Intern
Adult Education Academy

Prof. Burcu Şimşek

Burcu Şimşek is an associate professor at Hacettepe University, Faculty of Communication, Department of Communication Sciences, Ankara, Turkey. She is the founder and the coordinator of the Digital Storytelling Workshop Unit in the Department of Communication Sciences. She completed her PhD with a thesis on digital storytelling and feminist activism at the Creative Industries Faculty, Queensland University of Technology, in Australia, in 2012 and has a MSc degree in Women’s Studies, Ankara
University. She started her career as a journalist in 1998. Since then, she has
been involved with storytelling and related practices for learning. She has facilitated over a hundred digital storytelling workshops in Turkey and abroad with various groups on diverse themes, from gender equality to migration and higher education, since 2009. She created and facilitated training on inclusion in diverse projects and programs of international organisations with storytelling pedagogies.

  • Gender, inclusion and higher education
  • Digital storytelling workshops and participatory art-based methodologies
  • Gender responsive training programs and modules

CG14: Gender, AI and Adult Learning

AI has become an important aspect of adult learning in everyday life. The number of qualitative studies in higher education and AI use is on the rise. Qualitative research is important to understand the dynamics of gender and AI in adult learning. This comparative group will focus on two major aspects of gender and AI. One of them is how women use AI in their learning, what their main motivations are, what kind of difficulties they face AI literacy-wise, and how they relate to AI use in their learning. The other point is how women learners think they could intervene with the gender-biased content that they might come across through their learning.  For the wider discussions of inclusion in learning and AI, this comparative group will provide insights about gender dynamics in relation to AI.  In this comparative group, we will focus on understanding how gender plays an important role in access to AI learning capacities and how AI literacy could be discussed in relation to gender dynamics. In this respect, this comparative group will conduct qualitative research on how women use AI in their learning.  This qualitative research aims to unfold differences and similarities among countries as well as understandings about gender and AI discussions in national and international contexts. We expect students of this comparative group to conduct in-depth interviews with women students at the university in their home countries to collect qualitative data. 

 

  1. Şengül İnce, Burcu Şimşek (2025) Old flavours in a new home: Migrant women's memories of food in Türkiye, Women's Studies International Forum, Volume 111, 103114, ISSN 0277-5395, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2025.103114.

  2. Liotino,M., Fedeli, M., Simsek, B. (2024) Il femminismo critico per re-immaginare una narrativa di genere nello sviluppo organizzativo Educational Reflective Practices-Open Access 1/2024, 29-47. https://doi.org/10.3280/erp1-2024oa18280

  3. Şimşek, B., Karabağ, Ç., İnce, Ş. Sertalp, E. , Tözüm, T. (2024) “The Reception of Digital Stories in Dental Education: Triggering Thinking Skills for Empathy in Undergraduate Dentistry Students”  Thinking Skills and Creativity, 51, p. 101475. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2024.101475

  4. Öntaş,E., Bahar-Özvarış,Ş., Şimşek,B. (2024) “Creating, publishing, and spreading processes of health-related contents in internet news sites: Evaluation of the opinions of actors in health communication” Frontiers in Public Health. Volume 12 - 2024 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2024.1370343

  5. Şimşek, B. (2018) Chapter 3: musical.ly and Microcelebrity Among Girls. Microcelebrity Around The Globe. Ed. Crystal Abidin, Megan Lindsay Brown. UK: Emerald.

  6. Şimşek, B. (2017) Digital Storytelling for Women’s Well-being in Turkey, Digital Storytelling: Form and Content. Ed. Tricia Jenkins and Mark Dunford. UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

  7. Şimşek, B. (2016) Neoliberal Burdens for Women in Academy: “How dare we not work” Kadın/Women 2000, Vol. XVII/1, June 2016, p. 51-71.

  8. Şimşek, B. (2015) Introduction: Tomorrow’s Stories to be Left, in Broadening Digital Storytelling Horizons Special Issue- Guest Editor-  Culture Science Journal, Vol. 8 No.2, pp.1-8

 

                                                                                                                                                                               

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