VIRTUAL MADRID FOCUS ON PEDAGOGY
Abstract
As Artificial Intelligence automates data-driven tasks, higher-order critical thinking and other human-centered soft skills—collaboration, empathy, and creativity—are emerging as increasingly valuable both in the classroom and the workplace. AI-resilient graduates require skills to interpret AI outputs, lead with empathy, and apply interdisciplinary thinking to real-world challenges. This paper presents a case study of a faculty-led study abroad program, Rome: Past & Present, to explore how global education and, specifically, the pedagogy of City as Text (CaT) are uniquely adept at honing and strengthening these very skills. CaT is an active, place-based learning methodology that emphasizes direct engagement with the city through structured explorations. Its application in an international setting was found to be powerful in leading students to navigate complexity and ambiguity with contextual awareness. Instead of receiving information passively in a classroom, students observed, analyzed, and reflected on the historical layers and cultural narratives embedded in Rome’s streets, public spaces, and neighbourhoods. This pedagogy builds cognitive awareness and fosters interpersonal skills—such as adaptability, cultural awareness, spatial literacy, and collaborative problem-solving—that are not easily replicated by AI. Rome: Past & Present exemplifies how City as Text can help reimagine higher education as engaged, global, and future-facing. In doing so, it offers a replicable model for integrating urban exploration, interdisciplinary research, and pedagogical innovation in a world where the ability to interpret complexity—in cities and in society—will be essential.
Antonella De Michelis is an architectural historian with degrees from the University of British Columbia (Canada) and the Courtauld Institute of Art (England). Her research focuses on Rome, in particular, Renaissance urban planning, papal history, and contemporary Garden City neighborhoods. She has twenty years of experience teaching study abroad programs and has led workshops on place-learning and teaching outside the classroom. Currently, she is chair of Accent Global Learning Academic Advisory Board dedicated to developing best practices in response to challenges in global education.
Nathalie Hager is a Canadian Art historian by training, but a World Art historian in the classroom. Currently a continuing lecturer at the University of British Columbia (Canada), she teaches courses ranging from first-year global art history surveys to upper-level courses reimagined with a wider, more globalized approach. In her teaching, Hager has increasingly embraced experiential learning—learning by doing—by asking students to engage with the art and architecture of cities in situ, rather than in a dark classroom with slides, culminating in her first-ever teaching study abroad experience: Rome, 2025. Connecting place-based learning with global approaches to the discipline of art history, Hager writes on the critical importance of connected art histories.
5:00 pm - 6:30 pm
Friday 26th June, 2026