intrface europe: A European Methology for Museum-School Collaboration and Coursework

This handbook is the result of the intrface europe project (2015-2017), which was funded by the Erasmus+ program. The following institutions were partners in the project: Horsens Gymnasium, the Danish Industrial Museum, Aarhus Katedralskole, Aarhus University (Denmark); Pavia University History Museum and Physics Department, Pavia University, ISS Taramelli Foscolo, Istituto Comprensivo di via Acerbi, Pavia (Italy), Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, St. Oliver’s Community College, Drogheda (Republic of Ireland). A main aim of the intrface europe project was the creation of a European methodology for securing pedagogically and didactically sound, innovative and productive partnerships between museum professionals and schoolteachers, who collaborate on an equal basis to create and carry out museum-based coursework for students, innovating and strengthening their own professional practices in the process. The intrface europe methodology provides teachers and museum professionals with guidelines for establishing long-lasting partnerships. It offers suggestions about how teachers and museum professionals can design and engage in concrete joint enterprises, e.g. co-creating educational activities for students. Bringing schools and museums into productive contact with each other and meshing the formal learning environment of the school with the informal learning environment of the museum challenges both groups of professionals to re-think their usual practices, thereby giving them a fresh perspective on their daily work routines. Partnerships where the partners work together on concrete projects that are relevant to their professional lives and practices ensure an effective form of life-long learning and the formation of a new community of practice at the interface joining their organizations. Coursework that involves using the museum as a knowledge and learning resource allows students to work in a new and innovative learning environment that calls for and enhances creative thinking, a variety of learning styles, and gives them an awareness and understanding of the multidisciplinarity of knowledge. Museums become accessible and relevant to students when their coursework takes place there, with museum staff and teachers working together to provide an immersive learning experience for them. Coursework like this also promotes learning within the eight EU key competences.