Abstract:

The rapid integration of generative AI in higher education has raised pressing pedagogical questions: how can AI be used not as a shortcut for task completion, but as a scaffold for deeper learning, critical thinking, and emotional resilience? While AI tools are increasingly accessible, students often engage with them passively, risking dependency, surface learning, and heightened anxiety around assessment and feedback.

This paper presents a Three-Step AI-Enhanced Feedback Cycle designed to foster feedback literacy, learner agency, and academic wellbeing. The model is grounded in dialogic feedback theory and feedback literacy research, and informed by Self-Determination Theory, particularly the need for autonomy, competence, and relatedness in learning environments.

The cycle consists of three structured stages. In Step 1, students engage with AI through guided, maieutic prompting designed to elicit reflection rather than provide direct corrections. In Step 2, students complete a structured written reflection, analysing both the AI interaction and their own learning process. In Step 3, they submit a revised assignment accompanied by an Interactive Cover Sheet, explicitly articulating how feedback was interpreted, selected, or challenged.

The model is currently being implemented in beginner-level university Italian language modules through a writing task embedded within regular coursework. Data collection is ongoing and includes structured student reflections and anonymous feedback instruments designed to capture metacognitive development, perceived agency, and emotional responses to feedback.

By repositioning AI as a reflective partner rather than an answer generator, this model offers a transferable framework for integrating generative AI into higher education in ways that preserve pedagogical intentionality and promote learner wellbeing.

References:
[1] Carless, D., & Boud, D. (2018). The development of student feedback literacy: Enabling uptake of feedback. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 43(8), 1315–1325.
[2] Sutton, P. (2012). Conceptualising feedback literacy: Knowing, being, and acting. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 49(1), 31–40.
[3] Ryan, R. M. & Deci, E. L. (2000) Self-Determination Theory and the Facilitation of Intrinsic Motivation, Social Development, and Well-Being. The American psychologist. [Online] 55 (1), 68–78.

Keywords:

Generative AI in education, Feedback literacy, Dialogic feedback, Reflective learning, Learner agency, Academic wellbeing.