Embodied and Object-Based Learning in Medical and Health Humanities

Learning in multidisciplinary, international settings, using all senses 

How can we get students to cross their disciplinary boundaries and to engage all their senses? Our students learn to sit, read, listen and write, but do little with the other senses as ‘avenues of knowledge’. This project integrates two innovative pedagogical methods, Embodied Learning and Object-Based Learning, into an MA track in Medical and Health Humanities within the MA History. This track brings together students from different disciplines who share knowledge from their home disciplines, but find it hard to integrate relevant approaches from other fields. This undermines their ability to critically evaluate the culture of knowledge production in their own field. It is important to learn to analyze and utilize the broader range of expertise that will be required to address contemporary societal challenges.  

Co-create knowledge from different disciplinary perspectives  

To help students move beyond their knowledge boundaries, we need to offer new ways of learning. The complexity of contemporary societal challenges requires the combination of a wide range of disciplinary expertise, and students should be supported while they learn to think and work in multidisciplinary settings. The presence of international students enhances this challenge as international classrooms bring together students with different levels of competence and knowledge systems. Contemporary classrooms thus need to offer methods of engagement and evaluation that can build on the range of experiences represented across the student group, and can accommodate a variety of learning styles.

What didactical approaches can we apply to engage the students in this multidisciplinary learning setting? These combined initiatives help students from different backgrounds to co-create knowledge from different disciplinary perspectives. Constructivist theory holds that meaning making is a social process. These courses demonstrate methods to engage students from diverse backgrounds in the active co-construction of learning, integrating different understandings and recognizing the variety of ways of knowing. 

Developing two courses; teaching materials 

In phase 1, Research and Discussion of Draft Lesson Plans, and phase 2, Finalisation of Lesson Plans and Organizing Collaboration for Class Sessions, a selection of targeted course literature was examined. The project team experimented with different embodied learning methods, and with different models for keeping track of the sensory knowledge development of the participants.  

In phase 3, Implementation and Evaluation, the two courses were taught by the main applicant, and Caro Verbeek. In phase 4, Analysis of Evaluation and Dissemination, we analyzed whether the students:  

• were activated by the course setup. Did they participate actively in classes, complete all the assignments, finish the courses – improving their results as the courses progressed?
• reached the learning targets of the courses
• learned to collaborate across disciplines, and appreciate inclusive education (cultural diversity)
• obtained ‘deeper knowledge’, based on multi-disciplinary thinking
• developed professional skills to present to and collaborate with partners from outside academia 

Two courses, Knowing by Sensing and Objects of Knowledge, were designed and taught annually from 2020-2025. Practical results include the creation of two syllabi and supplementary teaching materials, including a sensory kit for student use at home when teaching shifting online.  

New ways of learning 

Different evaluation methods were used. Student evaluation surveys to assess their perceptions of the different teaching methods. Data from sense-logs and class assignments were analyzed to examine changing vocabularies and facility. The base knowledge evident in assignments was compared with final results. Interviews with a selection of the students, in conjunction with analysis of the assignments completed, helpt evaluate the impacts of the interdisciplinary collaboration, of the learning by sensing methodology, and of the engagements with the non academic world. The project has demonstrated high levels of student excitement for the methods used. For the vast majority, the courses have opened up entirely new ways of learning. Students were able to move out of their comfort zone of their own expertise and appear more willing to learn from classmates. 

The launch of the courses coincided with, and contributed to, growing international interest in sensory and embodied object-based teaching and research, resulting in invitations for team members to give presentations on this project. These include an invitation to contribute a chapter to a book on object-based learning for health and wellbeing edited by the pre-eminent leaders of the field. A productive synergy occurred between the two courses, with students reporting in class sessions that they can draw on the skills developed in Knowing By Sensing, for example, to analyse the historical artifacts in Objects of Knowledge from a range of dimensions. This synergy is potentially an important innovation to the Winterthur Method for researching historical objects, which has dominated the OBL field with only minor adaptations since the 1970s. 

Relevante publicaties  

• W. F. Bynum and Roy Porter, (Eds.) (2015). Medicine and the Five Senses. Cambridge University Press.
• Kador, T., & Chatterjee, H. (Eds.) (2020). Object-based learning and well-being: Exploring material connections. Routledge.
• Chatterjee, H.J. & L. Hannan (Eds.) (2015). Engaging the Senses: Object-based Learning in Higher Education. Ashgate.
• Daston, L.J. (2004). Things that Talk: Object Lessons from Art and Science. MIT Press.
• Jones, T., Wear, D. & Friedman, L. D. (Eds.) (2014). Health Humanities Reader. Rutgers University Press. 

Producten of presentaties over dit project

• Instructional video about creating sensory tools for online teaching with artists and scholars to increase intimacy and memorability in digital classrooms.
• Parry, M. (2020). Being Human: The Contemporary Relevance of Medical Heritage. (Inaugurele rede). https://hdl.handle.net/1871.1/40bdec7e-33a8-4864-a9d2-474c208bda67
• Mia Vrijens and Manon S. Parry, “Untold Stories and Everyday Objects,” in Object-Based Learning: Beyond Museums and Collections (London and New York: Routledge, forthcoming 2026)