Learning field Archaeology - Student Integrating Methods in Tertiary Education

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present a pedagogical development project which focuses upon student integrating methods for learning archaeology in tertiary education. The project was initiated by the teachers of the department because of the gap experienced between academic reflexivity and archaeological practice during our field courses. The students seemed to suffer from cognitive overload when they suddenly found themselves in the field so in order to bridge the gap we wanted to develop methods which would facilitate the students verbalisation of their field experience and observations, and which would improve communicating about it during field work. The results are that students become more active when the opportunity to develop a voice starts early in their education and they become more visible as actors in their education. A general improvement in the learning environment is noticed, too. We position this project, its results and potentials in a progressively emergent international discourse on pedagogy in tertiary education in archaeology.