Keywords Teacher education, subject knowledge, subject application, feelings of competence. Reality is influenced by personal experience, bias, interests, knowledge, cultural background, age and disability. This concept is exemplified through the planning, implementation and evaluation of an assignment whereby students design urban trails for users with special needs such as those with partial sight, or those with a particular interest. These assignments are designed to be student-centred, related to the three major domains of learning and formally assessed. Assessment is by an evaluation of the information utilised by the user on the trail, together with a class presentation.
Student evaluation is by questionnaire analysis and group discussion.
In this paper the use of group work as one approach to student empowerment is discussed. An attempt is made to differentiate the characteristics of courses which involve token empowerment from those which involve deeper empowerment. An example of a project undertaken by second-year undergraduates is described, and student responses, as evidence of their awareness of learning processes, are explored. This article reflects upon the introduction of two empowering styles of teaching in a newly developed interdisciplinary module for students of geography and environmental sciences. Student reactions and evaluations are presented and contextualised.