Education Commons^™

Piloting Of Specific Common Tools In Support Of Digital And Online Learning, Orlin Marinov, Karlis Valtins, Janina Fengel, K.C. O'Rourke, Lubomir Dimitrov, Rossen Radonov

Conference Proceedings

This publication is an insightful exploration into the evolving landscape of digital and online learning, with a specific focus on the pilot testing and implementation of innovative educational tools. It aims to critically assess the effectiveness of these tools in enhancing the educational experience and the overall learning outcomes in digital environments.

This manuscript is particularly relevant for educators, education technologists, policymakers, and scholars interested in the advancement of digital education. It serves as a pivotal resource, providing valuable insights into the utilization and effectiveness of digital tools in education. The publication's contribution to academic scholarship is significant, offering a …

The University Education Model Collection 2024: “A University Way Of Being”, Fionnuala Darby, Shaun Ferns, Barry J. Ryan

Group Reports

The University Education Model (UEM) revolutionises our approach to education; this approach is grounded in transformative learning opportunities and experiences for all. The UEM is central to the TU Dublin Strategic Intent, which itself is informed by the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and in the case of the UEM, SDG 4 Quality Education. Embedding the UEM into our practice, processes and culture will empower TU Dublin to cater for the largest number of diverse learners, producing the most sought after, digitally literate, graduates.

The central focus of UEM are our learners, grounded in the three components that comprise the …

Eight Steps To Facilitating More Equitable Education In Undergraduate Sciences, Gintarė Lübeck, Michael K. Seery, Barry J. Ryan

Articles

Pedagogical practices can influence students’ confidence and ability beliefs and affect their ambition to persevere in science. Given the continuing need to diversify science and retain students in scientific programmes, science education must be tailored to cater to the needs of varied student groups. Since early experience in university programmes can be decisive in determining students’ further academic and professional choices, pedagogies employed in undergraduate science courses can be particularly influential in supporting science careers. Undergraduate science instructors are therefore encouraged to consider their approaches to teaching and learning from a variety of perspectives that could help empower students from …

Empowering Responsible And Sustainability-Aware Business Graduates Through Digital Authentic Assessment, Lucia Walsh, Olivia Freeman, Alacoque Mcalpine, Cormac H. Macmahon

Conference papers

Business schools must engage in fundamental change to retain their legitimacy and position themselves as providers of solutions to urgent economic, social and environmental crises. Achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has emerged as a megatrend and business education must enhance graduate skills to contribute to their achievement. The world requires the next generation of graduates to become responsible business leaders who will address wicked sustainability problems. Hence, we need pedagogy that enables students to become sustainability literate and thus develop appropriate knowledge, skills and mindsets.

Authentic assessment provides transformative learning opportunities that empower students to achieve meaningful …

Grassroot Power Of Communities Of Practice – The Case Of Sdg Literacy, Olivia Freeman, Lucia Walsh, Cormac Mcmahon, Alacoque Mcalpine

Other

With emerging consensus on an urgent need to address the potentially catastrophic issues of climate change, threats to the natural world and social injustice, Generation Z is spearheading a quiet revolution, elevating sustainability from desirable to essential. Achievement of the UN SDGs has emerged as a megatrend (Mittelsaedt et al., 2014) and universities are playing a key role in developing graduates’ sustainability knowledge, skills and mindsets (Andrews and Soares, 2017). To empower our students to solve ‘wicked sustainability problems’ (Levin et al., 2012) we, as educators, need to move beyond our discipline silos and develop cross-disciplinary collaborations that lead to …

Circlet Guide For Facilitators: Online Continuing Professional Development Module: Embedding Community Engaged Research And Learning In Higher Education Curricula, Catherine Bates, Sinead Mccann, Caroline Mcgowan

Books/Book chapters

This guide contains all the resources needed to implement a postgraduate Continuing Professional Development (CPD) module for lecturers who wish to build, or enhance, community engaged research and learning (CERL) projects in the modules they teach, as part of the Higher Education curriculum. CERL (or service-learning, as it can be known) is a high-impact activity in Higher Education (Kuh, 2008), increasing student engagement and learning. CERL also supports community goals, and makes teaching more interesting for lecturers.

