Education Commons^™

Proposing A Professional Development Model Of Academic Writing And Publishing Support, Roisin Donnelly

Other resources

The module ‘Academic Writing and Publishing’ which resulted in this model being developed was designed to nurture both innovation and critical thinking about writing practice for all academic staff who participated. This exploratory model for critical thinking, reading and academic writing practice is proposed encompassing a series of scaffolded in-class and online activities - Figure 1 shows the different dimensions of the blended module. Ultimately, this model aims to offer inspiration, creativity, confidence, continual feedback, support, and connections about academic writing and publishing. However, such bottom-up practices need direction, so it is important for the future how we think about …

Seeking To Identify Student And Staff Perspectives On The Nature Of Pedagogical Support For Academic Writing., Roisin Donnelly, Maria-Jose Gonzalez

Conference papers

No abstract provided.

Sectoral Update On The National Professional Development Framework For Teachers In He: The Initial Implementation Strategy, Roisin Donnelly, Theresa Maguire

Articles

The National Forum (NF) for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning is currently in the early stage of implementation of the National Professional Development Framework (PDF) for all who teach in higher education. Prior to the publication of the PD Framework in 2016, there was no mechanism or route in place nationally to give structure, focus and support to individual staff to avail of relevant professional development and utilise it to realise their full potential in their teaching role. This important work is deepening sectoral understanding of the PDF itself and leading towards national recognition of an individual’s commitment to …

Sharing Tricks Of The Trade, Roisin Donnelly

Other resources

No abstract provided.

Providing Digital Resources To Enhance Graduate Attributes., Eric Bates

Teaching Fellowships

The objective of this Teaching Fellowship research project was to provide digital resources for students that could potentially enhance graduate attributes. This study was conducted during one semester and concentrated on one aspect of graduate attributes which was presentation skills. A video was scripted, shot and edited that demonstrated a rather inept presenter making a poor presentation. This video was then used in a Communications module specifically during the sessions that focussed on presentation skills. Background data on the participants’ experience of formal presentations was gathered to provide a snapshot of their level of previous experience. The video was used …

The Design Of E-Learning Resources For Part-Time Distance Education Students, Rowena Hennigan

Teaching Fellowships

This research assessed the current e-learning provision for Ibec postgraduate students at DIT. The current e-learning resources are delivered using Webcourses (Blackboard), which is the Institute’s Learning Management System (LMS).1 The first stage of the research involved an audit of the existing e-learning resources on Webcourses, discussions with colleagues and a review of the e-learning literature. This research indicated that there were five key elements required in the programme’s e-learning design, namely: user experience, assessment, module content, interactivity of content and the updating of module content. A number of amendments were made in order to provide standardisation and to enhance …

The Planning And Development Of An Education Framework For Practice Educators Within Health And Social Care Professions., Maria Mcneill

Teaching Fellowships

Providing quality placements for students in the hospital setting is an essential component of the BSc in Clinical Measurement Science degree programme at DIT. The practice educator (hospital supervisor) role involves mentoring and supervising students on placement. Prior to 2012 practice educators received no training to support this role. Current training involves one full day of generic education and a second half-day of discipline specific knowledge relating to projects, log books and assessments. The aim of this research is to identify training needs for practice educators across the four disciplines and recommend an education framework to meet those needs. The …

Communication Practices In Technology Companies., Ruth Casey, Marc Gallagher

Teaching Fellowships

It is contended that the skills or competencies that are required of business graduates by technology companies, range from the ability to communicate complex information about global issues in ways that are accessible to and connect with the general public, to problem-solving and project-based interaction. This represents a shift in the type of communication practice that now characterises the technology company, with its main focus on “agile” frameworks of teamwork. This report examines the context for this development, and explores the role of assessment and pedagogy in preparing the student for these communication competencies, from the perspective of the technology …

Feedbackly – A Tool For Collecting Real-Time Feedback On The Student Experience., Steve Meaney

