Abstract:

This contribution presents a pedagogical approach entitled Students as Drivers, implemented within an interdisciplinary Studium Generale course aimed at fostering transversal competences in line with the European Digital Competence Framework (DigComp 2.2). The course seeks to prepare students for the transition to professional life by emphasizing self-directed learning, collaboration, and problem-solving beyond disciplinary boundaries.

At the core of the design is a persona-based problem framework that replaces predefined case studies with collaboratively constructed learner-generated scenarios. At the beginning of the semester, student teams select or design a persona representing a professional or social character facing contemporary challenges. They then expand these personas into detailed profiles, including backgrounds, motivations, and contextualized challenges, which serve as anchors for subsequent problem-based learning phases. This personalization process fosters ownership, empathy, and creativity, positioning students not as passive recipients or equal partners, but as drivers of their own learning trajectory.

The semester is structured into six iterative phases, each lasting approximately two weeks. In each phase, students collaboratively address a new problem scenario linked to their persona and present their progress through complex artifacts such as posters, flyers, or presentations, accompanied by short reflection videos critically examining their processes and decisions. Educators act as facilitators and consultants, offering formative feedback through rubric-based evaluations. The virtual and interdisciplinary setting further promotes teamwork, negotiation, and reflection across diverse academic backgrounds.

At the beginning of the course, many students perceive the high degree of freedom and open structure as challenging or even unsettling. However, over time, they increasingly develop confidence in navigating these spaces and begin to use the autonomy to pursue their own ideas, interests, and creative approaches. The course design deliberately provides a safe experimental space, allowing students to try out new strategies and perspectives without the fear of negative grading outcomes, thereby encouraging risk-taking and innovation.

Evaluation is currently based on qualitative analyses of student reflection papers and video artifacts. Preliminary results suggest that the Students as Drivers approach enhances engagement and perceived authenticity of learning, while also revealing differing levels of comfort with open-ended and self-determined tasks.

By integrating persona creation with collaborative problem-based learning, the Students as Drivers approach contributes to current discussions on learner agency, student-centered pedagogies, and the evolving role of educators in digital learning environments. It offers a transferable model for fostering student ownership, reflective practice, and creative experimentation in diverse higher education contexts.

Keywords:

Student agency, Collaborative learning, Case Study work, Problem-based learning, Higher education innovation.