The context, in which the project has its roots, as defined by the European Commission´s contribution to the Leader´s meeting in Gothenburg, 17 November 2017 “Strengthening European Identity through Education and Culture “-is that one of a Europe with deep cultural diversities at the basis of its strength and, at the same time, a common ground that makes up the distinct feature of the European way of life. In this context education and culture play a pivotal role for people. So, on one side, understanding and preserving our cultural heritage and diversity are prerequisites to maintain our cultural community, our common values and identity. On the other side, using the words of Edgar Morin in “Seven complex lessons in education for the future (Preface by the Director-General of UNESCO) "one of the greatest problems we face is how to adjust our way of thinking to meet the challenge of an increasingly complex, rapidly changing, unpredictable world. We must rethink our way of organizing knowledge. This means breaking down the traditional barriers between disciplines and conceiving new ways to reconnect that which has been torn apart. We have to redesign our educational policies and programs". Within this framework, starting from the valorisation of CLIL “Content and Language Integrated Learning” methodology experiences now capillary in Europe, as testified by the Eurydice Key data Report on Languages at school in Europe, in line with the updated European Reference Framework of Key Competences for Lifelong Learning and in line with the Communication of the European Commission "Towards an integrated approach to cultural heritage for Europe", our goal is to approach and explore one specific topic, the European cultural heritage, and one methodology -the integrated teaching and learning one -mixing them together with the aim to foster a new and crucial topic for VET offer by a new approach, breaking down the traditional barriers between disciplines and integrating the topic in some existing training paths within the VET provider offer in Europe. In other words, the project wants to create a connectedness between disciplines that otherwise might seem unrelated to many learners and introduce and full implement the integrated teaching and learning methodology, through the European cultural heritage topic, in the VET system. The main target group is represented by VET trainers and the project will design, implement, test and disseminate a kit of didactic-educational tools tailored made on VET trainers because: -it exploits the cultural heritage topic within, and in connection with, different conventional subjects (such as economy, history, sciences); -it resorts alternative and multimedia sources, exploiting the strengths of the ludic methodology and ICT tools learning strategy: an online team quiz game and an app for mobile use will be part of the kit. -it offers attractive material to be directly used within the classroom: the kit will be available for free for all the VET teachers and trainers that want to use the kit within their lessons. In a consequent cascade flow, the second main target group is represented by VET learners, as the final beneficiaries. The benefits for them lies in the enhancement of their learning motivation, real opportunities to study the same content from different perspectives and development of crucial key competences, such as social and civic competence, cultural awareness and expression. The kit is going to be released as an OER and this action is considered to be crucial in order to get long term benefits and let the project results to be heavily promoted among VET providers and their stakeholders. The project activities will take place over 27 months, in four countries, from north to south Europe: from Sweden to Lithuania, passing through Italy and Spain. The partnership has been built as an heterogeneous team made by complementary competences and expertise, background and missions to valorise in a widespread network the importance of an high quality and attractiveness VET system. The participants to the project, during its whole cycle, are more than 400 persons, including also people with fewer opportunities and special needs. The participants will actively take part in the preparation and testing phase of the intellectual output and in the multiplier events that are going to be hosted in each partner country and to involve at least a total amount of 200 people. In facing the European cultural heritage topic and the mainstreaming of an integrated approach, the partnership will pursue a transnational approach to look at the main framework within plural dimension, valorising the inputs, feedbacks and suggestions coming from different contexts and exploiting a dense network of stakeholders.
The project’s context was formed from the European Commission's contribution to the Leader´s meeting in Gothenburg, 17 November 2017 “Strengthening European Identity through Education and Culture “-is that one of a Europe with deep cultural diversities at the basis of its strength and, at the same time, a common ground that makes up the distinct feature of the European way of life. Within this framework, we started from the valorisation of CLIL “Content and Language Integrated Learning” methodology experiences now capillary in Europe, as testified by the Eurydice Key data Report on Languages at school in Europe, in line with the updated European Reference Framework of Key Competences for Lifelong Learning and in line with the Communication of the European Commission "Towards an integrated approach to cultural heritage for Europe", our goal is to approach and explore one specific topic, the European cultural heritage, and one methodology -the integrated teaching and learning one -mixing them together we aimed to foster a new and crucial topic for VET and offered a new approach, breaking down the traditional barriers between disciplines and integrating the topic in some existing training paths within the VET provider offer in Europe. In other words, the project wanted to create a connectedness between disciplines that otherwise might have seemed unrelated to many learners. We wanted to introduce and fully implement the integrated teaching and learning methodology, through the European cultural heritage topic, in the VET system. The main target group was represented by VET trainers and the project designed, implemented, tested and disseminated a kit of didactic-educational tools tailored made on VET trainers because: -it exploited the cultural heritage topic within, and in connection with, different conventional subjects (such as economy, history, sciences); -it resorted to alternative and multimedia sources, exploiting the strengths of the ludic methodology and ICT tools learning strategy: an online team quiz game and an app for mobile use were part of the kit. -it offered an attractive material to be directly used within the classroom: the kit is available for free for all the VET teachers and trainers that want to use the kit within their lessons. In a consequent cascade flow, the second main target group was represented by VET learners, as the final beneficiaries. The benefits for them were an enhancement of their learning motivation, real opportunities to study the same content from different perspectives and development of crucial key competences, such as social and civic competence, cultural awareness and expression. The kit was released as an OER and this action was considered to be crucial in order to get long term benefits and let the project results be heavily promoted among VET providers and their stakeholders. The project activities took place over 34 months, in four countries, from north to south Europe: from Sweden to Lithuania, passing through Italy and Spain. Due to the Covid 19 pandemic, our project was extended to allow us the time and opportunity to complete all necessary activities and outputs. Even though Covid impacted the duration of our project, we didn't allow it to affect the results of the project and still realised our final transnational meeting online. The partnership was built on a heterogeneous team made by complementary competences and expertise, background and missions that valorised a widespread network and the importance of a high quality and attractive VET system. The participants in the project, during its whole cycle, Lithuania reached 242 persons, 110 reached by Spain, 500 were reached by Engim, 150 were reached by Bluebook and 200 were reached by MEXPERT. Totally across the whole project cycle and the project partnership we have reached 1444 persons. This number was reached by focus groups in each country, testing exercises by teachers, testing final activities by students, participants in multiplier events and some of these in direct dissemination activities. These also included people with fewer opportunities and special needs. The participants actively took part in the preparation and testing phase of the intellectual output. All multiplier events were realised but smaller number of participants were involved. Lithuania did the event totally online. Across the partnership 88 were reached face to face and 75 were reached online. In facing the European cultural heritage topic and the mainstreaming of an integrated approach, the partnership pursued a transnational approach to look at the main framework within plural dimension, valorising the inputs, feedbacks and suggestions coming from different contexts and exploiting a dense network of stakeholders.