Conference Program

This study proposes to analyse and reflect on PhD programmes, starting from the peculiarity of the course established by eCampus Online Higher Education. The training includes two study pathways: Medium and Mediality and Applied Science for Well-being and Sustainability. The programmes are accessible in blended mode and integrate both theoretical and practical knowledge, in accordance with scientific rigour and multidisciplinarity (democracy) (Benvenuto, 2022; Spadafora, 2020).

The aim of this study is to investigate the level of perceived engagement of PhD students in relation to their own research project, in order to develop the disposition towards critical thinking and acting as responsible citizens (researchers) (Cappa, 2014; Knowles, et. al., 2024; Viganò, 2025).

The specificity of our research approach lies in the combination of tools and mixed methods (Trinchero, Robasto, 2025). Within this scenario, the topics and research problems are addressed through the integration of multiple approaches and methodologies.

Consequently, the PhD programme represents the final stage of the academic career and is conceived as an opportunity, as well as a professional and cultural investment, requiring PhD students to adopt an ethical perspective in teaching and research, capable of countering and responding to the continuous challenges and transformations of technological and digital society (Ceruti, Bellusci, 2020).

This survey aims to explore whether, and in what ways, the nature and structure of the two Higher Education programmes can sustain the aforementioned assumptions and mobilise the key competences and skills necessary for responsible and sustainable citizenship, enabling individuals to understand and address the complexity of the contemporary world.

The aim of this contribution is to present the evaluation questionnaire developed for the pedagogy laboratory offered within the Early Childhood curriculum of the Bachelor’s Degree in Education and Training Sciences at eCampus University. It is situated within contemporary debates on the democratization of online higher education, with the goal of examining how assessment practices can be reconfigured as infrastructures of participation capable of fostering inclusive, collaborative, and sustainable academic cultures. Indeed, the research explores evaluation as a counter-narrative practice grounded in care, reflexivity, and the shared responsibility of educators and students.

The tool, approved by the coordinator of the Bachelor’s progamme (L-19) was designed to monitor and enhance the quality of learning in Early Childhood Pedagogy laboratories. The laboratory is conceived as a context in which experiential practice, collaborative inquiry, and critical reflection are central to the preparation of future educators (Mortari, 2017), and in which the co-construction of the learning environment can actively take place, thereby redistributing epistemic agency within online higher education.

The questionnaire comprises three sections. The first is a demographic and contextual section that supports a more accurate interpretation of students’ responses. The second section focused on investigating the relationship between theory and practice (analyse curricular coherence, teaching quality, the development of theoretical and practical competences, the value of collaborative work, and the professional engagement of the laboratory activities). The third section is dedicated to the online laboratory experience, exploring digital students’ perceptions, and the potential of digital setting for experiential learning (work relational dynamics, development of an inclusivity attitude, and the potential of digitally mediated environments for experiential learning).

In addition, the tool includes an open-ended question that allows for the collection of qualitative insights and suggestions. The thematic analysis conducted on these responses allows for an examination of the relevance of narrative practice work (Braun, Clarke, 2022), a premise that positions students not merely as respondents but as co-interpreters of educational processes.

The design of the tool draws on models for evaluating university laboratory settings, such as the Laboratory Evaluation Questionnaire (QVL) developed for Primary Teacher Education by Felisatti et al. (2021), and aligns with broader evaluation approaches that promote quality, transparency, and student participation (Trinchero, 2013).

The evaluation is framed as dialogic and formative; it strengthens students’ relational, reflective, and socio-emotional competences, contributing to the development of life skills essential for participatory and reflexive democratic agency. At the same time, the guidance function provided by a professor through timely feedback can be considered a crucial factor in ensuring the legitimacy and sustainability of didactic practices and in fostering a deep and continuous teaching and learning process.

The study contributes to reimagining university agency as an ecosystem of democratic practice, and the expected outcomes of the research conceptualize assessment as a form of infrastructuring. These analytic results can generate evidence to inform the continuous improvement of online laboratory activities and to strengthen a participatory evaluation model capable of supporting the professional development of future educators.

In the context of contemporary society's social, cultural and professional transformations, learning is increasingly recognised as an intentional, lifelong process that fosters autonomy, responsibility, critical thinking and active participation. This approach acknowledges the uniqueness of each individual and the complexity of their relationship with their surroundings (Di Rienzo, 2024; Nussbaum, 2014). From this perspective, universities play a pivotal role in supporting young adults as they navigate identity, intentionality, and responsibility. Education must evolve from merely transmitting disciplinary knowledge to developing life skills and fostering reflective, ethically responsible citizens and professionals who are committed to lifelong learning (Rumiati, 2023; Heckman & Kautz, 2012).

