Abstract:

This paper presents an innovative teaching approach that integrates story‑driven seminar dynamics with Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) to strengthen active learning in Higher Education. The methodology is structured around small student groups who are guided through an evolving narrative framework: an initial short story establishes a shared context, defines the environment, and assigns specific roles. Across successive sessions, new events and disruptions are introduced, prompting students to make decisions that require critical thinking, empathy, leadership, and the application of transversal soft skills.

GenAI is deliberately positioned outside the student interaction phase. Instead, it is employed exclusively by educators during the design and reflection stages. In the pre‑session phase, AI assists instructors in generating coherent narrative branches, role descriptions, dilemmas, and context‑sensitive challenges that enrich the learning trajectory. In the post‑session phase, it supports the synthesis of group discussions, identifies emerging behavioural patterns, and suggests pedagogical refinements for future iterations.

Preliminary observations indicate that this narrative‑based active learning model increases student engagement, strengthens collaborative and reflective capacities, and provides a structured pathway for developing essential soft skills within academic settings. The incorporation of GenAI enables educators to scale and adapt story‑driven seminars more efficiently, while preserving human‑centred interaction and student agency. This proposal contributes a replicable instructional framework that merges experiential storytelling, active learning principles, and AI‑enhanced design to foster more dynamic and impactful learning experiences in Higher Education.

Keywords:

Storytelling‑Based Learning, Generative Artificial Intelligence, Active Learning in Higher Education, Soft Skills Development, Narrative Pedagogy, Small‑Group Seminar Dynamics, Critical Thinking and Empathy, Experiential Learning.