Frontiers in Education: Digital Learning Innovations

In the specific context of geography and science teachers' training, socio-environmental problems, including climate change, highlight the need for professional development that facilitates the integration of social and environmental dimensions in favor of sustainability. This perspective seeks to promote wellbeing for all within planetary limits. This article addresses key questions: how has teacher education been structured to address climate change? What topics, methodologies and strategies have been used in this training? Where are documented research studies located on the disciplinary/transdisciplinary spectrum? This study will present the main results and knowledge derived from bibliographic research carried out in accordance with the Prisma 2020 protocol, aimed at identifying trends, challenges and good practices in education for sustainability. The results reveal multiple perspectives, contents, strategies and methodologies that enable us to determine the existence of a gradient ranging from disciplinary perspectives of climate sciences to interdisciplinary approaches that glean knowledge from several disciplines, such as ecology, economics and social sciences. In addition to a broader perspective of climate change, involving not only scientific knowledge, but also local and indigenous knowledge and associated ethical and moral perspectives, which bring these approaches closer to the transdisciplinary perspective.

Transversal competences, such as flexibility, collaboration or critical thinking, are proving to be key not only in academic performance but also in professional and personal performance. In response to a growing demand for research and training in these competences, this study originates from a teaching innovation project at the University of Granada (Spain) with the aim of designing the base structure of a psycho-educational intervention aimed at undergraduate students at the Spanish public university. For this purpose, the European framework for Personal, Social and Learning to Learn Key Competence, LifeComp, is used as the base line. This work proposes a coherent, pedagogically sound, general competence-based programme that blends with the official, more-specific competence-based curriculum, to deepen learning and proactively respond to the complex challenges our society is currently facing. In order to do so, different levels of proficiency for each of the nine LifeComp competences are suggested, as well as an outline for the design of the training action. This work has served as the basis for the creation of a psycho-educational training programme whose parallel study has been registered on www.clinicaltrials.gov under NCT05598944 and NCT NCT05775978 registries. The resulting programme is currently being taught to all undergraduate students at the University of Granada (Spain).

This study aims to explore students' associations with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and how these perceptions have evolved following the release of Chat GPT. A free word association test was conducted with 836 German high school students aged 10–20. Associations were collected before and after the release of Chat GPT, processed, cleaned, and inductively categorized into nine groups: technical association, assistance system, future, human, negative, positive, artificial, others, and no association. In total, 355 distinct terms were mentioned, with “robot” emerging as the most frequently cited, followed by “computer” and “Chat GPT,” indicating a strong connection between AI and technological applications. The release of Chat GPT had a significant impact on students' associations, with a marked increase in mentions of Chat GPT and related assistance systems, such as Siri and Snapchat AI. The results reveal a shift in students' perception of AI-from abstract, futuristic concepts to more immediate, application-based associations. Network analysis further demonstrated how terms were semantically clustered, emphasizing the prominence of assistance systems in students' conceptions. The findings underscore the importance of integrating AI education that fosters both critical reflection and practical understanding of AI, encouraging responsible engagement with the technology. These insights are crucial for shaping the future of AI literacy in schools and universities.

IntroductionAccording to the Digital Curricula Report on the status of online learning in higher education in the United States, about one-third of higher education is online, a number that has substantially increased after the pandemic (Analytics, 2022). As of October 1, 2024, the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) has accredited 3,611 programs across 702 institutions in the United States, but only 46 institutions offered 100% online programs, which is significantly lower than other fields. This study aims to explore the factors that influence the acceptance of online learning and teaching in engineering education from the perspectives of students and teachers after the COVID-19 pandemic.MethodsThis study followed the PRISMA guidelines and included only peer-reviewed articles published between 2020 and 2024, focusing on online engineering education. This systematic review explored the variables affecting student and teacher acceptance of online learning in order to more clearly define challenges in delivering online engineering education and to identify avenues to improve and strengthen it. The inclusion criteria focused on articles addressing instructional design and learning experiences in online education, while the exclusion criteria eliminated studies without key data and those outside the specified timeframe.DiscussionThe findings of this systematic review highlighted several factors influencing the acceptance of online engineering education, such as technology design, individual characteristics, and social factors. These factors are important for creating effective, engaging, and accessible learning environments that enhance student performance and satisfaction. Further research is needed to develop an approach to examine factor interactions in different contexts, and create a framework aligned with ABET accreditation standards for assessing long-term learning outcomes.

