Didactic Strategies for Teaching Cultural Heritage at Elementary Level of Education

Cultural heritage is recognized as a strategic resource and an important investment in social and cultural capital. As an important part of any nation's identity, the preservation of cultural heritage must be encouraged from the youngest age. This article presents the empirical research conducted among Slovenian primary school teachers at the elementary level. The aim of the research was to determine the implementation of didactic strategies when teaching about cultural heritage in Slovenian Elementary schools. Results show that the didactic strategy that teachers most often use to teach heritage content is experiential learning. Teaching heritage content outside the classroom is performed 2 to 4 times per year, mostly in collaboration with museums. The results also show that teachers believe that they are sufficiently trained to teach cultural heritage content, but there is still a tendency for additional training. Shorter teacher training courses focused on cultural heritage content lessons should be planned and implemented, using modern didactic strategies that encourage students' activity and they should be based on the constructivist theory of learning and teaching. [For the complete volume, "NORDSCI International Conference Proceedings: 5th Anniversary Edition (Sofia, Bulgaria, October 17-19, 2022). Book 1. Volume 5," see ED625663.]