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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.    

Purpose This paper aims to examine a co-produced initiative implemented at the University of the West of England, UWE (UWE) between September 2022 and April 2023. The student-led project (Climate, Conversations and Cake: The 3C’s) addressed environmental and climate crisis awareness through monthly gatherings where, in partnership, students, academic staff and professional personnel gathered to share food, engage in conversations and partake in joint activities. Design/methodology/approach This paper draws upon a mix of student and staff feedback, gathered through surveys and written/verbal reflections, to explore the value and impact of this project. Findings The project received two UWE student Union awards for teaching sustainability and for student welfare, and was a finalist in the UK and Ireland Green Gown Awards. The 3C’s provided a platform for emotional expression by fostering a safe and supportive environment and encouraged students to reflect, share, apply and deepen their learning experiences in an informal setting characterised by compassion and empathy. This paper highlights the importance of developing supportive and compassionate pedagogical practices which recognise and normalise climate concern. Originality/value The findings contribute to the growing body of literature on co-produced projects within higher education institutions, showcasing the potential of such initiatives to encourage meaningful engagement and empower students in addressing the pressing challenges of climate crisis. In addition to providing an evidence base for the value of such initiatives, through outlining the specifics of this student-led project, a framework that can be used by other institutions to develop their own initiatives is offered.

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.

Artificial intelligence (AI), once a phenomenon primarily in the world of science fiction, has evolved rapidly in recent years, steadily infiltrating into our daily lives. ChatGPT, a freely accessible AI-powered large language model designed to generate human-like text responses to users, has been utilized in several areas, such as the healthcare industry, to facilitate interactive dissemination of information and decision-making. Academic advising has been essential in promoting success among university students, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Unfortunately, however, student advising has been marred with problems, with the availability and accessibility of adequate advising being among the hurdles. The current study explores how AI-powered tools like ChatGPT might serve to make academic advising more accessible, efficient, or effective. The authors compiled a list of questions frequently asked by current and prospective students in a teacher education bachelor’s degree program in the United States. Then, the questions were typed into the free version of ChatGPT, and the answers generated were explored and evaluated for their content and delivery. ChatGPT generated surprisingly high-quality answers, written in an authoritative yet supportive tone, and it was particularly adept at addressing general and open-ended career-related questions, such as career outlook, in a clear, comprehensive, and supportive manner using plain language. We argue that AI-powered tools, such as ChatGPT, may complement but not necessarily replace human academic advisers and that these tools may very well serve to promote educational equity by empowering individuals from a wide range of backgrounds with the means to initiate effective methods of seeking academic advice.

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.

Artificial intelligence (AI) literacy education for senior secondary students can prepare them for an AI-pervasive future. Although senior secondary students have been targeted, whether they can learn abstract AI concepts, feel empowered to harness AI and understand AI ethical issues is under-researched. We report a 34-h AI literacy programme with three courses for senior secondary students, examining whether they can acquire machine learning, deep learning concepts and discuss related ethical issues in project-based learning. Fifty-nine, fifty-one and thirty-one students completed these three courses, respectively, with pre- and post-course tests, surveys and self-reflective writing measuring their performance. Concepts tests and self-reflective writing showed that the programme improved the senior secondary students’ AI concepts and ethical awareness. Programming knowledge was not a prerequisite for conceptual understanding and empowerment. The programme did not alter the students’ self-perceived comprehension of ethical principles in any year of study, suggesting that it is a challenge for senior secondary students to fully understand these abstract, higher-level concepts. The curriculum design and content coverage of the programme will be further refined.

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.