This module is designed to build capacity among participants for CERL, including developing relevant knowledge, skills, attitudes and values. Our approach to this …

Capturing More Voice In Entrepreneurial Education, Ziene Mottiar

Conference papers

A key element in Entrepreneurship education is exposing learners to real life entrepreneurial experiences. This is most often done via guest lectures who provide insightful presentations on their journeys, activities and strategies. This is often an element that students enjoy and report on positively in quality assurance forms. However, there are limitations to this approach as usually it is limited to one entrepreneur per module/semester, the type of entrepreneur who provides the guest lecture may be related to proximity, convenience or current networks of the lecturer, and diverse interests of students, and entrepreneurial representation, may not be met in this …

A Case For Open Educational Resources (Oer) For Liberation: Leveraging Librarians And Library Skills, Aisling Coyne, Amy Fitzpatrick

Other

This paper will establish the case for Open Educational Resources (OER) for Liberation for Ireland, and the leveraging of librarians in pursuit of creating a database of Open resources for public good and public liberation within the context of post-neutrality librarianship. The researchers have conducted a literature review of existing OER initiatives and emerging areas of Open Education. The review is underpinned by the philosophical and pedagogical motivations of Open, with a keen focus on equity, access and accessibility. Through this research, it has been found that there is a strong framework available for establishing a national OER initiative, and …

Engineering Students' Perceptions Of Their Development Of Professional Skills, Caitriona Depaor, Una Beagon, Aimee Byrne, Darren Carthy, Patrick Crean, Louise Lynch, Dervilla Niall

Conference Papers

No abstract provided.

Authentic Assessment Framework May 2021 Version, Jen Harvey, Derek Dodd

Reusable Resources

The TU Dublin Authentic Assessment (AA) framework was designed to be used as a general guide.for staff undertaking assessment redesigns as part of a University Initiative under the IMPACT SATLE 1 funding call.

The Framework builds on the work of Gulikers et al, (2006) and Villerarroel et al (2020) and is structured across four dimensions: ‘Realism’, ‘Cognitive challenge’, ‘metacognition’, and ‘feedback processes’.

The resource provides a set of ideas that can be used to build the four dimensions into programme based Authentic Assessment strategies and practices.

A Phenomenographic Study Of Academics Teaching In Engineering Programmes In Ireland: Conceptions Of Professional Skills And Approaches To Teaching Professional Skills, Una Beagon

Doctoral

Engineers play a central role in addressing the challenges which face society. However, the influence of globalisation, disruptive technological change and socially complex problems will greatly affect the way engineers work in the future.

As a result, there have been calls to embrace transformational change in engineering education, yet the literature reveals that many reform efforts have fallen short. Industry and society will therefore continue to look to Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to better prepare engineering graduates with the new skills needed to face the challenges of the future. Notwithstanding the critical and valued role that technical engineering subjects have …

Professional Development For Out-Of-Field Post-Primary Teachers Of Mathematics: An Analysis Of The Impact Of Mathematics Specific Pedagogy Training, Niamh O'Meara, Fiona Faulkner

Articles

Research shows that teachers influence students’ attitudes towards; performance in; and perceptions of a subject. Hence, the need to improve the teaching and learning of many curricular subjects has been well documented for many years. This paper focusses on efforts made to develop competence among out-of-field teachers of mathematics and evaluates the impact of one component of a continuous professional development (CPD) programme on teachers’ selfefficacy and self-reported teaching styles. As part of this CPD programme, teachers engaged in a series of subject-specific pedagogy workshops and while classroom observations were not feasible they did complete pre- and postworkshop questionnaires to …

Reflective Blogs: Supporting Students' Learning Experiences While On Work Placement, Farrah Higgins

Practitioner Research Projects

Reflective blogs can be an effective tool to help students critically evaluate their learning and professional skills development in a work placement setting. This practitioner report investigates reflective blogs as a usable and authentic assessment tool for students on work placement in a Business Computing discipline. A review of the benefits of reflective writing for students is included, such as improving critical thinking and writing skills, while encouraging development of graduate attributes and professional skills development. The report outlines the importance of preparatory work on developing reflective writing practices within the curriculum, before students commence their work placements.

