In university settings, writing argumentative essays from reading conflicting source texts is a common task for students. In performing this synthesis task, they must deal with conflicting claims about a controversial issue as they develop their own positions. Argumentative synthesis is characterized by writers' back-and-forth moves between…

The interest in formative assessment, which is highly valued in current conceptualisations of teacher assessment literacy, has led to a renewed focus on initial teacher education (ITE) programmes, as well as on the assessment education domain. The conceptual understanding of the theory and practice of formative assessment has been long advocated…

Obtaining a Veterinary Surgeon degree relies on the acquisition of "Day One Competences" (DOCs), among which professional skills related to meat inspection are acquired during visits to abattoirs. In 2020, lockdown measures due to COVID-19 pandemic limited on-site practical training. The present study describes the creation of an…

We describe a collaboration between Marelli and Università degli Studi di Milano that allowed the latter to add a course on «Architectures for Big Data» in its Master programme of Computer Science, with the aim of providing a teaching approach characterized by an intertwined exposition of discipline, methodology and practical tools. We were…

Instructor-student interaction and regular feedback are seen as teaching strategies designed to support effective learning. These days, there is increasing reliance on technology to support this in the classroom; one such technology is a student response system or its more recent development of this, that is, a game-based one. This study…

Two 20-h modelling-based workshops focused on the explanation of thermally activated phenomena were held at the University of Palermo, Italy, during the Academic Year 2014-2015. One of them was conducted by applying an inquiry-based approach, while the other, still based on laboratory and modelling activities, was not focused on inquiry.…

This article reports on a small-scale qualitative study designed to explore lecturers' and students' experiences of teaching and learning on a recently-implemented MSc programme in Biomedical Sciences taught in the medium of English at an Italian university. A focus group format was employed to interview twelve students on the programme, and…

Socioscientific Issues (SSI) provide a strong framework for engaging students and teachers in meaningful and relevant scientific discourse in the development of functional scientific literacy. However, while most teachers recognize the value of introducing students to SSI, they themselves have limited knowledge of SSI and often lack the confidence…

This study analysed questionnaire responses from 309 history teachers who come from nine European countries and Israel. The open-ended questions explored their experiences of teaching Sensitive historical Issues (SI) from joint social psychological and history didactics perspectives. First data was analysed hermeneutically, it was then interpreted…

This article, derived from a larger EU-funded empirical research project, draws on a comparative analysis of pioneering global citizenship education (GCE) inservice primary teacher education programmes, as theorized and practised in four European countries, to explore how higher education institutions (HEIs), non-governmental organizations (NGOs)…

This article describes an action research (AR) study with multiple cycles undertaken with undergraduates over three years. The university is a trilingual institution in Italy where degree programmes are taught in Italian, German and English. The study's aim was to improve the syllabus of an advanced English for Specific Purposes course using a…

The paper is focused on an interesting aspect of accounting education: based on the analysis of the syllabi of "Economia Aziendale" ("EA") from all 65 Italian universities teaching economics or business administration, strong inconsistencies emerge among themselves and between syllabi and theory. The choice of the analysed…

The ECO European Project funded by the European Commission is dedicated to bringing MOOCs to a new dimension by taking advantage of the new possibilities offered by the Social Web (O'Reilly, 2005). This paper focuses on the intercreative aspects of MOOCs. It takes a look at the characteristics of the new ECO MOOCs to see if they are designed and…

The aim of this paper is to explore how a shift in the language of teaching and learning can lead university lecturers of a range of disciplines to reflect on and innovate their teaching approaches. The paper is based on a case study of a single university in the north of Italy which is gradually becoming a bilingual higher education institute.…

The "ISSS Annual Conference Proceedings" is a peer-reviewed professional publication published once a year following the annual conference. (Individual papers contain references.) [For the 2009 proceedings, see ED504973.]