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Integrating Service Learning (SL) activities into academic courses can offer a transformative experience for students. In the twofold perspective of countering the learning loss, determined by the pandemic, and promoting student empowerment, enhancing responsible learning and self-regulating skills, a Service Learning project was implemented. The project started with a sample of 38 students enrolled in the first year of the Master’s Degree in Primary Education at the University of Palermo. To monitor the performance of the SL project, to measure the civic-social competences, self-efficacy and trait anxiety of university students, it was decided to administer a pre and a post of the CUCOCSA Questionnaire. This contribution shows how students acquired reflective, relational and research skills as well as civic-social and metacognitive attitudes.   [PR]A.S.S.I. Apprendere serve, servire insegna: un progetto di Service Learning. Integrare attività di Service Learning (SL) nei corsi accademici può offrire un’esperienza trasformativa per gli studenti. Nella duplice ottica di contrastare il learning loss, determinato dalla pandemia, e di promuovere lo student empowerment, valorizzando l’apprendimento responsabile e le competenze di autoregolazione, è stato realizzato un progetto di Service Learning. Il progetto è stato avviato con un campione di 38 studenti iscritti al primo anno del Corso di Laurea Magistrale in Scienze della Formazione Primaria dell’Università di Palermo. Per monitorare la performance del progetto di SL, per misurare le competenze civico-sociali, l’auto-efficacia e l’ansia di tratto degli studenti universitari, si è deciso di somministrare un pre e un post del Questionario CUCOCSA. In questo contributo si evidenzia come gli studenti hanno acquisito competenze riflessive, relazionali, di ricerca e atteggiamenti civico-sociali e metacognitivi.    

Systemic challenges for feedback practice are widely discussed in the research literature. The expanding mass higher education systems, for instance, seem to inhibit regular and sustained teacher-student interactions. The concept of feedback literacy, representing students’ and teachers’ capacities to optimize the benefits of feedback opportunities, has gained widespread attention by offering new ways of tackling these challenges. This study involves a critical review of the first 49 published articles on feedback literacy. Drawing on science and technology studies, and in particular on Popkewitz’s concept of fabrication, we explore how research has invented feedback literacy as a way of reframing feedback processes through the idea of individual skill development. First, we analyze how research has fabricated students and teachers through their feedback literacies that can be tracked, measured, and developed. Here, there exists a conceptual shift from analyzing feedback as external input to feedback literacy as a psychological construct residing within individuals. This interpretation carries positive implications of student and teacher empowerment, whilst downplaying policy-level challenges facing feedback interactions. The second contrasting fabrication positions feedback literate students and teachers as socio-culturally situated, communal agents. We conclude that feedback literacy is a powerful idea that, if used carefully, carries potential for reimagining feedback in higher education. It also, however, risks psychologizing students’ and teachers’ feedback behaviors amidst prevalent assessment and grading policies. We call for further reflexivity in considering whether feedback literacy research aims to challenge or complement the broader socio-political landscapes of higher education.

Student representation and student partnership differ and the difference matters. To further scholarly understanding of, and appreciation for, the important difference between the two, we examine these two commonly evoked conceptions for student voice in higher education. We draw on two points of difference—responsibility and access—to illuminate conceptualisations and discourses of each in the current literature. In doing so, we clarify the unique contributions of each, shaped by differing contexts of interaction, and articulate issues arising by confounding and conflating partnership and representation in the name of student voice. Advancing an argument for an ecosystem of student participation grounded in student voice, we warn of the harm in positioning student partners as speaking for other students and the risk of diminishing the importance of elected student representation systems in favour of staff selected student partner models of student representation.

Social isolation has been a central focus within international student research, especially with regard to international/host national relations. While a worthy area of study, we argue that the sheer volume of such research stems from the fact that universities' recruitment of foreign students is often justified by the claim that a more international campus will engender cross-cultural skills. The main argument of this paper is that, from this perspective, the \"point\" of such sojourns is seen as social, and any lack of interaction becomes problematic. This is an intellectually respectable position, but it is problematic that it has come to dominate the field to such a degree that the students' own experiences and goals are rarely heard. This paper calls for a de-muting of international students in research, so that more research is oriented by their stated priorities. While there has been a shift in this regard around the turn of the millennium, presumptions as to the purpose of educational sojourns remain and continue to colour research.

