The Project „From Theory to practice – International Teaching in Field of Archeology” had started from the need identified by us refers to the lack of a coherent learning program at European level in the archaeological field-school for developing students archaeological entrepreneurial abilities. Although the shift towards commercial small-scale entreprises has been identified as the most important professional outcome of the extensive funding and job- cuts in the post-2008 archaeological world in UK for example (according to studies conducted by the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists - CIFA; formerly IFA) there is currently little emphasis on increasing the awareness of archaeology students towards the great diversity of entrepreneurial, skill-based career opportunities in archaeology, and no university programmes in UK and Europe with a formal curriculum on the subject. Thus, although archaeology is traditionally taught in many universities in Europe, only few graduates are aware of their great potential in providing specific specialist skills within an entrepreneurial framework; therefore, they find insertion in the traditional job market to be very difficult and only few of them are able to develop successful careers in archaeology. Among the causes that led to the identified problem are: - poor opportunities for sharing know-how among research-active staff involved in educating students and for collaboration with other institutions employing qualified personnel in the field of archaeology; - shortage of good practice models in archaeology aimed at developing entrepreneurship among young people and of working tools for the acquisition and recognition of skills and competences acquired in an archaeological field school at European level; - low level of international and interdisciplinary collaboration in archaeology among teachers, researchers or students. The aim of our project is the creation, adoption and promotion of a coherent model of nonformal and informal learning, and the development of cross-border competences and of professional and transferable transversal skills for the European students within the framework of the archaeological field school at Sarmizegetusa, in order to facilitate the achievement of entrepreneurial awareness and practical experience useful in student mobility within a trans-European professional labour market. Our objectives are: 1. To increase the quality and relevance within the labour market and high education in archaeological field schools for students through innovatory practices encouraging critical thinking in the study of classical antiquity; use of IT in archaeological recording & heritage presentation; and virtual cooperation in research among the students. 2. To promote the employability-focused education in archaeology, with particular emphasys on practical skills entrepreneurship and on increased contact between educators and employers in the field. 3. To innovate, develop and adapt a working methodology for the teaching and recognition of archaeological competences and skills of students to the field school from 2016 and 2018 at Sarmizegetusa. 4. To consolidate the professional development and cross-border cooperation of 10 researchers from 5 European institutions working in high education in the field of archaeology through an innovative combination of nonformal and informal learning pattern and increase the quality of high education in the archaeological field school from Colonia Sarmizegetusa. 5. To increase the active learning and abilities for professional insertion of 40 European students through interdisciplinary and international cooperation though undertaking discrete collaborative research projects. 6. To develop active European citizenship among the students in protecting and promoting our shared European archaeological heritage. In our project we planned a set of activities on a 30 months plan that is approaching each objective. The main activity are related with the intellectual outputs of the project (A International Curricula and a Manual of learning methods on archaeology ) and includes besides management activities also two ISP for testing and updating the above mentioned outputs, 4 multiplier events that aims the dissemination of the results and 4 transnational project meeting. With this kind of intervention, we can start resolving this problem and as an impact we will have inovatitve and updated learning models, adapted to the current social environment and which will stimulate students in their professional development and entrepreneurship. We hope that our actions will help archaeology graduates to be eseier inserted in job market and after a while we will have an increase of interest of European students in careers in archaeology. Also, as a positive impact on profession-specific learning, it will become relevant, thus determining a increes in the numbers of relevant teaching staff.
The Project „From Theory to practice – International Teaching in Field of Archaeology” was coordinated by National Museum of Transylvanian History, a culture institution with activities in connection that regards the research and the valorisation of the cultural heritage and archaeological patrimony. The partners involved in the project are four high-education institutions, Univerisity of Exeter (UK), University of Viena (AT), University of Heidelberg (DE) and Babeș-Bolyai University Cluj-Napoca (RO). The project started from the need identified by the project team in relation with to the lack of a coherent learning program at European level in the archaeological field-school for developing students archaeological entrepreneurial abilities. Thus, although archaeology is traditionally taught in many universities in Europe, only few graduates are aware of their great potential in providing specific specialist skills within an entrepreneurial framework; therefore, they find insertion in the traditional job market to be very difficult and only few of them are able to develop successful careers in archaeology. Among the causes that led to the identified problem are: - poor opportunities for sharing know-how among research-active staff involved in educating students and for collaboration with other institutions employing qualified personnel in archaeology; - shortage of good practice models in archaeology aimed at developing entrepreneurship among young people and of working tools for the acquisition and recognition of skills and competences; - low level of international and interdisciplinary collaboration in archaeology among teachers, researchers or students. The aim of our project was the creation, adoption and promotion of a coherent model of nonformal and informal learning, and the development of cross-border competences and of professional and transferable transversal skills for the European students within the framework of the archaeological field school at Sarmizegetusa, in order to facilitate the achievement of entrepreneurial awareness and practical experience useful in student mobility within a trans-European professional labour market. Briefly, the objective followed in the project aimed to increase the quality and relevance within the labour market and high education in archaeological field schools for students through innovatory practices; to promote the employability-focused education in archaeology; to innovate, develop and adapt a working methodology for the teaching and recognition of archaeological competences and skills; to consolidate the professional development and cross-border cooperation of 10 researchers from 5 European institution; to increase the active learning and abilities for professional insertion of students and to develop active European citizenship among the students in protecting and promoting our shared European archaeological heritage. In our project we planned a set of activities on a 30 months plan that is approaching each objective. The main activity are related with the intellectual outputs of the project (A International Curricula and a Manual of learning methods on archaeology ) and includes besides management activities also two ISP for testing and updating the above mentioned outputs, 4 multiplier events that aims the dissemination of the results and 4 transnational project meeting. To achieve these objectives a set of activities were developed inside this strategic partnership. In order to improve the cooperation between partners 4 Transnational Meetings were organised, that had like objectives the proper management of the project, the evaluation of the progress of the project and development of a new methodology and teaching and learning methods regarding the preparation of students. As well, as intellectual output the project developed teaching methods that were described inside of a Manual , but also the researchers and teacher involved in the project developed a new curriculum containing the aims and objectives of several learning activities and modules; knowledge, skills and abilities that could be gained in the learning activity; assessments and evaluation criteria. The resulted learning methods were tested and applied for students inside of 2 Intensive Study Programs organised in the archaeological roman site of Sarmizegetusa. The results of the project activities was disseminated through different channels and inside 3 Multiplier Events organised by partner universities. The main results of the project, beside the development of a new curricula and of a Manual, was the development of a website containing details about the project activities, the recognition of the students learning process, a strong collaboration between partners. The impact of the project was measured at local, regional and European level by the feedback of other researchers in the field and the interaction with the project results on several media channels or scholar websites.