INDEX

Introduction

Context

Purpose

Set of Recommendations for the use of teaching scenarios that include digital resources in cultural and heritage education

The DICHE model

Preliminary answers to research Questions

Annexes

Italian pilot phase pictures

INTRODUCTION The Set of Recommendations for the use of teaching scenarios that include digital resources in cultural and heritage education aims at sharing reflections for the use of the DICHE menu (www.diche-­project/resources) and other digital resources in cultural and heritage education at primary schools.

Context

After the development of the pilot phase and its evaluation, partners of the DICHE project produced a series of reflections about the functioning and effects of using teaching scenarios and digital tools in cultural and heritage education. In particular, during the 5th partners meeting in Utrecht, Loughborough and UniromaTre organised a workshop on “Finalising the set of recommendations”: participants were divided into 3 different groups and a single research question was assigned to each group. At the end of the workshop, preliminary answers to research questions posed into the research agenda have been produced.

Purpose

By developing the DICHE project Set of Recommendations, (prospective) teachers and museum/heritage educators are provided with a guideline for the use of the menu and other digital resources in cultural and heritage education at primary schools. The DICHE menu should be used to promote a general approach to 21st century education based on the use of museum/heritage artifacts and new technologies with the final purpose of developing important 21st century skills like communication, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking (the 4C skills – Trilling&Fadel, 2009). The use of digital tools in the field of arts and cultural heritage represents a real innovation challenge: new areas in museum/heritage education may be explored to introduce technology and, simultaneously, new teaching and learning methodologies may be developed, especially for the younger generation of users. One of the main objectives of the DICHE project was primarily to inform primary school (prospective) teachers of new education practices which employ technologies and also include the evaluation of their effectiveness in learning.

RESEARCH

The DICHE model Integrating the necessary skills to deal with complex 21st century realities in primary school education1 asks for innovation. The cultural and heritage education potential is the integration of 21st century learning in education, whereas digital resources can make cultural and heritage education more appealing to pupils. However, schools and cultural educators sometimes struggle to use the full potential of digital learning tools. In some cases they invest in digital equipment such as smart boards and tablets, but often use it rather conservatively. Meanwhile, developers of ICT/digital storytelling tools in education aim to make the existing technologies more mainstream in education. Scholars of (digital) innovation in (cultural and heritage) education still face many pending research questions related to the effects of using digital tools and resources in education. In order to address the needs of primary schools, teachers, teacher’s colleges, parties active in culture and heritage, the ICT/E-­learning sector and scholars, DICHE project aims to integrate digital resources and opportunities in primary education in general and in cultural and heritage education in particular. Thus, the project supports (prospective) teachers and museum/heritage educators delivering high quality teaching, to deal with complex classroom realities and to adopt

new teaching methods and digital tools. The DICHE model supports the planning and the implementation of educational learning paths, in formal and informal context, in the field of museum/heritage education in order to improve the cultural heritage accessibility and fruition, the use of digital tools and the promotion of 21st century skills. The human factor, teachers and museum educators, is the mediator.

1 such as the 4Cs Critical thinking, Creativity, Communication and Collaboration (Trilling & Fadel, 2009)

Preliminary answers to research Questions

1. Which digital approaches can enhance the connection between 21st century learning skills and cultural heritage? Innovative digital approaches should facilitate the development of collaboration that is mutually beneficial for students and teachers. Therefore, the learning experience should take place in spaces that enable the collaboration while feeling playful, inclusive and open. An easy access to cultural heritage should be facilitated, enabling students to have a more personal learning experience, while taking into account the emphatic and creative aspects of the learning experience too. The approach must take into consideration the context and the target it is aimed at, adapting to the various situations. For example, a classroom, a museum and an open space, are three very different situations. The age group and the topic to convey must also be analysed to choose the correct digital tool to use. We have proved that, in order to connect 21st century skills and cultural heritage, the approach must be very adaptable and flexible. After the pilot phase, that was conducted with children in the 10-­12 years old age group, emerged that the use of their own devices was a great success since the children realized how their smartphones could become a working tool and not only a game, or gaming to learn. We also noticed that it is more effective to observe one skill (or in any case not all of them at the same time) per activity. This allows you to tailor the activity for the observation of that given skill and to have clearer indicators of before and after. Having said this, the various study groups also came across the difficulty of assessing the evolution or involution of these skills during the activity with the students -­ in particular when this is conducted for a short time. We observed that changing the teaching environment can trigger different responses. Therefore we suggest to multiply opportunities in order to develop a more complete reaction. Having taken this into account, the menu includes a search engine that allows teachers/educators to use criteria such as age group, context and topic.

