The implementation of object-centred learning through the visual arts: Engaging students in creative, problem-based learning

Many museums now allow more opportunities for students to interact with their artefacts, often in store. At the same time, digital technologies now make it easier for those students to access information about those artefacts, interpret it, and construct and communicate their story in imaginative ways. The potential for learning about and through is evident. This article describes how this potential was realized in a collaboration between an Oriental museum and undergraduates studying a visual arts module at the University of Durham, UK. It describes some guiding educational principles, the students’ interaction with art objects, their research process and logs, and the presentation of their understandings in podcasts. Their responses achieved the aims of high levels of motivation, the construction of understandings (and their limits), imaginative communication, heightened information technology skills, and personal satisfaction. That this approach could be usefully applied elsewhere is indicated, along with some limitations.