AISHE-J - The All Ireland Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education
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The World is our Oyster: The Benefits of International Experiences in Higher Education
No full textCOVID-19 imposed limitations on international travel for all of society. In academia, this has impacted on the ability of staff and students to participate in international conferences, Erasmus exchange and mobility programmes and other international activities that had been part of their Higher Education experience. In this paper, we critically reflect on two international activities that we were involved in with students and highlight how a number of benefits and experiences cannot be replicated in virtual contexts. To this end we draw from previous reflections by staff and students that formed part of a number of small research projects and presentations that resulted from international travel. This has informed the planning for and design of extra-curricular activities, as well as programme development in our institution. For music graduates seeking to develop a career in performance or engage in interdisciplinary teams, international experiences and cultural competencies prepare them for a career in the global industries. Despite the impact of COVID-19 restrictions on international travel this paper highlights the ongoing potential of international projects to impact positively on staff and students’ experience in Higher Education
Medical Education During COVID-19: A Student Perspective
No full textThis short article discusses the impact of the COVID-19 public health guidelines on final medical examinations from the perspective of a student and argues for greater engagement with online learning in medical education
Trust in Science: Developing a Learning Environment to enable Public Understanding and Support for Evidence-based Information for Senior Secondary School Students and Students in Higher Education: Identifying early design principles in times of COVID-19
No full textDrawing upon international, multidisciplinary expertise and the experience of participation in a pan-European hackathon, the authors describe the development and implementation of an online learning environment. Their hackathon project, named “Trust in Science”, recognised the importance of confidence in academic knowledge in the context of current societal transformations and constitutes an extension of education on the processes and principles of research integrity (RI). RI is described here as the quality of honest and verifiable methods and adherence to professional norms in research. The authors participated in the hackathon in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the consequent suspension of classroom education. The emerging principles presented in this report may have more general application in current educational transitions
An Overview of the Redevelopment of a Computer Science Support Centre and the Associated Pedagogy Impacts
No full text“Support Centres” are a form of intervention, particularly prevalent in Ireland and the UK through which undergraduate students interact with one or more tutors who help them with their studies. They primarily exist in the Mathematics and Computer Science fields. These centres tend to be remedial, in general aiming to improve the knowledge of struggling students, while also offering additional material to students looking for more of a challenge.
The Computer Science Centre at Maynooth University is a drop-in tutoring service which provides free tutoring to students, primarily of programming modules, in the first and second year of their degree. This service has been running in our Computer Science department since 2012. In the 2019-2020 academic year, two full time tutors were hired to refocus and improve the centre. This resulted in the creation of a redevelopment plan and relaunch of the centre, which will be presented in this paper.
The results of this redevelopment were very promising with the attendance of the centre increasing by over 800% compared to the 2018-2019 academic year. The students who did attend the centre also performed better on average than those students who did not attend the centre in their first-year undergraduate programming modules. An analysis of data relating to students visits to the centre will be presented and discussed.
This paper discusses in detail the redevelopment within the centre and the work carried out by these tutors in their first year, while also presenting future plans for the centre. Guidelines are presented on managing an effective support centre (through our redevelopment plan and support methods), with the hope that more institutions in both Ireland and abroad will consider supporting their students with this methodology
Practical recommendations on the production of video teaching resources
No full textInstructional videos are widely used and potentially highly effective and flexible teaching tools. They are increasingly employed in practical skills training in the fields of science and healthcare. However, educators may struggle to source suitable videos demonstrating safe and suitable techniques. In addition, academic staff may lack the resources and expertise needed to produce and edit effective video in-house. This article provides an overview of the planning, shooting, editing and sharing of video footage to produce effective teaching resources. The aim is to provide guidance for academic staff who wish to develop customised teaching videos and successfully integrate them into their teaching
Socially Distanced Higher Education: Redesigning Progress
No full textThe social distancing measures developed as an attempt to control the Covid-19 outbreak have had a major, long lasting effect on every aspect of society. Higher Education was dramatically affected by these social distancing measures, leading to the closure of campuses around the globe and the move to continue facilitating student learning online. In order to develop a Higher Education system in a future where the results of Covid-19 will be long lasting in our society, we require insight into the priorities of the Higher Education Institution as a whole. Here, we present a small sample of staff and student experiences of teaching and learning during the Covid-19 lockdown. Through their experiences, we see that the Higher Education Institution continued to ensure functional progress of students and staff during the lockdown; however, other equally important forms of progress were not prioritised. We argue that as we move into the future of Higher Education, it is vital that any changes made to the system take into account the ability for students to make functional, social and emotional progress through their studies
My Experience of Contracting COVID-19 and Online Learning
No full textThis article will reflect on my personal experience of contracting COVID-19 while adapting to online learning of third level education. Throughout this piece, the difficulties that students were faced with while adapting to the online learning environment will be discussed, alongside my own experience
The potential of Design Thinking to enable change in Higher Education
No full textOver the past decade, design thinking had gained increasing attention from practitioners and academics from across many sectors and disciplines for its ability to foster innovation and tackle complex challenges. The approach has been defined as a “human-centered approach to innovation that puts the observation and discovery of often highly nuanced, even tacit, human needs right at the forefront of the innovation process” (Gruber et al., 2015). While there is increasing evidence that design thinking delivers value to firms trying to innovate and to societies trying to make change happen (Liedtka, 2018), there is little evidence that Higher Education has embraced the approach to the same extent as many other public, private and 3rd sector organisations.
Prior to the emergence of Covid-19 and the restrictions and disruption it brought about, Higher Education was facing many challenges. Now, as we begin to return to campuses, there is a growing pressure on institutions to respond, innovate and transform in order to tackle the growing list of new and existing operational challenges, the imminent threat of disruption and to meet the explicit and unarticulated needs of its staff and students. In this article we argue that design thinking could offer an inclusive approach to innovation and transformation, one that institutions can utilise to begin to address these complex challenges, improve stagnant processes and ensure sustainability over time. Change can only happen if institutions are able to motivate, build creative confidence and give permission to staff and students to take action. We argue that they need empower staff with the skills, attitudes and abilities necessary to identify and tackle challenges, and move into an uncertain space where the core skills and mindsets of design thinking : empathy, humility, creativity, experimentation and a bias towards action offer the opportunity to design that change. We suggest a set of design principles that could help begin this process.
COVID-19 ‘Targets’ the National Access Plan
No full textAbstract.
This reflective piece examines the articulation of the vision presented in the National Plan for Equity of Access to Higher Education (NAP) in the context of the educational challenges faced by the target groups arising from the Covid-19 emergency. In addition, the piece aims to identify those who are outside the current NAP and make recommendations to address issues identified. For many of those identified as part of the plan, their educational experience changed overnight and brought with it both challenges and opportunities. As the pandemic impacted the lives of all it became apparent that others who were outside the NAP should be given a chance for their voices to be heard. The next plan needs to reflect the immediate and longer-term impact of the changes that have been experienced in education and give voice to a wider target group