Teaching Fellowships

In higher education institutes feedback is collected via various formal (e.g. quality assurance processes) and informal (e.g. one-to-one discussion) methods. A core distinction between these approaches is the immediacy of informal feedback set against a slower, but potentially more powerful, formal feedback mechanism. This project aimed to explore a real-time mechanism to explore the student experience, using a simple data entry point connected to a webaccessible dashboard which summarises the data. A prototype was successfully developed and deployed, and collected feedback from students across the College of Sciences and Health. The system was broadly used by students, with more than …

Informing Instructional Design By Cognitive Load Assessment In The Classroom., Luca Longo

Teaching Fellowships

Cognitive Load Theory is an approach that considers the limitations of the information processing system of the human mind. It is a cognitivist theory that has been conceived in the context of instructional design. One of the main open problems in the literature is the lack of reliable models and technologies to assess cognitive load of learners, thus limiting the application of the theory in practice. This project was aimed at tackling this open problem through the use of a previously developed mobile, responsive web-based prototypical technology, to assess the cognitive load of students in a typical third-level classroom. It …

“Scoring History” With The Vanbrugh Quartet: Developing An Online Archive And Teaching Resource., Cliona Doris

Teaching Fellowships

DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama and the National Concert Hall collaborated on a three-year residency for the internationally renowned Vanbrugh Quartet from 2014–2017. Six themed concert series explored a wide range of chamber music, including “Scoring History” curated by composer Ian Wilson, a Haydn and Schubert Series, Mozart and Brahms Chamber Music, the complete cycle of Beethoven String Quartets, Chamber Music of Ireland 1916–2016 and a Russian Season. An online archive and educational resource relating to and deriving from the residency, interweaves archival concert recordings, profiles, interviews and contextual information on the musical works.

An Exploration Of Fairness In The Assessment And Process Of Student Group Work, Rita Gibson, Emma Geoghegan, Oscar Macananey, Andrew Hines, Lorraine D'Arcy

Practitioner Research Projects

This project was driven by a motivation to be as fair as possible in the assessment of students' group work. Achieving fairness in assessment is a recurrent them in group project assessment literature (Nordberg, 2009). All authors of this report teach modules with group projects, and acknowledged that discrepancies often exist between a mark assigned to a group and an individual's contribution. Our aims were to (a) collectively enhance our understanding of the issues that need to be considered when assessing a group work project and (b) collectively build our confidence in approaches chosen to overcome these challenges. The findings …

Methods For Deriving Individual Marks From Group Work, Miriam Delaney, Lucy Bowe, Breiffni Fitzgerald, Peter Maccann, Christina Ryan

Practitioner Research Projects

Group assessment is a valuable teaching and learning method (Springer et al., 1999). This has been comprehensively demonstrated in the teaching and learning literature both in general (Johnson et al., 1991) and in specific contexts. This assessment practice promotes questioning, discussion and debate and encourages students to become active team players (DIT, 2013). However, when using this form of assessment, it is important to recognise that it is "individuals who graduate and gain qualifications" (Gibbs, 2009, p.4). The problem of freeloading has been identified and one of the suggested methods of reducing this is to incorporate individual assessment into the …

Facilitating Group Work: A Guide To Good Practice, Ronan Mccrea, Irene Neville, David Rickard, Ciara Walsh, David Williams

Practitioner Research Projects

Oakley et al. (2004) and Gibbs (2009) observe that owing to the extensive literature on group work, lecturers searching for a succinct guide on how to facilitate this activity effectively would find it challenging to digest such a large corpus. We extensively reviewed the literature in order to produce a quick and accessible guide for lecturers to use. It is our aspiration that this could be referred to when planning and facilitating group work projects with insights and recommendations informed by our research. Moreover, as this work draws on publications from educators in a wide range of disciplines, we expect …

Gamification To Improve First Year Engagement, John Colleran, Aoife Lloyd Mckernan, Julie Ann Naughton, Brian Vaughan

