THE VOICE OF STUDENTS FOR PEDAGOGICAL INNOVATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION: ADAPTING INTERNATIONAL MODELS AND PRACTICES TO THE ITALIAN CONTEXT

Covid-19 ministerial decree which gave a huge stimulus to distance teaching and learning, this paper has the purpose of elaborating, on the basis of the international literature review, a model for students’ active participation in pedagogical and educational-technological innovation of Italian academic executions. This perspective plunges its roots on the theoretical framework of “Student Voice”, a pedagogical movement giving value to learners’ role in educational contexts and promoting their requests and reflections on educational practices. The literature analysis reveals that the attention towards students’ engagement is achieving increasingly relevance, sure enough several programs have been implemented to amplify their own voices and democratize teaching and learning. Innovation is carried out by partnership between undergraduated and faculty members co-designing, creating, exploring and revising curricula, courses, pedagogical approaches and teaching methods. Results prove the potential worth of this closer alignment and the enhanced holistic-integrated students’ involvement in higher education, which make deeper perceptions emerge through investigation procedures and revision of culture and decision processes. Therefore, new comforting and encouraging spaces for learners’ growth are created, prone to ensure they are actually heard and honoured, thus becoming producers and change agents of the university system. The “Student Voice” field has already reached a fair amount of diffusion in many countries including the UK, Ireland and the USA, but it is still little known in the Italian practice where students are frequently overlooked as partners in pedagogical planning.