Abstract:

As early as the late 19th century, the days of the flourishing of progressive education, educators were called upon to link learning to life itself and to the experience the students brought with them. As the years have passed, from a different perspective, the demand for achievements in learning and standardization of evaluation increased. Today, in the era of knowledge, progressive principles are enjoying a revival and receiving new meaning. Project based study processes have returned to the forefront.

This article describes a project carried out by students of education who create personal videos based on the soundtrack of their lives, as part of their studies in Culture and National Heritage course. Creating these projects necessitate asking questions; gathering, filtering, and reorganizing information; creating; and presentation. They involve creative artistic activity using selected technological tools. Creating these projects affords the students new possibilities of personal creation with reference to the studied contents and personal expression, and contributes to developing and nurturing their creativity and the relevance of the contents to them.

With the intention of examine the process the students undergo in preparing the projects, and in order to examine the significance of this work for them from their point of view, the research was carried out. This is a combined quantitative and qualitative study, and the methods include questionnaires and interviews. The research population includes teaching students who study in a college of education. This is a phenomenological study focusing on studying the person’s individual experience.

The research findings show that these projects constitute a very meaningful learning experience for most students. The content categories arising from the students’ words were: self-awareness, self-esteem, significant learning, multi-sensory pleasure, strengthening the connection between generations, creativity, and handling the technical aspect. The students noted that the most significant part of them in preparing the project was collecting materials, sorting them, and exercising discretion in their selection. Compared to other tasks the students performed as part of their academic training, most of the participants rated these projects as more meaningful in terms of their personal experience and also from a learning perspective.

Keywords:

Creativity, Culture, Phenomenological Study, Music, Soundtrack, Video.