Embedding Anti-Racism In The Community Development And Youth Work Programme (Cdyw) 2020/2021, Mairead Cluskey, Brid Ni Chonaill Dr, Georgina Lawlor, Sheila Coyle, Liam Mcglynn Dr, Garreth Smith

Group Reports

The Community Development and Youth Work (CDYW) programme team received funding from the IMPACT project as part of the Le Chéile award application during the academic year 2020/2021. The overall aim of the CDYW Le Chéile journey was to embed anti-racism in the teaching, learning and assessment of the programme. Changes were introduced to modules in terms of new content, students were exposed to different perspectives and voices, and new workshops were designed for placement preparation around identifying and responding to racism. With regard to assessment, case studies were used to develop responses to the lived experiences of racism in …

Seik: Sustainable Event Industry Knowledge, Creating Oers For Event Management Students, Samantha Morris

Case Studies

Presentation describing the Sustainable Events Industry Knowledge project funded by TU Dublin Impact, National Forum of Teaching and Learning and the Higher Education Authority. Presented at the EdTech 2021 Conference hosted by The Irish Learning Technology Association.

Hublinked: A Curriculum Mapping Framework For Industry, Paul Doyle, Cathy Ennis, Anna Becevel, Stephane Maag, Radu Dobrin, Mojca Ciglarič, Yunia Choi, Alan Fahey, Deirdre Lillis

Conference Papers

A key aim of HubLinked is to improve the effectiveness of University-Industry linkages between CS faculties and ICT companies. One of the problems identified as core to the Project was to match Learning Outcomes from different curricula with the requirements dictated by the ICT industry with the final aim to enhance students Graduate Skills and employability. Based on agreed core U-I linkage attributes, lower-level curriculum L0s have been designed and reviewed by industry partners. To enable the replication of this process, a tool was designed to make the comparison of graduates' skills from different institutions easily accessible. Using this tool …

Cocreate: Collaborative Curriculum Reimagining And Enhancement Aiming To Transform Education, Barry J. Ryan, Adrienne Fleming, Catherine M. Deegan, Claire Mcavinia, Colm O'Kane, David Williams, Edmund Nevin, Eric Bates, Fionnuala Darby, Jen Harvey, Lesley Murphy, Maebh Coleman, Miriam O'Donoghue, Nicola Duffy

Teaching Fellowship Reports

The establishment of TU Dublin in January 2019 provided a unique opportunity to create a bespoke curriculum framework for students, staff and stakeholders of TU Dublin, produced by the students, staff and stakeholders of TU Dublin. A curriculum framework is a set of guiding values that inform the design of teaching and learning activities within TU Dublin. A Teaching Fellowship Team, comprising eighteen teaching academics from across the three TU Dublin campuses and supported extensively by the Learning Teaching and Technology Centre (LTTC), was formed to collaboratively craft, in partnership with all stakeholders, a curriculum framework for TU Dublin. Working …

Narratives Of Creativity Among Social Care Educators In Irish Higher Education, Louisa Goss

Theses

Research on creativity in the delivery of social care highlights growing evidence of its importance for the wellbeing and quality of life of those in receipt of care, as well as benefits for the workforce. However, what is less well understood and overlooked in the literature is how creativity is conceptualised and operationalised in practice and education. This thesis attends to this gap in research from the perspective of social care educators. With the aim of deepening understanding of higher education teachers’ construction of creativity, the study explores small stories about creativity from six educators teaching into an undergraduate degree …

Structured Professional Development For Academic Developers: A Collaborative Approach, Fiona O'Riordan, Íde O'Sullivan, Mary Fitzpatrick, Margaret Keane, Claire Mcavinia, Angelica Risquez

