The VERITAGE project and its teachers’ kit: between VET and cultural heritage
What is the link between chocolate, an ice-hotel and a midsummer bonfire? The VERITAGE project and its teachers’ kit will tell you!
VERITAGE mixes, in a somewhat imaginative way, two key features: VET and cultural heritage. The project was developed by a partnership of organisations from Italy, Sweden, Lithuania and Spain and funded by the Erasmus+ programme, Key Action 2 Strategic Partnerships.
Starting from a European context of deep cultural diversities and, at the same time, with a common ground that makes up the distinct features, the project addresses the European cultural heritage as a medium to catch young people’s attention and enhance their key competencies.
The partners developed and tested 36 training units around the theme of “European cultural heritage”: the units comprise exercises and activities to be carried out in VET organisations.
The topic of cultural heritage was approached with the methodology of integrated teaching trying to break the barriers between disciplines in order to focus on the learner’s outcomes rather than on notions.
The main target group of VERITAGE is represented by VET trainers and, in a consequent cascade flow, the second main target people are VET learners. The benefit for them lies in the enhancement of their learning motivation and the concrete opportunities to study the same content from different perspectives. In addition, the methodology brings them develop crucial key competences which are more and more required by the labour market such as multilingual, personal, social and learning to learn competence, citizenship, entrepreneurship and cultural awareness.
The training units were built keeping in mind the VET sectors and, in particular, the HORECA (Hospitality, Restaurant & Catering) and Tourism sectors and are subdivided in exercises and stages, with the following indications:
- description of the exercises in order to understand the concept and ratio behind the activities
- objectives of the exercise
- key competencies involved with reference to the European official framework
- resources: human and technical resources needed to perform the activity
- duration of the exercise.
As VET education approach is mainly based on “learning by doing”m the exercises have their focus on practical activities engaging students in researching, building, exploring their area and its contexts, connecting ideas and debating them.
One of the main functions of VET education and training is to prepare young people for the labour market and also to “support young people’s development of essential life skills that facilitate their successful transition to adulthood, active citizenship and working life” [OJ C 189, 15.6.2017, p. 30].
Therefore, all the exercises have also a focus on relevant contemporary topics which can foster the acquisition of the competences enabling young people to successfully participate in society. In detail, the activities explore the issues of climate change and environment, food waste, sustainability, European history, the European Union values, migration and cultural awareness, etc.
The training units are in the following languages: English, Italian, Lithuanian, Spanish and Swedish and can be found at the project website.
The website gathers all the project results combining four main features: the section for the teachers and the section for the students, section of quizzes and an App.
All the materials for the teachers are also in a downloadable pdf format.
Contact person: Roberta Richiero c/o ENGIM roberta.richiero@engimtorino.net
ENGIM Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fondazione.engim
VERITAGE website: https://veritage.eu/
VERITAGE Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/veritage.erasmusplus.it
