Inspired by Judy Willcocks session on object based learning and her ‘Emotional or Extra-rational reading of an object’ I decided to design my object-based microteaching session around the exploration of a sonic object.

“The emotional or extra-rational reading focusses on how an individual’s disciplinary training, cultural background and life experience can drive their response to an object” (Willcocks, 2020).

As a sound designer, I am interested in how we perceive sound, how sound affects us both emotionally and physically and how by understanding this we can create/design sonic environments that can provide an intended experience to our audiences. In other words, if we understand how it works on us, we can be more effective when we create it for others.

As Willcocks explained above, emotional responses, based on training, cultural background and life experiences all affect our response to these objects and in the case of sound design it highlights how important it is for us to take this into account when creating new ones, such as soundscapes or sonic environments: sonic objects.

With my Intended Learning outcomes (ILOs), I was hoping the participants (in this case I treated my PGCERT peers as students new to sound design) would come away from the session with:

• Further observational skills deriving from this more intentional listening to the sonic objects
• Further critical analytical skills, by taking into consideration this idea that our backgrounds (experiential, cultural and educational) all affect our reading the objects
• An appreciation of team working. From the group discussion, it could emerge how from teamwork we can have a more comprehensive understanding of the various interpretations of reading sonic objects
• Further design awareness and knowledge by applying this method of reading sonic objects to the design development process

I divided the session in three parts to give participants the opportunity to listen to the object on their own, reflect on their personal ‘reading’, share that with the rest of the class and then trigger a group discussion that would hopefully highlight similarities and differences in interpretation, which would have marked some key requisites on how to approach the creation of soundscapes in future projects.

I set myself a timetable, to make sure I’d allocate enough time for all the sections:

Intro me -1 min

Intro activity – 1min

LOs – 1min

Activity – 7min

Group discussion – 7min

Questions/wrap up – 3min

There were only three participants in the class, so I felt the time allocation was adequate.

I started the session briefly introducing myself and the main purpose of the session: to explore with the participants how we can develop sound designs from understanding the effects of sonic environments. 

I sat down in front of the participants (we were very close. In fact, a participant and I shared two ends of the same table), since I wanted to keep the atmosphere as casual as possible and I wanted the participants to feel like I, as much as them, was interested in exploring the sonic object; this was not a session where I imparted knowledge onto them, but together we could understand whether we could reach a common perspective, whether we could arrive at some knowledge together. I was hoping to promote a “holistic model of learning” (Bell, 1994), where I could grow at the same time as the students.

Having explained the ILOs, I introduced the activity and provided prompts to help the participants focus on the areas I wanted them to concentrate and reflect on, whilst listening to the object.

The sonic objects were soundscapes I had designed for two BA Acting plays, here at Central Saint Martins. I thought they’d be different enough to inspire different readings, but also complex enough to trigger different emotions, physical reactions, memories:

The discussion was interesting and not quite as expected: some participants had no memory triggers, others had some physical reactions, those that had memory visualisations imagined something different from what I intended, but the majority had the emotional response I was aiming to trigger when I designed the soundscapes. 

As a very brief and probably rather superficial interpretation of this short activity, it highlighted how our backgrounds (educational, cultural and experiential) really do have a very strong impact on how we read objects, but perhaps the emotional side is what connects us all.

Feedback

On the whole the feedback I received (I audio recorded this) was very positive.

The participants were quite surprised I chose a sonic object for my microteaching session. They were new to sound and rather enjoyed the session.

In particular, they thought it was interesting and inspiring to engage with an object in a different way (rather than through touch or vision or smell).

They thought the session was very well structured, they felt they were invited on a journey they could trust. They knew where I was going and they appreciated the transparency of it.

They liked that the prompts had defined questions as this made the activity easy to conduct.

The less positive, but constructive nonetheless, feedback was from the tutor who suggested that perhaps I had packed a little too much in the activity with the time available. I could have possibly focused on fewer questions and go into more depth. 

The tutor also suggested I phrase the ILOs differently on the slide, in a more discursive manner, e.g. “in this project you will learn…” as opposed to the stark declarations I had. 

Upon personal reflection, I think the session was a success. I am happy with how it went: I did manage to deliver all I planned and how I planned it and it was well received. I am also quite proud of having found a different angle about the object based learning.

On critical reflection, the one aspect I should have considered more carefully, is that of safety. I was aware I was likely to provoke some memory, emotional or physical triggers, which could have even created some visceral experiences and yet I hadn’t thought about how to support the students through that. I was essentially asking students to connect a more abstract ‘space’, the one presented by the sonic object as it was played, with a more personal ‘place’, the one they’d create in their imagination, once they’d endow the sonic object with the value of their own memories, experience and culture (Tuan, 1977); I was asking the students to go on a very personal and vulnerable journey. I should have created a safe space for them. Going forward I could solve this, by alerting students of this very possibility and let them know that they could step out if uncomfortable and that in any case we were not going to judge anyone’s experience, but if possible share it to understand how powerful sound can be. Perhaps an approach could have been to share my own experience first to show I could be vulnerable and take risks too before I asked students to do the same (Bell, 1994).

With respect to the tutor feedback, I was aware of the time limitation and I agree that perhaps I tried to fit a little too much in the activity, in terms of reflection points in response to the object. However, I try to follow a logic and a journey that can somehow be conclusive. In this case, I wanted to follow Willcocks’ well-crafted emotional reading of an object. Perhaps I ought to understand that it’s ok to leave students with some pending ‘travel’ to do instead of trying to get to a destination there and then.

Having had more time, I probably would have split the session into three and focussed each session on a specific response to sound: memory triggers, emotional triggers, physical triggers. 

I also would have followed up with a session where students would have collected (either via recording or through sound libraries) various sound and made their own sound scape in response to one emotion to evoke.

This would have been the ultimate check to see whether the learning activity would have indeed been effective in achieving the learning outcomes.

Bibliography

Hooks, B. (1994) Teaching to Transgress. Education as the Practice of Freedom Abington: Routledge

Tuan, Y. (1977) Space and Place. The perspective of experience Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press

Willcocks, J. (2020) Emotional Responses to Objects. At: https://arts.ac.libguides.com/c.php?g=686452&p=4906489(Accessed on 03.02.22)