Articles

This paper shares the experience of a group of academic developers’ engagement in collaboratively working towards the completion of an online open-access professional development (PD) course designed to support higher education teachers to engage with a new professional development framework. Committee members of the Educational Developers in Ireland Network set out to complete the course as a demonstration of their commitment to their own PD and to experience the process with a view to becoming facilitators of the course. An auto-ethnographic approach was used to capture this experience, and findings demonstrate an inspiring alternative to PD that supports academic developers …

Soft Skills Development In Hospitality, Tourism And Event Management Education, Denise O'Leary, Ziene Mottiar

Conference papers

Soft skills are skills such as interpersonal and social skills, communication skills, teamwork and the ability to self motivate. Numerous studies have shown that employers in the tourism, hospitality and events sectors place high value on soft skills when recruiting new employees, yet these skills can often be underdeveloped in graduates of tourism and hospitality programmes (Stietska-Ilina et al. 2005, Nyanjom and Wilkins 2016). This in part because unlike hard skills, which are more technical in nature and as a result, measurable, soft skills can be difficult to measure, document and assess in third level education programmes.

This paper reports …

Leaf (Learning From And Engaging With Assessment And Feedback) Final Project Report, Ziene Mottiar, Louise Bellew, Sara Boyd, Greg Byrne, Jane Courtney, Cliona Doris, Helen O'Brien Gately, Geraldine Gorham, Leanne Harris, Natalie Hopkin, Anne Hurley, Louise Lynch, Ciaran O'Driscoll, Denise O'Leary, Noel O'Neill, Emma Robinson, Mary Scally, Barry Sheehan, Mairead Stack

Reports

The LEAF (Learning from and Engaging with Assessment and Feedback) project was funded under the Teaching Fellowship in TU Dublin, city campus for 18 months beginning in January 2018. The project team comprised 18 academics from across the TU Dublin - City Campus and there are representatives from all colleges. Also included were two further members who represented the student voice: the Director of Student Affairs and the Students’ Union Education Officer.

This project sought to address a key issue in third level Teaching and Learning, that of assessment and assessment feedback. Assessment strategies have been shown to have a …

Timely Student Feedback, Ronan Oliver, Evelyn Casey, David O'Connor

Practitioner Research Projects

Students are not only interested in their grades but they are also interested in feedback (Mulliner & Tucker, 2017), as this is an important element of their learning cycle (Gibbons et al., 2018). Together with lecturers they agree that for this to be effective, it must be returned quickly so that it can be acted on within the context of their learning (Denton et al., 2008; Mulliner & Tucker, 2017). However, the delivery of timely and effective feedback can be a burden on lecturers, particularly if they are responsible for large classes and in the early stage of their career. …

Best Practice In Designing Groupwork For First Year Students, Judith Boyle, Rachel Halpin, Chao Ji Hyland

Practitioner Research Projects

The ability to work effectively as part of a group is an expected skill of any graduate, and is regarded as highly desirable criteria for employability (Mellor, 2012; Rutherford, 2015). Through collaborative work, students learn from each other while also developing their interpersonal skills. Many students who enter higher education (HE) do not realise the demands of their programmes, and their first year experience usually has a strong influence on their entire college life (Ginty, 2001). It is estimated that 20-30% of first year students do not progress to the second year of their programmes (NSCRC, 2014); this finding requires …

A Rubric Guide For New Academics, Pearlean Chadha, Louise Lynch, Barry Nevin, Edmund Nevin, Anushree Priyadarshini

Practitioner Research Projects

Early career academics entering Higher Education face many challenges. The demands of a new work environment – particularly a third-level institute – can lead to struggles for identity and purpose together with uncertainty of how to fit into a new role (Archer, 2008; Houston, Meyer, & Paewai, 2006). The importance of supporting new academics is identified by many authors including Adcroft and Taylor (2013) and Sadler (2012), and is a crucial issue where assessment of student performance is concerned. Assessment is a major driver of student learning, and scholars have extensively documented the importance of constructively aligning assessment types to …

