Page 55 - Pedagoška vizija / A Pedagogical Vision

Exploring the Content of Cultural Heritage through Project-Based Learning

All twenty-eight students responded to a pre-survey questionnaire con-
taining three questions: What’syourperceptionofprojectwork?Canyoulistthe
advantages and disadvantages? How do you react to demanding project-based
activities?
After completing the project work that resulted in the production of a
documentary, only the students participating in it were assigned a self-
evaluation sheet as a home assignment. They answered the following ques-
tions: Has intensive engagement with cultural heritage changed your percep-
tion of it? If yes, how? If no, why? How do you perceive and justify the differences
between the two time periods?
Finally, the evaluators engaged in assessing the process. Having been in-
formed about the project activities, the criteria, and the subsequent tasks,
evaluators received a link to the documentary and recorded their observa-
tions on an evaluation sheet. They were instructed to focus on students’
thinking processesaswellasother factorscontributingtothe documentary’s
production.

Project Work Activities
The incentive for the project work assignment was a call by a regional her-
itage association to the schools that invited young people to engage in the
production ofaten-minute-longdocumentaryundertheoverarchingtheme
of Youth and local industrial heritage. The timeframe for submitting the doc-
umentary was set at eight weeks from the beginning of the project work
activities. All 28 students were invited to join the project and form project
teams, yet only nine responded. Thus, a single group was formed. The three
teacher-mentors were available to the students at all times; they also regu-
larly monitored the process to keep them on schedule. The history teacher
was important in the initial phase as she helped the students get acquainted
with the historical frame. The ICT teacher assumed a supervisory role dur-
ing the filming and editing phases, while the English teacher oversaw the
entire process. She also paid particular effort to providing instructions that
elicited self-reflection, a critical approach, and constant evaluation from the
students.
The students underwent a structured process to complete the assignment
(figure 1). First, the team conceived the idea to produce a documentary inter-
view with the five still-living bakers of the once-operating local steam bak-
ery. The topic was in line with the contest criteria (industrial heritage, time
frame, young people) as well as with current trends in the local community
(i.e. the trend of reviving the baking heritage and the construction of a bak-

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