Practitioner Research Projects

The purpose of this project was to examine the role of Gamification in increasing first year student engagement within the third level educational setting. A literature review was carried out in order to explore the teaching philosophy behind gamification in education and review the quantitative and qualitative evidence regarding its use. Gamification can be broadly described as the application of gaming methods and elements in non-gaming contexts in order to improve user engagement and user experience (Deterding et al., 2011). Qualitative analysis suggests these factors result in beneficial emotional and social impacts on students, particularly in the area of increasing …

Exploring The Student Experience Of The Final Year Of A Professionally-Oriented Undergraduate Degree In Education Studies, Julie Uí Choistealbha, Roisin Donnelly, Marian Fitzmaurice

Articles

Within Higher Education there is growing expectations that graduates will enjoy smooth transitions into practice or further study and thus it is important to understand how higher education students’ experiences in university should be best organised and integrated to realise these purposes. This qualitative research study investigated the impact of the curriculum design of the final year on student experience, engagement and progression routes post-graduation in a new four year professionally-orientated degree for students in a BSc in Education Studies in an Irish education institution. This study involved 26 lecturers and 25 recent graduates from the programme. Students were required …

What Stick Figures Tell Us About Irish Politics: Creating A Critical And Collaborative Learning Space, Sharon Feeney, John Hogan, Paul Donnelly

Articles

This paper focuses upon the interpretation of freehand drawings produced by a small sample of 220 first-year students taking an Irish politics introductory module in response to the question, ‘What is Irish Politics?’ By sidestepping cognitive verbal processing routes, through employing freehand drawing, we aim to create a critical and collaborative learning environment, where students develop their capacity for interpretation and critical self-reflection. This is because the freehand drawing technique, as part of a critical pedagogy, can generate a more critical and inclusive perspective, as visual representations permit us to comprehend the world differently, and understand how others also see …

Authentic Assessment, Sinead Freeman, James Fox, Vanessa Murphy, Nicola Hughes

Practitioner Research Projects

No abstract provided.

Using Learning Preferences To Inform Module And Curriculum Design, Cormac Breen, David Mcdonnell, Paul Redmond, Aisling Mcgowan, Claire Wynne

Practitioner Research Projects

No abstract provided.

An Exploration Of The Effects On Programme Design And Development Effected By Educational Leadership In Reaction To Societal And Economic Factors In Ireland, Roisin Donnelly, Nuala Harding

Articles

It has affected many countries around the world, and Irish higher education has not found itself immune from undergoing a period of significant change, powered by a number of factors: economic, political, and technological. While these trends are global in their scope, and profound in their impact, the pace of change in the Irish economy since 2007-08 in particular has required institutions and their educational leaders to encourage the emergence of programmes which can respond to the current national needs. In periods of rapid change such as this, educational leaders by necessity tend to focus on short-term strategy and transition …

Mind Mapping: Overcoming Problems Of Writer Identity And Convention For Academic Writing By Student Collaboration, Carmel O'Reilly

Articles

This article will consider Mind Mapping as an eLearning tool for the enhancement of learning and assessment within the discipline of academic writing. Building on research which relates to the use of Mind Mapping by students of English as a foreign language (EFL), this article will reflect specifically on students taking a module in Applied Writing on a Mature Access Foundation Programme (MAFP), at Institution X. It goes on to explore existing research in order to highlight two key problems student writers have in common: firstly, writer identity and the affective domain of writing and second, the conventions of academic …

A Reflective Conversation: Community And Hei Perspectives On Community-Based Research., Niamh O'Reilly, Catherine Bates

Staff Articles and Research Papers

This paper is a reflective correspondence between a community partner and a community-based research coordinator in a higher education institute (HEI). We asked each other questions about our experience of collaborating on two community-based research (CBR) projects, in order to share our learning from our collaboration, and to relate this to the wider context in order to develop recommendations for others – community partners and HEI staff – who would like to initiate CBR projects in the future.

Promoting Student Engagement Within A Practical Class Through The Use Of A Learning Portfolio, Niall Delaney, John A. Nolan

Conference papers

This paper looks at an exploratory case-study undertaken to try and investigate student engagement within a practical wood machining class.

