21st century skills exploring cultural heritage

Project summary

The project "21st century skills exploring cultural heritage" is presented by four schools from the Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Spain and The Netherlands. The strategic partnership we propose is focused on three main topics: 1. Preparing young people for the future by using 21st century skills (creative thinking, media wisdom, critical thinking, digital competences, collaboration, communication, social and cultural skills, self-regulation, problemsolving, information skills and computational thinking). 2. Understanding identity and beloning by exploring our cultural heritage. 3. Methodogical innovations through the use of CLIL and blended learning, combining an attractive online learning environment with physical activities. The project is based on a careful analysis of the needs and objectives to meet the challenges proposed by the ET 2020 set for common EU objectives to address challenges in education and training systems by 2020. It focus on being open and welcoming to those who are different and enhances our lives and makes our communities fairer and more peacefull places. The ''European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018'' is an ideal stepping stone to achieve this. The general objectives are: - implement education and training processes using new technology like blended learning and the framework for 21st century skills. - teaching about cultural heritage and social inclusion on concrete and topical issues. - deepening CLIL and the use of English. The specific objectives are: - exploring our identities related to our feelings of belonging or not beloning to particular groups. - creating awareness that our identity is varied and related to the different roles we have in life. - creating awareness that our identity is a result of our biology, our background and personalities. - getting to know our identities have features which are immediately obvious to others and features that may be less immediately obvious but very important. - becoming aware of the fact that our identity is affected be history and geography and van change over time. The project will directly involve at least 24 pupils from each partner school, some of them with fewer opportunities, aged between 13 and 15 years, related to the subjects of social studies. Specifically, 15 events (lectures and workshops, using 21st century skilss) will be organised, taught by teachers at the school in collaboration with experts and stakeholders that this project aims to involve. Most of the workshops will be in CLIL. Four blended mobility’s are planned, which will consist of 30 days of virtual mobility through Twinspace and 5 days of physical mobility in Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Spain and The Netherlands. Every blended mobility has its own topic: Module 1: An introduction to cultural heritage: Cultural property, intangible culture and natural heritage. Module 2: Mapping the creative and linguistic cultural Iceberg. Module 3: Similarities and differences: What connect us in Europe? Module 4: Culture obscura: Sharing culture by using 21st century skills. The methodologies used are: - blended learning - CLIL - framework for 21st century learning 21st century learning requires that stakeholders, like the local comunity and universities, inviting classes for practical workshops to enable pupils to understand the topics they are working on, giving them an outlook for the future choice of university and career. The student-centred approach facilitates the immediate needs of the participants giving them full responsibility for their own learning. At the end of the activities the students will have acquired 21st century skills, basic and transversal, as self-employment, social skills and English language. The project makes the involvement of stakeholders as a strength point; the activities of the project will be organized within the cooperation of the local community and universities. Teachers will have learned new teaching methodologies by teacher training activities and sharing of best practices between partner schools. The project also includes the integration of several disciplines (cultural hertitage, identity, beloning and social inclusion) to be covered during the normal teaching, so as to reach students not directly involved in the activities and ensure greater impact and sustainability. The project aims to produce lasting results cultural approach that both students as teachers will adopt in their relationship with the environment around them and teaching techniques. Finally a handbook for teachers will be made on best practices of teaching about cultural heritage using 21st century skills.