Despite a growing body of research on online teaching in psychotherapy training, existing studies focus on students’ experiences, leaving the perspectives of lecturers underexplored. This study addresses this gap by investigating lecturers’ views on the transition to online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were collected through 13 semi-structured expert interviews with lecturers at the Faculty of Psychotherapy Science at Sigmund Freud Private University, conducted between November 2022 and December 2023. Thematic content analysis was employed to analyze the data. The findings indicate that online teaching is suitable for specific components of psychotherapy training, such as theoretical foundations, research methods, supervision, and individual self-experience. However, practice-oriented training and group self-experience, which depend on direct personal interaction, were significantly hindered by the online format. Lecturers identified challenges in fostering engagement, sustaining attention, and maintaining relational depth, largely due to the lack of non-verbal cues and shared physical spaces. The study concludes that relational skills, central to psychotherapy training, are best developed through in-person interaction. Nonetheless, a blended learning approach that combines online and face-to-face teaching is recommended. Online tools provide flexibility and efficiency, particularly for theoretical components, but their successful integration requires thoughtful course design and targeted lecturer training. The findings underscore the need for a balanced approach to optimize the strengths of both online and traditional teaching formats in psychotherapy training.

Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become popular and has changed how we do things. Generative AI has an impact on educational systems. One of the popular types of Generative AI is ChatGPT. Using ChatGPT presents both benefits and challenges for students. It is important to understand how our students are using this technology. This study examines Jordanian education students' use of ChatGPT for personal and academic purposes and the differences in usage based on gender and academic level. The study followed a descriptive research design in which 134 participants completed an online questionnaire. The results showed that students' use of ChatGPT for personal and academic purposes was generally moderate, with tasks such as generating translations and writing prompts to generate short, creative ideas or themes for writing assignments being the most frequently used features. Students' use of ChatGPT for personal purposes slightly exceeded their academic use of the tool, but no significant differences were observed based on gender or academic level. Despite the proven benefits of ChatGPT, the findings highlight that ChatGPT is not yet fully integrated into students' routines. Tailored training and awareness initiatives could enhance its adoption for personal and academic purposes among university students.

Constructivist learning theory emphasizes the subjectivity, sociality, and contextuality of learning, promoting learning through the creation of problem situations and guiding learners to collaborate and interact. Museums conduct educational activities for visitors through exhibits composed of physical objects and other supplementary forms. This paper proposes a model that integrates constructivist learning with game-based learning design, exploring the intrinsic mechanisms and implementation paths of game-based learning in museums to enhance the promotion of cultural heritage. Based on a hypothetical game scenario and analysis of museum game design practices, the paper discusses museum game design schemes grounded in constructivist principles, delves into the design methods of game-based learning in museums, and clarifies the pathways for embedding game elements and mechanisms into the use of cultural heritage resources. Through the analysis of the hypothetical game and established museum game design practices, this study demonstrates that museum game-based learning offers an effective approach to enhancing visitor engagement and learning. The application of the proposed constructivist GBL framework reveals how its six dimensions: self-determination, contextualization, social interaction, knowledge construction, meaning-making, and immediate feedback are reflected in actual implementations to varying degrees. The results of the analysis indicate that constructivist game-based learning holds strong potential for enhancing museum education. It is recommended that museums consider using a game-based learning model to design educational activities and exhibitions. To strengthen its applicability, future work could integrate inclusive design, ethical reflection, and longitudinal strategies. These efforts will help museums create more adaptive, inclusive, and sustainable learning experiences.