Education Commons^™

Switchonstem.Ie Resources To Support Higher Education Engagement Activities, Julie Dunne, Ciaran O'Leary, Cathy Mcfadden

Conference papers

This paper outlines the roll-out of a project called SwitchOnSTEM.ie that aims to enhance Irish Higher Education (HE) STEM engagement with second level pupils. Through providing freely available all-in-one resources for hands-on activities that can be used by HE staff and students at STEM events, it aims to remove barriers to participation in STEM engagement. The project was funded by Science Foundation Ireland’s SFI-Discover programme in 2015.

An interdisciplinary STEM team from five Higher Education Institutions in Ireland was formed and initially collaborated with a more experienced UK based HEA National STEM Project funded researcher. Together the team designed high …

Spatial Skills In Education: A National Study, Brian Bowe

Conference papers

It is widely accepted that spatial skills play an inherent role in educational success, especially in STEM disciples such as Engineering, Mathematics and Graphics. This paper presents an initial investigation into spatial skills in post-primary education where the aim is to generate a national spatial profile to assist in developing meaningful educational interventions. Psychometric tests of spatial ability were administered to a cohort of 1st year pupils (n = 451) in a variety of educational contexts. Findings suggest that this early stage in post-primary education may be an auspicious time to integrate spatial skill development into formal education and that …