The first year of the Bachelor programme in History of Art and Archaeology: General includes common Faculty courses and subject courses.
The common training includes general courses (History, Literature, Arts and Civilisations, Methods, Philosophy etc.) which are taught by teams of lecturers. They are accompanied by practical exercises and tutorial sessions which ensure that the different cross-curricular learning outcomes are integrated.
The subject courses are taught from the first term of the first cycle and form the main part of the teaching from the second term of the first year. During this year, tutorial sessions designed to help new students are led by students who are more experienced in the subject. A team of assistants also provides personal supervision for students as they progress.
Throughout the Bachelor in History of Art and Archaeology: General course, students will encounter varied teaching methods, adapted to the different learning aims: formal lectures, group work, individual work, seminars, e-portfolios, work placements and visits.
From the second term of the first year, the courses relating to the chosen subject (History of Art or Archaeology) are taught using different teaching tools, all of which are designed to promote active learning.
Students are encouraged to design their own personal project or e-portfolio throughout the Bachelor聽 programme. With this is mind, they are invited to take part, at their own pace, in cultural events chosen from eight different kinds of activities: visits to museums, exhibitions, heritage locations, help and support for such visits, attendance at a lecture, a concert, a seminar or reading academic works. At the end of the first cycle, students will therefore have had the benefit of a series of individual experiences beyond the realms of academic teaching, the critical accounts of which are uploaded to the online UCL teaching and learning platform, Moodle. Each e-portfolio is individually assessed by a lecturer from the programme who gives students a regular feed-back on their progress. As far as students are concerned, they are encouraged to ask themselves questions about the knowledge and skills they are developing. At the end of the cycle, students are required to write a report in which they analyse and discuss their progress. This innovative teaching tool at UCL puts greater responsibility on students who need to ensure that they regularly take part in cultural events of their choosing, right from the first year of study.
The Bachelor in History of Art and Archaeology: General programme also includes work placements. Students are invited both to take part in a dig (one week) and to do a work placement relating to what they are doing in History of Art or Archaeology (two weeks). For these placements, students work in an institution (museum, cultural association, site of an archaeological dig in Belgium and abroad etc.) recognised by the lecturer in charge of the placement. This practical experience enables students to demonstrate a real commitment to their training.
Throughout the Bachelor programme, many academic visits and trips enable students to reinforce on the ground the knowledge they have acquired from the course. These trips are organised by the teaching team in relation to the subjects covered and in a progressive way.
Certain courses also make use of e-learning or online learning which involved the use of new multimedia technology and the internet to improve the quality of learning. These techniques allow, for example, distance collaboration, collective assessment of work and provide access to resources聽 and services, such as the Image Service, through which students can access databases of high quality images and/or original ones and numerous teaching aids relating to the subjects covered, and can also scan documents, etc.