only explicable when the object is touched, turned over, and looked into. It is anticipated that they will also have the opportunity to access contextual information on the work through curatorial and archival evidence and gain specialist guidance and curatorial advice from museum staff, which will in turn deepen their existing knowledge and studio practice. It is expected that this research will add to and extend course curriculum by being embedded within the curriculum, and prove to inform and develop student studio practice.

The research will begin in September 2010 with the aim to conclude the report by March 2011.





Boyes,A. Cousens,C. & Stuart,H. 2008 http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/research/cetld/speaking-and-writing-the-visual/exploring-the-relationship-between-teaching-and-learning-through-practice

Cook,B. Behind the Scenes at the Museum 2009 http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/research/cetld/speaking-and-writing-the-visual/behind-the-scenes-at-the-museum

Cook,B. Reynolds,R. & Speight,C.  Museum and Design Education Looking to Learn, Learning to See, Ashgate 2010

Corbin,J. & Strauss,A.C. Basics of Qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures and techniques, Sage 1990

Gray,C & Malins,J Visualising Research, Ashgate 2004

Margetts,M. External examiners report BAhons Materials Practice, 2008

Reber, A.S. Implicit Learning and Tacit Knowledge Journal of Experimental Psychology, vol118 no3 p219-235 1989

Wisker,G.  Sources of Inspiration - How design students learn from museum collections, 2010 http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/research/cetld/speaking-and-writing-the-visual/sources-of-inspiration