An exploration of:
Non-verbal,
non-human
communication
DESTROY THE TOY
‘Objects’ I encounter in my role are digital evolutions of once-physical items —CVs, Cover Letters, and Portfolios — now exist in cyberspace, filtered through online databases. I teach graduates how to navigate these spaces using traditional ‘objects’, relics of an obsolete employment world, in a new, mysterious, evolving, and often opaque graduate job market landscape. Encouraging learners to consider applications as physical objects moving through an unknown space helps them understand the voyage they take beyond the ‘apply’ button, and begin to consider the potential employer’s perspective.
Rather than running a standard CV workshop, which has a fairly standard process, I wanted to explore object-based learning in relation to professional portfolio development, as candidates rarely have the chance to verbally guide recruiters through the very personal artefact. This is a more pertinent challenge for graduates: learning to create distilled, yet engaging professional portfolios, moving away from text and verbal language to convey thoughts and emotions, tell a story, or showcase skills, experience, creative motivations, practical decision-making, and change.
Graduates often ask how to best showcase their projects and stand out against other candidates. It is essential that decisions and development of ideas are demonstrated using visual prompts, with minimal use of annotations for wider comprehension and relating to the needs of the role / business aims. I designed an interactive session where participants explored non-verbal storytelling through object interaction, taking the process back to basics, reflecting the key challenge of portfolio design.
Session plan
Participants engaged in a structured activity using a physical object (a toy), taking turns as the ‘object handler’ while others observed. Each round, they recorded emotions, ideas, and interpretations before swapping roles. Actions included:
- Introduction / Observation (10s) – Initial static viewing
- Interaction as Handler or Observer (3 min per action) – Hold, Shake, Protect, Hide, Destroy
- Reflection & Discussion (5 min) – Sharing observations
Feedback and Key insights
My desired learning outcome was to see how participants would encounter abstract communication but still decipher personal meaning, and uncover or communicate through non-verbal movement, beyond the human defaults. Many participants expressed confusion, like being part of an experiment, prone to misinterpret without clear guidance. This let me know that scaffolding the activity with context earlier rather than after could avoid alienation, however the uncomfortable yet emotive process gleaned strong results.
I found out that the object holds just as much significance as the action unto it, with connotations of personification coming through. Many associated it with childs-play, power dynamics, control, or fragility, reinforcing the importance of visual cues in storytelling as a strong basis of context, type of motion, and playing around with the observer / handler dichotomy.
I provided an impartial object, however linking to professional practice and real-life examples of how to apply this interactive group process, I could instead instruct participants to bring their own portfolio pieces and experiment with layout and visual storytelling with peers. Plus initiate a follow-up session to assess whether this activity improves portfolio clarity and engagement, or brings up more questions and doubt.