In a rapidly changing educational landscape, collaborative learning communities have gained prominence as spaces for shared knowledge construction. Audiovisual production, often underutilized in pedagogical practices, has the potential to enhance these communities by fostering engagement, creativity, and co-construction of knowledge. This study aims to explore how audiovisual production can act as a catalyst for the development of learning communities, particularly in educational settings involving pre-service teachers and international collaborations. The methodology integrates qualitative narrative research with hands-on audiovisual workshops, engaging participants in the production of a short film as a collective, interdisciplinary effort. This process enable the observation of how collaborative dynamics unfolded, and how these dynamics contributed to the formation of a learning community. An audiovisual production project was conducted with educators from various countries, culminating in the creation of an original short film. The intention of the experiment was to reflect on the idea that collaborative cultures among educators, when engaged in audiovisual projects, tend to evolve into learning communities where teaching knowledge is collectively enhanced and redefined. The theoretical framework draws on audiovisual knowledge (Tirard, 2006), collaborative culture and learning communities (Flores & Ferreira, 2012; Ávila, 2012; Craig et al., 2020), narrative research and Story Constellations (Craig, 2007), and educational experience (Garcia, 1998; Day, 2004; Dewey, 2011; Tardif, 2014). Preliminary observations from the Portuguese experience suggest that the collective audiovisual project fostered collaborative culture, laying the groundwork for the development of democratic learning communities. These findings highlight the potential of audiovisual media as a powerful process in educational settings, especially in fostering engagement and co-construction of knowledge among educators. This research is supported by CAPES, FAPEMIG and CNPq.

Higher education institutions are to teach advanced thinking skills that help students process information, make judgments, and justify associated beliefs. Such skills are necessary for reflective judgment according to the reflective judgment model (RJM). The purpose of this study was to explore whether engaging undergraduate students in classroom discussion surrounding ill-structured problems impacted these advanced thinking skills. It implemented a quasi-experimental, posttest-only control-group design using the validated semi-structured Reflective Judgment Interview (RJI) protocol to score reflective judgment skills of sixteen undergraduate students. The RJM and its RJI protocol, developed by King and Kitchener (1994) categorizes thinking into three main areas: prereflective (Stages 1-3), quasireflective (Stages 4 & 5), and reflective thinking (Stages 6 & 7). On average, undergraduate students score within Stages 3 or 4. The Openness to Diversity and Challenge Scale (ODCS) was also used to identify existing openness to diversity and challenge. A least squares regression analysis of the RJI stage and the ODCS score found that there is a significant correlation between the two. Overall, results indicated that fostering discussion of ill-structured problems in a college classroom might help students advance into higher levels of reflective thinking, thus helping to fulfill a key purpose of higher education. Further research should explore these connections using a larger sample for a longer time period.

This research brings forward a theoretical framework that applies to modern issues of divisive politics, civil unrest, and social injustices affecting democratic societies. Engaging our students in healthy debate and discussion surrounding comlex problems may be a pedagogical practice to help develop new generations of thinkers who can evaluate information, develop judgments, and better accept ideas that are different from their own. This paper aims to support this conference sub-topic: Addressing social justice by leveraging technology and innovative approaches.

Controversial and thorny issues arise unexpectedly in the classroom requiring teachers to make in-the-moment decisions to address or dismiss them. The decision to address such issues is a morally motivated response influenced by various elements. Teachers make split-second decisions in response to these situations, so that the underlying reasons for their decisions are not always immediately evident and can sometimes be difficult to describe due to their complexity. In this study, we asked a random sample of teachers (n=60) from the European Union to recall an unplanned issue that they had addressed and to apply a model developed in previous research, to articulate their reasons for choosing to address the issue. The model captured the multifaceted nature of teachers’ decision-making in these scenarios, including their past experiences, future orientation, personal and professional beliefs, emotions, task perception and the wider context in which the teachers’ work is located. We employed a grounded theory approach to identify recurring themes to better understand the complexity inherent in such moments. Preliminary results indicate that teachers' reasons often aligned with a commitment to fostering social justice and enhancing students' democratic competencies. Rooted in strong personal values and their past experiences, teachers realised the broader implications of their decisions. We found that they chose to engage with these issues because of their belief in the potential for a better, more equitable future. However, teachers sometimes found it difficult to clearly articulate their reasons, although they indicated that the model helped them to better understand and articulate the reasons behind their decisions to address unplanned issues, strengthening their capacity for reflective practice and intentional interventions. For that reason, we argue that the model can be used to enhance initial teacher education and professional development.