2. How should teachers’ competences (defined as a mix of knowledge, skills and attitude) be developed to ensure an effective pedagogical use of digital approaches? In order to ensure an effective pedagogical use of digital approaches, collaboration and participation should always be facilitated both between teachers – students and students – students.Working together with students, teachers should also encourage creativity in using ICT tools. The development degree analysis of the 21st century skills must be carried out, first of all, by the teachers themselves: in this way, teachers can understand their own level on basic skills such as communication and critical thinking, or on more specific skills of pedagogical field (creation of didactic paths, ideation of evaluation tools, use of particular innovative methodologies, etc.). The initial assessment of teachers' skills and knowledge allows the construction of an effective learning path for both students and teachers. Afterwards, teachers must carry out the initial assessment of students’ 21st century skills. At this stage, the use of reliable and valid assessment tools is essential. As the KSAVE model states, "Assessments signal priorities for curriculum and instruction;; high visibility tests serve to focus the content of instruction” (Binkley et al, 2012, 19)2. Initial assessment activities must be aligned with the development of significant, twenty-­first century goals and should be enabled by ICT tools: ICT can be thought of not only as a tool for traditional assessments but also as presenting new possibilities for assessing skills formerly difficult to measure. ICT also develops new skills of importance for the twenty-­first century (Binkley et al, 2012, 26).

It would be also particular beneficial to develop a critical use of ICT tools in daily life activities in general, and in cultural and heritage education in particular. The connection between knowledge acquired and citizenship skills can support the development of other 21st century skills. The exercise of personal and social responsibility is also included among the skills needed for living in the world. There are aspects of this skill in collaboration and teamwork, which is among the skills included among ways of working. Personal and social responsibility is taken to include cultural awareness and cultural competence (Binkley et al, 2012, 56). Therefore, making students aware of their culture and heritage education is pivotal to develop their meaningfulness about their life and world.

2 Binkley, Marilyn, Ola Erstad, Joan Herman, Senta Raizen, Martin Ripley,May Miller-­Ricci, and Mike Rumble. Defining Twenty-­First Century Skills in Griffin, P. , McGaw, B., and Care, E., (2012). Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century skills. Springer. Dordrecht.

3. Which teachers, museum educators and prospective teacher’s practices can promote 4Cs students development? In order to support the promotion of students’ 4C skill, it would be useful for teachers, museum educators and prospective teachers to use the following practices: · To design a cross curricular, meaningful teaching scenario (starting point) · To integrate digital tools in the teaching and learning daily experience · To facilitate collaboration between students through the creation of teams both in class and other learning contexts (such as museums and heritage sites)

· To create a safe and open learning environment, stimulating and encouraging creativity

· To explain the learning goals to students (i. e. 4C skills), promoting metacognition activities.

· To use formative and summative assessment activities and produce different assessment tools for different learning objectives.

· To observe the cultural and social differences of the group before you do that, you turn them into opportunities, to create tailored occasions and to develop skills in a new way, for the entire group.

Assessing 21st century skills in Museum/heritage education context

Museums and heritage sites play their role in promoting social inclusion when they become educational environments, when they interact with all social groups and thus the latter can develop their critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity skills (Sandell 2002, Nardi 2014, Poce and Iovine 2015). In some research3, these skills are are defined as the “4C” skills, the basic competences for learning. They are considered to be necessary and essential in any educational context, including formal, non-­formal (i.e. museums) and informal contexts. Their progress allows for the development of other competences, which are more complex and specific to certain spheres of life. Therefore, “4C” skills support the complete development of a person to be an active and aware citizen. As already mentioned, the definition of these general, broad and 21st century skills was particularly difficult with assessment purposes, i.e. when designing tests aimed to evaluate the acquisition and development of 21st century skills-­related knowledge, abilities, dispositions and attitudes. Another reference framework, known as the “KSAVE model” (Knowledge, Skills, Attitudes, Values, and Ethics), was produced in order to define, explain and describe 21st century skills in detail. The ultimate goal was to provide teachers, educators in different fields, and education institutions in general, with a set of fundamental indicators and criteria to assess and also to compare these skills and results across time and space. In general, evaluation tests must be valid and reliable: validity means the ability of an assessment tool to assess the knowledge/skills for which it is used;; the evaluation information is reliable when, in the course of repeated experiments with similar instruments and under similar conditions, the same results are produced. Evaluation is a fundamental phase of the education process as it can provide teachers with crucial information so as to improve the teaching / learning path and to calibrate it on the basis of the cognitive, affective and motivational characteristics of students. In order to make the evaluation more useful and effective, it is necessary that various forms of evaluation are implemented in the school: diagnostic evaluation, formative evaluation and summative evaluation. The diagnostic evaluation is aimed at detecting the level of the preparation of the pupils in relation to the planning of new teaching activities. The formative evaluation is carried out in itinere to find out how the pupils develop the new knowledge and skills promoted. The summative evaluation is carried out to take over the knowledge acquired and skills promoted at the end of the learning units.

