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Letter from Cambodia
I have been in Cambodia for three weeks, mostly working with SeeBeyondBorders, an NGO working to develop teaching capability in early grade primary schools. Cambodia is a country of contrasts. The people here are among the most friendly you will ever meet and yet they were subjected to a terrible genocide in the last decades of the 20th Century. The countryside is flat, characterised by jungle, rice fields and Asian cattle wandering the roadsides. And yet there is a vibrancy in the towns and cities like Siem Reap, Phnom Penh and Battambang. Everywhere you see the juxtaposition of the traditional and the modern. The banking system is good and you…
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Every Child Should Have a Good Teacher
The Value of Education It’s easy to overlook the obvious. We assume that childhood and schooling go hand in hand and you can’t have one without the other. Our experience during the pandemic reinforced our appreciation of the value of education. More than ever, we regard schools as fundamental to the proper functioning of society and teachers as essential workers. Why do we place such a high value on the quality of education especially for the young? Most would say that it’s obvious; our children deserve to be nurtured and developed so they can be successful and fulfil their potential as people. Children love to learn as much as they…
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International Women’s Day: Maria Edgeworth’s Ideas on Education
As today is International Women's Day, I thought it appropriate to draw attention to the contribution of Irish woman and novelist, Maria Edgeworth to educational thinking in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century.
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Blended not Scrambled – How Learning Happens by Design
We are living through a new iteration of the Digital World. The COVID-19 Pandemic has triggered unprecedented challenges for education. Students cannot get to class in the numbers, configurations and durations that were previously available. The role of the teacher has changed – changed utterly. To quote Yeats, “a terrible beauty is born”. Blended learning is here to stay. There are few positives to be gleaned from the awful circumstances in which we find ourselves. The trauma caused by the forced imposition of deep structural changes to education delivery should not be underestimated. Many students and teachers have struggled with the transition and many are left behind. However, we also…
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An Open Letter to Students Sitting Exams
Dear Writers, I know this can be a difficult and anxious time for students sitting examinations in college. The exam system is far from perfect and there are many valid criticisms of its ‘fitness-for-purpose’ and no doubt we will continue to improve how we assess learning in the future. However, like it or not you will soon be sitting in a controlled setting, for a limited time, to complete a previously unseen set of tasks related to your subject – in other words you will be taking an exam. So, here is some advice from the other side of the examination process – that of the college teacher tasked with…
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Reflection, Teaching Practice and Learning from Experience
Teaching practice or placement is one of the hallmarks of initial teacher education. As with many professions, the novice teacher is expected to learn through experience in an authentic setting. Student teachers are often required to write reflections on they have learned in placement. Many struggle with the task – wondering what actually constitutes reflective writing and why there is so much emphasis on the process of reflection. Many look to scholarship to provide answers and works by Dewey (1933, How We Think), Schön (1992, The Reflective Practitioner), Boud et al (1985, Reflection: Turning Experience Into Learning), Mezirow, (1990, Fostering Critical Reflection in Adulthood), Brookfield (2005, The Power of Critical…
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Reflections on 40 Years of Educational Technology
Completing the NCI National Forum for Teaching and Learning Index Survey caused me to reflect on my previous experiences with technology and education. On an October afternoon in 1981 in Theatre L in UCD, I placed a coin on the flat surface of an overhead projector and adjusted the lens to reveal a perfectly focused black disc on the giant screen. With that simple action I began my professional relationship with educational technology. Studying for the H-Dip in Education to qualify as a teacher, I was lucky enough to get part-time hours as an audiovisual demonstrator. The only downside was the cringe-worthy task of focusing the projector for the professor’s…
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Some Educational Insights from Confucius
While travelling in Vietnam I visited the Temple of Literature in Hanoi. Built in 1070, it is dedicated to Confucius sages and scholars. There are many beautiful and interesting features to the site. It is one of the oldest establishments dedicated to learning and scholarship. It is a place of worship as well as a place of learning. The design and layout reflect the ideals of Confucian education, introduced by the Chinese into Vietnam more than a thousand years ago. One of the biggest misconceptions of the Confucian approach to education is that it promoted rote learning and didactic teaching to the neglect of deep understanding, critical thinking and individual…
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College Teaching: How to let go of PowerPoint
It started as a means to an end. You wanted to do well in class but felt you couldn’t cope without additional support. “Don’t worry” you told yourself, “I can manage. I’ll just use a few. I’m not really dependent on them.” So you start with five, and then it becomes ten and before you know it your on 30 or more slides per class. Deep down you know you’re addicted. You may have full-blown PTS! Powerpoint Teaching Syndrome. Here are five indications to help your self-diagnosis of PTS: Preparation for each class is devoted exclusively to preparing powerpoint slides. You even say things like “that’s the first five…
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New to college teaching – here are some tips to get you going.
