For Students
How to be successful as a college student
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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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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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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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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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Getting to Grips with Academic Writing
Yikes ! I can’t write this assignment! Some students find it difficult to get to grips with academic writing tasks. Whereas they often understand key concepts associated with an assignment or task they find it very difficult to express these in writing. The problem can lead to stress and frustration on all sides as written assessments may not be seen as a fair measure of student learning outcomes. Of course every person is unique and it is not always easy to provide good advice for all situations; that said, I have noticed similarities in the challenges students face and so I hope the advice I provide below can be of…
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New Learning and Education Degrees at National College of Ireland
I am delighted to introduce two new degree programmes at NCI the BA (Honours) in Early Childhood Education and the BA (Honours) in Adult and Workforce Education. These are new awards developed by our team to address the growing interest in education at all stages of life and in all contexts. An important idea underpinning our approach to learning is that education is not confined to school. We learn so much in early childhood that stays with us throughout life and likewise when our school years are over we continue to learn as we progress through our career and meet the challenges of our lifespan. It is natural to learn.…
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Getting to Grips with Academic Writing