A How-To Guide For Student Generated Video, Janet Gillanders, Kate O'Brien, Sean O'Leary, Ariane Perez-Gavilan, James Sheridan

Practitioner Research Projects

The type of assessment used by the instructor is a major consideration that must be taken into account when designing a third level course. The importance of assessment can be understood if one frames it not only as assessment of learning but also as assessment for learning. In this new framework, in addition to measuring students’ knowledge of the material, assessment can be thought of as a tool used for providing feedback, for defining academic standards, and for directing student learning (Harris, 2005). There is currently a movement calling for a shift away from traditional high-stakes assessment towards alternative assessment …

New Technologies And New Spaces: Grangegorman And Brightspace As Innovative Educational Environments, Gene Carolan, Cathal Curran, Alan Mccormack

Practitioner Research Projects

This project focused on the new learning spaces and technologies afforded by the TU Dublin migration to the Grangegorman Campus. In particular, the fundamental changes driven by the new physical spaces and educational technologies for TU Dublin staff and students moving forward into 2020 and beyond. A competitive tender process from several vendors resulted in the selection of ‘Brightspace’ as TU Dublin City Campus’s new dedicated virtual learning environment (VLE). In response to this, our newly chosen VLE – Brightspace – will be at the forefront of these fundamental changes. It is absolutely crucial in this initial experimentation phase to …

Mind The Gap: Integration Of International Students, Andrew Knox, Basil Lim, Amr Mahfouz, Maeve O'Connell, Matthew Sheehan

Practitioner Research Projects

The international mobilisation of tertiary students is increasing from 0.8 million in 1975 to 3.5 million worldwide by 2016 (OECD, 2018). This increasingly fluid student migration, supported with various European initiatives, the Erasmus exchange program (since 1987) and the Bologna Declaration (since 1999), have influenced the profile of students within the Irish higher education system. By 2016, international students comprised 5.1% of total tertiary students in Ireland (OECD, 2018). According to Irish and UK research, lecturers have an important role in facilitating integration (British Council, 2014; Irish Council for International Students, 2017). However, for most faculty, the term internationalisation of …

The Openness Of New Learning Spaces In Campus-Based Institutions, Claire Mcavinia, Jason Fitzsimmons, Jen Harvey, K.C. O'Rourke

Other resources

In this research presentation we present and explore open educational practices and resources in the context of learning spaces, broadly defined to include lecture theatres, classrooms, social areas, and online environments. Specifically, we examine the ways in which the use of space in campus-based institutions has been opened up through the evolution of learning theories and technologies (Brown & Long, 2006), and how the design and use of physical learning spaces has been remediated through the evolving use of blended and online learning in campus-based programmes.

We have undertaken collaborative research comprising a literature review and desk study of existing …

Assessment Strategies To Promote Peer Learning In An Online Course, Pauline Rooney, Caitríona Ní Shé

Conference papers

The value of peer learning in higher education is now well recognised. Just as we continually learn from eachother in our everyday lives, so our students also learn from eachother as part of informal and formal learning experiences. Within educational programmes, peer learning is facilitated through a variety of pedagogical strategies which promote active participation, collaboration and the sharing of knowledge and ideas. With the increasing ubiquity of social networking and online learning platforms, new opportunities for facilitating peer learning, have emerged. Within online courses – where students often study at geographically disparate locations – peer learning strategies assume arguably …

Components Of, And Approaches To, Effective Feedback, Sarah Gibbons, Jonathan Mccarthy, Paul Mcevoy, Patricia Mordaunt

Practitioner Research Projects

Feedback is the subject of much research and discussion in Higher Education. Nationally the focus has intensified due to reports of low levels of student satisfaction with the feedback process e.g. the Irish Survey of Student Engagement (ISSE). The focus of this report is an examination of effective feedback in undergraduate education. The importance of effective feedback (particularly for those beginning their third level education) is reflected in a project funded by the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning, called the Y1Feedback project. This is aimed at increasing the quality of the third level experience and has …