Well done! You’ve been appointed to teach a college module and you’re really looking forward to the experience. You know your topic and whilst you’re very confident about your expertise in your subject or discipline, you’re a little more apprehensive about your ability to teach. Like many other competences, effective college teaching involves a mix of knowledge, skills and disposition. There is certainly a continuum between the novice teacher (albeit subject expert) and the more experienced and accomplished teacher. The good news is that you have a lot going for you from the start. Subject expertise is a necessary but not a sufficient qualification for good teaching. Your in-depth understanding…
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Away with the fairies
Our ancestors realised that we cannot explain everything. We see only part of the world and there is more beyond our reach. Long ago young people had much to learn, dangers to be avoided, knowledge and skills to be acquired and lessons on how to survive and succeed. Wisdom resided in the old people but there were no schools of colleges. Stories were the backbone of learning and an important means of preserving culture and tradition.
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What makes a good teacher?
One of a series of questions to be explored at Essential Questions for Educators Everywhere open summer course National College of Ireland 26-30th of June 2017 eqfee.org ‘What makes a good teacher’ seems a simple question and you might expect a straight forward answer. However, the more you think about it the more you will realise that it is not so simple after all. For many years now, I have worked with students and teachers in different sectors and contexts. Over time we have developed an exercise to interrogate this question. The exercise is worthwhile for learning professionals everywhere. You can try this yourself. Start by thinking about your own…
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We Need New Stories in Education
The Seven Basic Plots is an interesting book by Christopher Booker, the main argument is clear from the title; we have a limited number of story lines and regardless of context or medium, we like the familiar, predictable and comforting. Fairytale, folklore, epic novels and modern film scripts all use variations of basic narrative structures; resilience in the face of onslaught, heroic journeys, monsters and dragons and of course, the struggles of good and evil. The argument is not unique, many thinkers have pointed to a form of collective intellectual comfort blanket. We welcome stories that reinforce pre-existing assumptions and avoid those that challenge our biased views and require re-jigging…
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Comments on the ‘Action Plan for Education 2016 -2019’
The Government’s new Action Plan for Education is a very welcome document that contains clear aspirations and detailed actions to be achieved over time. The overall vision is that we (Ireland) become the best education and training system in Europe. This is excellent news and like many others who work in education, I think it is a highly commendable goal; it is realistic and achievable and the Action Plan is an important statement of intent. In that spirit I would like to make some suggestions and identify areas of improvement. This is not to overlook all of the good stuff and positive actions contained therein. Rather, it is to contribute…
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We Need New Stories in Education
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Ready to Learn – Taking the First Step
Oh I was just wondering have you got a moment, I just want to ask you about something‘ she had arrived at NCI reception and they suggested I might meet with her. ‘No problem at all‘ I assured her while thinking how much I had to do that afternoon. Five minutes later she sat in my office. She was very nervous and I thought I noticed a slight trembling in her voice. Her name was Susan. ‘It’s like this‘ she said ‘I was thinking of doing a course here but I am not sure if I’d be able for it‘. She went on to tell me her story. She left…
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5 Reasons to Study for a Degree in Early Childhood Education and Care
5 Reasons to study for a degree in Early Childhood Education and Care
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Education, Lifelong Learning and the Transformation of Society
There is much anger in the world today. People rage against injustice and inequality. Tempers flair as we struggle to protect the planet. Societies change and evolve and our values are transformed over time. Many practices such as slavery, colonialism and capital punishment were deemed acceptable in the past and considered abhorrent by today’s standards. Our current laws on discrimination and tolerance were hard fought and did not come about without argument and persuasion. Even with these, we know there is still much to do. The progressive process of transforming values in society is essentially an educative endeavour. Consider how our collective values have changed, even in the course of,…