In this framework, reflective capacity emerges as a key competence for the exercise of democratic agency, which is understood as individuals acting in a conscious, critical and responsible manner (Biasin, 2021). This need is particularly relevant in the current neoliberal context, where education is often reduced to immediately marketable skills aligned with labour market demands. This risks eroding the ethical, political and relational dimensions of university education. Consequently, we must question the type of individual and citizen the university should educate, someone capable of navigating complexity, taking responsibility, and exercising critical judgement when making personal and professional choices, while actively participating in democratic life (Mayo, 2007; Bauman, 2011).

In this sense, life skills such as critical thinking, decision-making, responsibility-taking, and collaboration play a central role in personal development and exercising agency. Promoting these skills within higher education implies an approach to education that is oriented towards the holistic development of the individual (La Marca & Gulbay, 2018).

In light of this theoretical framework, this paper presents the results of a teaching workshop based on the photovoice methodology. This workshop was implemented within a workshop-based pathway running alongside the university placement, involving 123 students enrolled on a Professional Education degree programme. The workshop was designed as an innovative teaching practice to foster authentic democratic participation and support the development of life skills and democratic agency. Students were asked to select a photograph representing the predominant emotion they experienced during their placement. The subsequent plenary session was structured around questions designed to encourage emotional recognition, collective interpretation and experiential resonance. This process promoted dialogue, exchange and reflection.

Analysis of the experience shows that such a workshop can function as a pedagogical tool, transforming the university classroom into a space of democracy in action where participation is both a learning objective and a lived, observable experience. In conclusion, the paper reflects on the pedagogical and institutional conditions that enable such a practice, emphasising the university's role as a formative ecosystem that promotes life skills and supports young adults in developing a reflective and responsible adult identity.

This contribution examines the strategic value of university academic tutoring services as educational devices capable of promoting democratic participation and empowerment not only among students who seek academic support, but also among senior students who serve as tutors. Starting from the assumption, widely supported in the literature, that peer tutoring fosters deep learning, motivation, and a sense of self-efficacy in both tutees and tutors (Topping, 1996, 2005; Roscoe & Chi, 2007), and in line with perspectives from democratic education and emancipatory pedagogy, which conceive learning as a social, dialogic, and transformative process (Dewey, 1916; Freire, 2008), this study highlights how peer tutoring contributes to the construction of participatory learning communities. Within such communities, students assume an active role in educational processes, co-construct and share knowledge, and experience authentic forms of democratic participation, thereby developing a sense of belonging and shared responsibility. In this way, universities emerge as spaces for the practice of active citizenship, where democracy and equity are promoted through collaborative practices and mutual recognition. In this context, the involvement of senior students in tutoring less experienced peers, which is encouraged by universities and their academic tutoring services, represents a form of distributed and democratic leadership that fosters the empowerment of student tutors and supports the development or consolidation of key competencies for lifelong learning, including communicative, organizational, and metacognitive skills.
More specifically, the contribution presents the results of a study conducted within the academic tutoring service “S.Tu.Di.” of the Education Department of Roma Tre University. The research involved the analysis of tutor selection and training practices, the observation of tutoring activities, and a qualitative in-depth exploration through focus groups conducted with senior students engaged in the tutoring role. The objective is to assess the degree of democratic participation of student tutors promoted by the academic tutoring service under examination and to investigate their perceptions in terms of personal empowerment, agency, and the development of transferable skills. The findings provide useful indications for the design and consolidation of academic tutoring services oriented toward fostering active and democratic participation and promoting student empowerment, with the aim of enhancing the quality of the university learning experience.

This paper presents the first results of an ongoing research project on authentic tasks in university teaching. International and national literature conceptualises competence-based education as a paradigm centred on the integration of knowledge, skills, and action oriented dispositions in meaningful contexts, with particular emphasis on the transfer and mobilisation of resources (Castoldi, 2017; Mulder, 2017; European Commission, 2018). Within this framework, authentic tasks are recognised as key pedagogical and assessment devices: they engage students in complex performances grounded in real or plausible problems and evaluated through transparent criteria (Wiggins, 1990; Gulikers et al., 2004; Castoldi, 2011). By requiring strategic decision-making and critical reflection, they foster student agency and responsibility in learning (Castoldi, 2020).

Competence-based education is understood here as an instructional design approach aligning objectives, teaching methods, and assessment with the integrated mobilisation of resources to address meaningful tasks (Castoldi, 2017). An authentic task, accordingly, is defined as a situated performance requiring the integration and transfer of knowledge and culminating in an observable product assessed through shared rubrics (Castoldi, 2011; Wiggins & McTighe, 2005).

