Vedat Özsoy

Developing the Awareness of Cultural Heritage through Museum Education of University Design Students

Vedat Özsoy – TOBB University of Economics and Technology, Ankara, Turkey

Abstract:

It is indisputable that museum education, which is included in education programs from preschool to secondary education, contributes to individuals’ awareness of cultural heritage at an early age. However, if this education is not realized sufficiently, there is a significant lack of knowledge and experience in museums, antiquities collections and cultural heritage in students who start university. In this case, it would be useful to include the courses that will create such knowledge and experiences in the curriculum. In this context, it will be possible to develop the awareness of cultural heritage and experiences that can have an important place in the lives of university students through museum education to be given to them. Considering that museums are effective out-of-school learning environments, it is certain that they will contribute to a general culture education to be given at the university. Turkey is a country with a rich cultural heritage with dozens of different civilizations. It is important for higher education students to have information about this cultural richness of this country through museum study trips and to develop conservation awareness in them. For this purpose, a 12-week ‘Museum Education’ course of 3 credits/hour per week has been created that can be taken by students of all departments of TOBB University of Economics and Technology. It has been investigated to what extent the objectives of the course achieved with the students who take this course, which has been carried out as a university elective for eight years and which students from various departments prefer to take as a credit course. The findings and results obtained from the focus group interviews with the participating students showed that when they started the course, students’ basic knowledge, which was at a very low level on subjects such as the benefits of museums, the protection of cultural heritage and the role of museums in education, improved with the topics covered during the 12-week course, in-class assignments and trips to museums.