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Arqus Unipd Innovative Teaching Practices Award – 5th Edition

The award is intended to reward the academic community's commitment to the development and promotion of innovative practices and strategies in order to foster the improvement of teaching at the University.

There are 4 prizes and the first 3 winning projects will compete in the European Arqus Teaching Excellence Award 5th Edition.

Download the Call for Proposals

ITA Participation Form | ENG Application Form

Rubric

 

Winning Projects of the Arqus Prize for Innovative Teaching Practices at the University of Padua – 5th Edition

1. Project “Methodologies and Technologies for Teaching – Te(A)chTink Project” presented by Prof. Ottavia Trevisan – Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Education, and Applied Psychology (FISSPA)

The Te(a)chThink project, developed within the course Teaching Methodologies and Technologies for Education in the five-year Primary Teacher Education program, addresses the tension between digital innovation and pedagogical responsibility with preservice teachers. It aims to provide conceptual tools to support teachers' informed decisions about when, how, and why to use (or not use) technologies to enhance learning. Inspired by the Culture of Thinking, the instructional design adopts a blended structure featuring weekly debates on authentic (international) case studies, rubric-based peer review, and systematic feedback, positioning assessment as assessment for learning. In the 2024–2025 edition, a dedicated AI literacy module, incorporating the educational chatbot “GuessMeEd,” guided students in critically examining the functioning, reliability, and ethical implications of generative systems. Elective yet consistent participation, along with progressive performance improvement, demonstrates the model’s effectiveness. Te(a)chThink strives to foster a community of thinking aimed at preparing teachers to integrate technologies in informed, reflective, and responsible ways.

2. Project “Compliance and Anti-Money Laundering” presented by Prof. Francesco Ambrosini – Department of Economics and Management "Marco Fanno" (DSEA)

Compliance & Anti-Money Laundering is a student-centred and data-driven course that turns the classroom into a professional learning lab. In interdisciplinary and international teams, students build an end-to-end, risk-based AML procedure (i.e., customer risk assessment, transaction monitoring, and emerging challenges such as virtual assets) using real or realistic datasets and evidence-based reasoning. Learning is supported by formative feedback, peer assessment, and an authentic final hackathon where teams justify decisions on anonymised real cases under regulatory constraints.

3. Project “Collective Critical Mapping Laboratory” presented by Prof. Mariasole Pepa – Department of Historical, Geographical, and Ancient Studies (DiSSGeA)

The Collective and Critical Mapping Laboratory, part of the Master’s degree in Local Development, enables students to put the knowledge acquired during the course into practice in and with the city of Padua—where the program is based—particularly through collaboration with the collective Decolonize Your Eyes and kollektiv orangotango. By linking classroom discussions of decolonial theories with situated practices in the city, the laboratory encourages students to engage in spatial analysis through collective mapping, connecting critical reflection with tangible urban interventions and collaborative research methods. In this context, critical mapping becomes both a research method and an embodied practice through which students explore local power relations, spatial injustices, and forms of resistance. The city itself thus becomes a classroom, and mapping a tool for imagining alternative futures.

4. Project “The Class Debate” presented by Prof. Lucia Regolin – Department of General Psychology (DPG)

“The Class Debate” turns the Animal Psychology classroom into a co‑design environment, where students’ autonomy becomes the driving force of the learning experience. At the core of the project is a public Oxford-format academic debate on globally relevant scientific issues concerning human–animal relations, which requires students to combine argumentation, critical thinking, and ethical sensitivity. Assessment has a strong reflective component: the debate counts substantially towards the final exam and is revisited in a written assignment that fosters deep ethical maturation by inviting students to reconsider their own stance after the public confrontation. A solid active‑learning framework, a structurally international classroom, and a focus on rigorous scientific communication to a broad audience make this practice highly transferable and impactful within the academic community.

The Committee also unanimously decided to award a special mention to the project “Behavioural Change in Preventive Medicine: A Multidisciplinary Approach for Interprofessional Learning” presented by Prof. Francesca Battista and Prof. Daniel Neunhaeuserer – Department of Medicine (DIMED).

The project grew out of the need to provide future health professionals, already during their university training, with operational skills to promote the adoption of healthy lifestyles, a pillar of primary and secondary prevention of chronic diseases. This educational project applies an innovative, active and experiential teaching model that involves students of Medicine and Surgery, Dietetics and Preventive and Adapted Physical Activity in a truly multidisciplinary program. The program, inspired by Smart Learning Design, integrates interactive seminars, theoretical-practical workshops and simulation sessions, with progressive learning objectives and aligned assessment, which themselves become learning experiences. Central to the program is direct experimentation with inter-professional patient care, through peer learning and peer evaluation, to develop clinical decision-making, communication and collaboration skills and competences in realistic and multidisciplinary contexts. The involvement of international lecturers and guests enriches the program with a global perspective focused on best practices, going beyond the traditional monodisciplinary and transmissive approach.

Arqus Annual Conference

From 2 to 4 April 2025, the Arqus Annual Conference took place at Leipzig University.

In this international setting, Prof. Claudia Padovani, from the Department of Political Science, Law and International Studies at the University of Padua, received the prestigious Arqus Teaching Excellence Award for the project “Communication practices: diversity and inclusion”.

Arqus Unipd Innovative Teaching Practices Award - 4th Edition

The award is intended to reward the academic community's commitment to the development and promotion of innovative practices and strategies in order to foster the improvement of teaching at the University.

There are 4 prizes and the first 3 winning projects will compete in the European Arqus Teaching Excellence Award 4th Edition.

Download the Call for Proposals

ITA Participation Form | ENG Application Form

Projects Winners of the Prize for innovative teaching practices Arqus Unipd - 4th Edition 

1. Project ‘Statistics for decision making’ presented by Prof. Marina Bertolini - Department of Statistical Sciences
2. Project ‘Urban Planning Studio’ presented by Prof. Catherine Dezio - Department of Territory and Agro-Forestry Systems
3. Project ‘Communication practices diversity and inclusion’ presented by Prof. Claudia Padovani - Department of Political Science, Law and International Studies
4. Project ‘PERSO-METRICA (’Personality-Psychometry"): Interactions between teachings for the transversal training of psychological skills‘ presented by Prof. Chiara Meneghetti in collaboration with Prof. Massimo Nucci and Prof. Tommaso Feraco - Department of General Psychology

Finally, the Commission unanimously decides to award a special mention to the Project ’Teaching unit ‘Digital Awareness’," presented by Prof. Andrea Gerosa - Department of Information Engineering