This perspective is further enriched by the paradigm of Embodied Education, which frames learning as an embodied, situated, and relational process (Reeves et al., 2021; Singh, 2021). By emphasising experiential and contextual dimensions, this approach strengthens competence-based design and orients authentic tasks toward active engagement in both concrete and simulated environments. It also addresses key quality concerns identified in the literature, particularly the risk of “surface authenticity” and the need to ensure relevance and meaningfulness in assessment practices (Gravett, 2025; Villarroel et al., 2020).

Despite their wide promotion in European primary and secondary education systems (European Commission, 2018), authentic assessment practices remain limited and uneven in higher education (Vlachopoulos & Makri, 2024; McArthur, 2022). Although the Bologna Process (1999) formally embedded a competence-based perspective within European Higher Education through comparable National Qualifications Frameworks, university assessment still often privileges knowledge reproduction or generic performance testing (Stankov & Heffernan, 2024), This occurs at the expense of authentic assessment conceived as situated, reflective, and socially meaningful, and evaluated according to professional or citizenship standards.

Against this backdrop, the study investigates how and under what conditions authentic tasks can maintain a strong anchorage to competence-based education while fostering a genuinely formative approach. This approach must be capable of integrating conceptual abstraction with critical application to future professional contexts, in coherence with the Dublin Descriptors.

The research pursues three interconnected aims: to identify the defining criteria of authentic tasks as formative and evaluative tools in university teaching; to analyse current university practices in order to highlight strategies and critical issues; and to develop an operational framework to support the design, review, and evaluation of authentic tasks across disciplinary domains. Methodologically, the study combines a systematic literature review with an empirical inquiry based on the analysis of university-level authentic tasks and semi-structured interviews with instructors. The comparison between theoretical and empirical findings is currently informing the development and validation of a structured checklist designed to ensure methodological rigour, clarity, usability, and adaptability across academic contexts.

Drawing on my experience as an adjunct professor in Sociology of Education within a Primary Education program, this contribution reflects on the possibilities and limits of practicing critical and feminist pedagogy in contemporary higher education. My position carries a particular reflexivity: the students I teach are themselves training to become teachers, which means that any pedagogical choices I make concern not only our shared classroom but also their future professional practice.

In my lectures, I try to cultivate dialogical spaces that resist dominant logics, positioning myself in terms of class, gender, sexuality, pedagogical role, and personal and political experience. I draw on critical and feminist pedagogies that understand teaching as a political, situated, embodied, and relational practice (hooks, 1994; Freire, 1970; Lather, 1991; Lorde, 1984). My practice is often marked by frustration arising from the daily awareness of how neoliberal and managerial tendencies in higher education contribute to narrow possibilities for democratic engagement and dampen students’ willingness to participate in open discussion (Brown, 2915; Ahmed, 2012). Structural and material conditions – dozens of regular attendees, in a classroom where chairs and desks are bolted to the floor – further constrain the creation of meaningful dialogical spaces and magnify asymmetries of power and voice.

A further source of frustration concerns the emotional climate shaping students’ experiences, their fear of speaking in public, of making mistakes, of being judged – another consequence itself of neoliberal academy (Ahmed, 2004; Boler, 1999; hooks, 2004). In response, I struggle to build a kind of safer space, while also inviting students to speak from their own standpoint, foregrounding partial perspectives, and making room for discomfort and dissent — particularly when addressing charged topics such as whiteness, racism, and sexism (Boler & Zambylas, 2003; Zambylas 2003). This sometimes requires departing from the syllabus or suspending the planned topic, which can provoke resistance and anxiety. Yet discontinuity and unpredictability are, I argue, integral to committed, dialogical teaching — and especially valuable for future teachers, for whom uncertainty and interruption will be part of everyday professional life.

This approach also reveals a broader tension: attempts to practice "political teaching" and to foster critical professional self-awareness frequently clash with students' expectations, which are shaped by the internalized norms of the neoliberal university — efficiency, predictability, risk-aversion, and the outsourcing of judgment to metrics. Yet precisely here, small and situated pedagogical gestures can function as acts of resistance: naming one's positionality; negotiating shared norms for speaking and listening; reframing "error" as inquiry; and redesigning participation beyond physical and material constraints.

This contribution articulates the tensions inherent in cultivating micro-spaces of resistance and democracy in higher education — navigating frustration and fear, both mine and my students', alongside moments of genuine connection and fulfillment.