3 I.e. P21. 2007. Framework for 21st Century Learning (online at: http://www.p21.org/our-­work/p21-­framework) and Trilling and Fadel, 2009.

The Dutch Pilot phase results: a critical point of view

We recognized that meaningful heritage education combined with the development of a 21st century skill always leads to a rich learning environment, with a problem and the need for a solution. While working on the DICHE-­project we experienced the difficulty of monitoring and assessing the progress of pupils on 21st century skills. First a teacher needs to have a deep understanding of the skill. Then he needs to translate this skill into specific behaviour and then he needs to create a situation that invites and allows the pupil to show this behaviour. This takes quite a lot of preparation and it is hard to both guide and instruct the group and closely observe their behaviour when you have 30 pupils. During the DICHE-­project we recognized this combination of heritage education and 21st century skills to be the core and digital innovation a means to an end. This greatest value of digital innovation is to better reach the 21st century learning skill goals. In order to achieve this we recognized the necessity of exploration time with the soft and the hardware. Both pupils and teachers who develop/ execute the program need time to freely explore the possibilities that the digital innovation brings

The Italian pilot phase results: a critical point of view During our pilot phase we noticed how important it was to share goals and contents of a complex and articulate project within a working group. From an organisational point of view, it was important to articulate each phase and procedure related to the beginning of a new educational activity. Moreover, we had to compare ourselves to a new working tool applied to museum-­based education: the use of digital technology, which was the decisive element for the creation of our “ad hoc ” didactic project. The main difficulty we were faced with was the application of digital tools in the Baths of Diocletian because of infrastructural reasons, which often make us desist from using these technologies in museum-­based education. Actually, we are convinced about the enhancing role that a digital tool can give to an educator, but this is not always possible in large areas such as museums or open spaces like archeological sites. As regards feedback from the classes involved in the project, both pupils and teachers were very curious and well disposed towards the activity. In particular, students enjoyed the prospect of using multimedia tools, and teachers enjoyed the originality of our proposal. Another positive aspect to highlight is that, although the duration of the activity was about two hours, kids’ ability to concentrate was not influenced at all, thanks to the interactive alternation between the “traditional” stops and the ones provided with audio/video contents. For this reason, we believe we reached our goal in regard to the challenge we had posed at the beginning of the project: carrying out our pilot phase in an epigraphic museum, which is a quite difficult context to understand and enjoy, both for adults and for kids.

CONCLUSIONS A creative person regularly solves problems, fashions products, or defines new questions in a domain in a way that is initially considered novel but that ultimately comes to be accepted in a particular cultural setting4 In his researches, Gardner often deals with the theme of creativity and how this skill can decisively support the educational development of pupils. In To open minds. Chinese clues to the dilemma of contemporary education, the study of creativity in the Chinese and American school systems is linked to variousand complex themes, from multiculturalism to the history of the educational system and the role of teachers. Moreover, Creativity is inherent in a system of values and is generated in each country by a cultural background. The role of the teacher (or the mediator-­guide) in the construction of "individual-­based teaching activities" is fundamental in order to promote the continuous development of a child's intelligence. Therefore, the concept of both Creativity and Cultural heritage arise from the culture of a specific society and develop into a system of univocal values. Promoting the development of one implies, consequently, supporting the development of the other. The DICHE partners, according to their experiences during the project, define Creativity as one of the key competences in relation to the promotion of cultural and museum heritage education, both in a national and European context. In Five Minds for the future5, Gardner defines five minds useful to face the current and the next future. He especially addresses the education system, because he believes that educational institutions continue to promote knowledge and attitudes that were more useful in the past than they would be in a future historical context. The five minds are the following:

the disciplinary mind (it means having learned to think like an expert in a given field: not a simple accumulation of knowledge, but a peculiar way of looking at the world);;

the synthesizing mind (it means making a synthesis of global knowledge);; the creating mind (one of the most important elements of contemporary society, economy and innovation);;

the respectful mind (pivotal for developing a multicultural global society);; the ethical mind (it means being responsible for one’s actions and being able to extrapolate useful ideas from the present in order to foresee the results, reflecting on the benefit of the community).

4 Gardner H. New York: Harper Collins;; 1993. Creating Minds: An Anatomy of Creativity Seen through the Lives of Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, and Ghandi, p. 35. 5 Gardner H. Boston: Harvard Business School, 2006.

From our point of view, Heritage education can significantly contribute to the development of these minds, bringing them together and developing a common democratic morality.