This mixed-methods study illustrates the implementation of Malcolm Knowles’s 1986 model of learning contracts in a current Italian University context. The study attempted to improve and adapt the tool to a master’s degree\ud course at the University of Padua. Three professors conducted the integrated course, making extensive efforts to share the aims of their programs and involve\ud the students in this research. The findings helped us reflect on how to improve the contract and better involve the students. Finally, the technology must be improved to be more user-friendly for use in blended courses

In recent years the concept of learning ecology has been interpreted in different ways to highlight its potential for learning and professional development. However, there are several aspects that still deserve to be understood such as, eg, the role that the different contexts come to play within a learning ecology. For this purpose, this paper presents and discusses the results of a study exploring the learning ecologies of educators in a blended programme delivered in higher education. The participants in the study were 85 professionals in the field of education aged between 28 and 58 years. The research design adopted here can be defined as a convergent mixed method where both quantitative and qualitative data were collected through an e‐portfolio. The study found that educators in the sample had different postures, of whom some more aware of their professional roles or Self than others. Moreover, different professional identities seemed to be linked to different learning ecologies, where elements like formal or informal education, cultural artefacts, personal experiences, colleagues or work experiences played a different role. Formal education emerged as having a questionable function, while colleagues came up as a crucial resource.

L'articolo presenta le prime evidenze sull'adattamento e la validazione italiana dello Student Measure of Culturally Responsive Teaching volto a misurare le percezioni delle studentesse e degli studenti universitari sulle pratiche didattiche attente alla dimensione culturale in aula. Tale strumento è stato somministrato ad un campione di 336 studentesse e studenti iscritti all'Università di Siena. I dati raccolti hanno permesso di condurre l'analisi fattoriale esplorativa dello strumento, confermando la struttura trifattoriale. La consistenza interna dello Student Measure of Culturally Responsive Teaching e dei fattori emergenti è stata misurata attraverso l'alpha di Cronbach i cui risultati suggeriscono che la versione italiana di tale strumento presenta una buona consistenza interna ed un buon livello di affidabilità anche rispetto alle sue componenti.

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