Short Biography

Mateja Peršolja, born Koglot and hailing from Vrtojba, completed her elementary education in Šempeter pri Gorici. She continued her schooling at the Nova Gorica Grammar School, specializing in the natural sciences. In 2001, she earned a degree in Mathematics and Physics Education from the Faculty of Education at the University of Ljubljana.

Mateja's journey in leadership and teaching began during her high school years when she led clubs, excursions, and camps at the Mountaineering Society Nova Gorica. In 1994, she became a guide for the Mountaineering Association of Slovenia. Over the next two decades, she led the youth section of the Mountaineering Society Nova Gorica, served on the regional committee of youth sections in the Posočje region, and was a member of the executive board of the Youth Commission at the Mountaineering Association of Slovenia. In her work with the commission, she particularly focused on youth competitions, mentors within the Mountaineering Association of Slovenia, and programs for young people. She is a co-author of the programsCiciban planinec and Mladi planinec, along with the diaries for both programs, which have a circulation of more than a hundred thousand copies.

She taught at four different primary schools, with her longest tenure at OŠ Preserje pri Radomljah. Dissatisfaction with relationships, learning, and the effectiveness of education drove her towards innovation. Drawing from her experiences in the mountains, she realized that learning could take place differently, without the compulsion of external control, punishments, rewards, or grading. She began developing a new approach to learning and teaching at OŠ Venclja Perka within the framework of the innovative project "Paths to Higher-Quality/Longer-Lasting Teaching/Knowledge" (under the auspices of the Institute of Education), which she continued at OŠ Preserje pri Radomljah. She connected self-regulated learning with the insights of Choice Theory (W. Glasser) and obtained a certificate from the Glasser Institute.

Her journey continued with the applied development project "Development of Knowledge Assessment Didactics" (Institute of Education). She developed a teaching and knowledge progress monitoring model, which she successfully disseminated for over ten years in the context of seminars on Knowledge Formative Assessment (Institute of Education). As more and more schools invited her to lead seminars for teachers and later school development groups and sought her guidance, she founded her own company, published a handbook, and gradually embarked on an independent path. In 2015 and 2016, she led the Erasmus+ project "Internationality as an Opportunity for School Development for Life."

Today, she is a researcher of learning and life, an author of articles, a lecturer, a consultant, a coach, and still a passionate learner and teacher.