Although it has been well noted in TESOL that ethnic minority students often experience difficulties in mainstream English classrooms, whether and how such students can be empowered in their English learning remains underexplored. This article reports on a longitudinal case study of a Chinese ethnic minority student’s participation in a digital multimodal composing (DMC) project and its pertinent impact on the student’s investment in EFL learning. Data were gathered through semistructured interviews, classroom observations, informal conversations, written reflections, and student-authored multimodal videos. The study found that using DMC in mainstream English classrooms constitutes a promising empowering and culturally sustaining strategy for facilitating ethnic minority students’ investment in English learning. Through DMC, the ethnic minority student not only gained access to peer support and a collaborative learning community that was underemphasized in traditional classes, but also learned to capitalize on her ethnic knowledge as essential cultural capital for in-class participation. Noting the empowering role of DMC in positive ethnic identity constructions of the minority student and the investment in English learning, this study calls for attention to the importance of multimodality and the relevant literacy practices in empowering ethnic minority students to cross the linguistic and digital divides in mainstream classrooms.

We report on an effectiveness evaluation of the Youth Empowerment Solutions (YES) program. YES applies empowerment theory to an after-school program for middle school students. YES is an active learning curriculum designed to help youth gain confidence in themselves, think critically about their community, and work with adults to create positive community change. We employed a modified randomized control group design to test the hypothesis that the curriculum would enhance youth empowerment, increase positive developmental outcomes, and decrease problem behaviors. Our sample included 367 youth from 13 urban and suburban middle schools. Controlling for demographic characteristics and pretest outcome measures, we found that youth who received more components of the curriculum reported more psychological empowerment and prosocial outcomes and less antisocial outcomes than youth who received fewer of the intervention components. The results support both empowerment theory and program effectiveness.

We incorporated trauma-informed principles into the design of a synchronous, online Religion and Politics course and then evaluated impacts on student learning through qualitative methods. Using a novel approach, students self-evaluated their learning throughout the course in weekly reflections. Using content analysis and directed coding techniques, we analyzed students’ reflection assessments for themes of trauma-informed principles: safety, trustworthiness, choice, collaboration, and empowerment. We found that students co-developed a sense of safety by engaging in respectful peer dialogue; established trustworthiness through self-disclosure of personal beliefs; collaborated with peers to develop a deeper understanding of course content; and acquired transferable skills through choice in assessments. In addition, students experienced empowerment by recognizing their growth in four primary areas: (1) their personal beliefs and perspectives; (2) their understanding of the course material; (3) their learning; and (4) their ability to use academic tools. Our findings extend and support existing research on the efficacy of trauma-informed practices; furthermore, our research suggests that incorporating trauma-informed principles into course design can support students in their learning as well as bolster their capacity to succeed in other areas inside and outside of the classroom (e.g., engaging in difficult conversations, seeking out support, using transferable skills in other contexts, applying course content to their own lives). Finally, our case study presents innovative approaches for assessing how students engage with trauma-informed course design.

This paper will review the existing student voice work in higher education and critique its current weaknesses, particularly in relation to conceptualisations of and commitments to participation, transformation and empowerment. It will be argued that the employment of participatory methods in higher education student voice work offers a way to address these weaknesses. The potential of participatory methods is illustrated and discussed using two case examples drawn from one higher education institution in the UK. The first case provides an illustration of what is called 'transformation of the familiar', while the second case provides an illustration of empowerment, through recognising the importance of what is not voiced by students, as much as what is voiced. It is concluded that whilst a participatory approach to student voice work in higher education has potential, further work is required in order to evaluate the long-term impact of projects that use such methods.

Extant literature depicts theoretical territories of student voice and partnership as discrete categories. In this article, we argue that this depiction limits practice. We posit instead that theorisation which advances holistic voice and partnership through an active student participation (ASP) approach is necessary for liberatory higher education informed by practitioners and researchers together. We draw on emergent examples in practice which offer opportunities for further development for theorists and practitioners to create novel research opportunities. Through drawing on conceptions of student partnership pedagogy as a tool to address grand challenges, and an acknowledgement of the power potential in student voice and representation roles, we advance new possibility for transformative higher education for students. Ultimately, we advance an ASP approach which crosses the student voice and partnership partition towards a holistic and integrated active and collective student engagement and responsibility for higher education.

In this paper, we provide an overview of the current efforts in maker education, supported by a review of empirical studies. Our synthesis will inform the community about learning outcomes, potential and common issues, challenges, resources, and future research direction regarding maker education.