Abstract
University Special Collections are increasingly being recognised as a valuable pedagogical resource in higher education teaching and learning. The value of historic artefacts as a cross-disciplinary tool to promote higher order thinking processes such as criticality, questioning and narrative construction is well-established in the museum education literature and is gaining increasing attention in teaching and learning development. In this paper, we present three case studies in which we explore the application of Special Collections in a range of learning development contexts, in order to help students engage with their discipline and discipline-specific higher order skills. Our case studies are explorative in the sense of ‘trialling’ the use of historic artefacts in the classroom, to inform our next steps and development of our method. We conclude with our reflections on the process and outcomes of our explorations, to inform our practice and that of other educators looking to apply this method.
Highlights
Flexible pedagogical approaches can take different forms
We present three case studies that advocate the broader use of university special collections as a flexible pedagogical resource aimed at enhancing students’ learning and development
Grounded in object-based learning, visual literacy and museum education, the workshop provided a space to explore the versatility of special collection artefacts for teaching subject-specific material and relevant academic competencies
Summary
Flexible pedagogical approaches can take different forms. In this paper, we present three case studies that advocate the broader use of university special collections as a flexible pedagogical resource aimed at enhancing students’ learning and development. Grounded in object-based learning, visual literacy and museum education, the workshop provided a space to explore the versatility of special collection artefacts for teaching subject-specific material and relevant academic competencies. The three case studies focus on our engagement with students across three disciplines (Business Studies, Education Studies, Music Education), and three levels of study (foundation, final year undergraduate, postgraduate), and are written from three different practitioner perspectives (Educational Developer, Librarian, Academic Writing Senior Teaching Fellow). This variation provided us with valuable insights in terms of further adapting the method. We have deliberately preserved the variations in underpinning approaches to be helpful to a broad range of educators
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