Due to the nature of the course and the cohort of students, the current lecturer pedagogic practice has to be behaviourist, but from this a culture of expectancy has developed among the students. It was felt that something had to be done to revitalise student interest in the work they were doing and also give them the chance to address the perceived shortfall in their learning. There was potential for a lot of failures, but also much worse, there was …

And Then There Were 10+: Reflections On A Decade Of Global Rankings, Ellen Hazelkorn

Conference Papers

No abstract provided.

Enhancing The Academic And Social Learning Of Irish Undergraduates Through Emotional And Social Skills Development., Aiden Carthy, Celesta Mccann, Sinead Mcgilloway, Colm Mcguinness

Articles

This paper considers the potential merits of emotional competency coaching for undergraduate students. We outline the findings from our previous work which showed, for example, that a sample of First Year undergraduate students failed to engage with coaching primarily because it was not a mandatory aspect of the curricula. An analysis of the National Framework of Qualifications (NFQ) - which details the specific learning outcomes that must be achieved by all Irish academic syllabi found that this framework makes scant reference to the development of social and emotional skills. Therefore, a revised working model of the NFQ is proposed, which …

Participants Perspective Of The Fas Redundant Placement Scheme, Maurice Collins, Robert Morris

Conference papers

The aim of this study is to gather and analyze feedback from participants of a scheme which was put in place in the early stages of the Irish economic recession to provide work placements to redundant Apprentices. As part of the research for this paper a series of qualitative interviews were conducted with partipancts of the FAS Redundant Apprentice Placement Scheme (RAPS). FAS is the authoriity which organises and administers the Statutory Apprentice Scheme in Ireland.The scheme detailed in this study was put in place to aid Apprentices who has been made redundant, to complete phases 3,5 and 7 of …

Supervising And Writing A Good Undergraduate Dissertation, Roisin Donnelly, John Dallat

Books/Book Chapters

The considerable increase in numbers of students required to complete undergraduate dissertations as part of their curricula demonstrates a clear need for supporting academic staff from a wide variety of disciplines in this area. There has been limited research published in the realm of postgraduate supervision. Therefore, supervision of academic dissertations in an undergraduate setting still remains to be addressed in a comprehensive manner. The overarching theme of this reference work is the convergence of shared understandings, strategies and reflections of undergraduate supervisors from around the world, from many different subject disciplines. There is also a need today for a …

Plagiarism Avoidance In Academic Submissions, Philip Cully

Other resources

The purpose of this paper is to provide undergraduate students with an introductory resource focusing on plagiarism avoidance. It sets out to identify often confusing associated nuances. From the perspective of paraphrasing, the requirements attaching to the necessary provision of proper citations are explored. The paper concludes by pondering the topic of reliability of sources.

Exploring Supports Provided For Student Eportfolio Development In A Professional Development Context, Muireann Okeeffe

Articles

This small scale study aimed to explore and establish if support strategies implemented to enhance student ePortfolios were helpful to students and to identify useful ways of supporting ePortfolio development with future cohorts of students. This action research study was informed through focus group discussion and individual interviews with students.

The importance of reflection for the development professional practice and of creative abilities is discussed. The substantial benefits of creativity within education are investigated and characteristics of creativity that might be developed with students’ ePortfolios are revealed. Specifically this paper seeks to foster Crafts (2011) four characteristics of creativity, pluralities, …

Supporting Professionalism In Educational Development In Irish Higher Education, Muireann Okeeffe

Articles

Higher education, in Ireland and globally, is undergoing profound change influenced by a variety of factors. In conjunction with these changes many initiatives to improve teaching and learning and the quality of graduates in higher education have been introduced in recent years. The changes and expansions in the sector has enabled growth of new roles in higher education described as ‘third space’ professionals by Whitchurch (2008).

This paper describes the struggle of those in third space professions, such as academic development, to establish a professional identity in higher education. The benefits of these contemporary roles to higher education are …