As a Geary Institute Fellow, I bring an education-focused perspective to interdisciplinary research, particularly at the intersection of digital literacy, youth empowerment, and public policy.
Power2Progress has had a transformative impact on the lives of 700 senior cycle students in participating DEIS schools in the Leinster region. The DEIS (Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools) scheme, introduced in 2005, provides additional resources to schools with high numbers of students at risk of educational disadvantage.
The provision by Power2Progress (P2P) of small-group tutorials, in subjects chosen by participating students, coupled with mentoring and career guidance support, has significantly impacted this cohort of students’ academic engagement, sense of self-efficacy, and progression to further and higher education. The provision of a dedicated laptop to all 700 students, which will remain with participating schools in perpetuity, has transformed their digital infrastructure and contributed to a more effective teaching and learning environment at a whole school level. The overall impact of P2P has had a ripple effect not only across the participating schools but also into the wider communities serving DEIS schools.
Primary and post-primary from schools all over Ireland visited the O'Reilly Hall for a celebration of the work undertaken by students and teachers who participated in the SFI/DoE Busting Gender Bias in Computer Science and Cyber Security initiative and the Shared Island Civic Society Fund initiave entitled A Shared Island Forum for Nurturing Secure Climate Futures through Cybersecurity and Environmental Resilience Education. The event was attended by Minister of State Ossian Smyth and UCD Registrar and Deputy President Professor Colin Scott.
COMMITTEE MEMBERSHIP
Student Fitness to Practice Policy Review Working Group
As Director of the Centre for Cyber Resilience Education, I collaborate with the ADAPT Centre to amplify key messages around cybersecurity education and promote the responsible use of generative AI.
As a member of the VIRTUE Network (Virtual Reality Teachers United in Europe), I engage with a dynamic community of educators and researchers to exlore immersive technology in education.
Schools visit to O'Reilly Hall to demonstrate their projects to Minister Ossian Smyth. SFI ADAPT AI or Art? outreach and ran taster session of ADAPT AI in My Life transition year programme for teachers.
The UCD Fellowships in Teaching & Academic Development are part of an institutional development structure to encourage a greater number of faculty to focus on advancing university-wide enhancement in teaching and learning through strategic policy/practice-based research. The fellowships offer a mechanism to recognise and reward individuals for these contributions. Fellows are selected through a competitive process.
The fellowship scheme aims to identify and develop faculty with both the pedagogic expertise and the leadership capacity to effect transformational change in teaching, learning and assessment practices both in discipline-specific areas and thematically, across the institution.
The work of the Fellows in Teaching & Academic Development is focused on areas of strategic importance to the university and is informed by a scholarly approach to the enhancement of teaching and learning and UCD’s curricular structures and practices. Fellowship activities are informed by international research and experts in the field.
Fellowship appointments for 2023-25 are for a period of 24 months, commencing in January 2024 and ending in December 2025. Eight Fellowships were awarded, allowing for the formation of two Fellowship research teams to address the themes:
Embedding Employability in the Curriculum through Work-Integrated Learning
Engagement through Partnership: Students as Partners in Teaching & Learning
The Challenge-Based Learning Day, held in October 2023, immersed students in the critical societal issue of cybersecurity and its connection to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This event aimed to deepen student’s; understanding of cybersecurity’s impact on various aspects of life and its essential role in achieving sustainable development. Through hands-on, collaborative activities, students explored the multifaceted nature of cybersecurity threats and solutions, examining how these intersect with goals such as Quality Education, Industry Innovation and Infrastructure, and Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions. The day fostered critical thinking, problem-solving, and innovation, equipping students with practical strategies to address cybersecurity challenges while contributing to a more secure and sustainable future.
University College Dublin has a national and international reputation for educational excellence thanks to its community of highly committed faculty and staff. The University celebrates the achievements of colleagues who make an outstanding contribution in the pursuit of teaching excellence and the enhancement of student learning through Teaching and Learning Awards. The scope of these awards is broad, covering all aspects of teaching and learning, and seek to:
Highlight the value and importance that the University places on high quality teaching, learning, assessment and curriculum design
Provide recognition for teaching excellence
Showcase and share exemplary and innovative practice
Encourage scholarly activity and leadership in teaching and learning.
The Teaching Excellence Awards recognise individual faculty and staff in teaching roles for sustained commitment to teaching excellence and student learning.
https://www.ucd.ie/teaching/awardsgrantsfellowships/awards/
Primary and post-primary from schools over Ireland visited the O'Brien Centre for Science for a celebration of the work undertaken by students and teachers participating in the piloting of the primary school modules and Junior Cycle short course on cybersecurity.
About the Teaching and Learning Awards
Introduction
University College Dublin has a national and international reputation for educational excellence thanks to its community of highly committed faculty and staff. The University celebrates the achievements of colleagues who make an outstanding contribution in the pursuit of teaching excellence and the enhancement of student learning through Teaching and Learning Awards. The scope of these awards is broad, covering all aspects of teaching and learning, and seek to:
Highlight the value and importance that the University places on high quality teaching, learning, assessment and curriculum design
Provide recognition for teaching excellence
Showcase and share exemplary and innovative practice
Encourage scholarly activity and leadership in teaching and learning.
Award Information
There are two award schemes:
Teaching Excellence Awards recognise individual faculty and staff in teaching roles for sustained commitment to teaching excellence and student learning.
Awards for Exceptional Contribution to Learning recognise individual UCD employees, engaged directly in teaching and or facilitating student learning, for their exceptional contribution to the enhancement of the learner experience. Examples of employees that this award may apply to include tutors, teaching assistants and laboratory demonstrators, occasional lecturers, fieldwork instructors, teaching fellows, clinical tutors, language assistants/instructors, researchers, career & skills consultants, educational technologists, librarians, technical officers and entrepreneurial specialists. This is not an exhaustive list. UCD faculty are not eligible to apply for this award.
Both schemes are tiered with awards at College and University level. College level awards will be valued at €500 and will be paid to the recipients' school/unit to be spent by the awardees on career development or teaching enhancement activity. University level awards will be valued at €1,500, and will be paid to the recipients' school/unit to be spent by the awardees on career development or teaching enhancement activity. University awardees will also receive an engraved piece of glassware. Awardees will be celebrated both within their colleges and at a University celebration event. Applications from staff outside college structures will be managed by a special adjudication panel.
PERSONAL AWARD, PRIZE, HONOUR
UCD Values in Action Award 2022
30 Nov 2022
the Values in Action (VIA) awards celebrate individuals or teams/committees who act as ambassadors for the UCD Values through their daily work, volunteering or establishing initiatives that bring the UCD Values to life. The awards were established by the Employee Engagement Network.
For the 2022 awards, 39 submissions nominating 23 individuals or teams were received. The adjudication committee has awarded 10 UCD VIAs, out of the pool of high quality nominations that captured the diverse achievements of colleagues to bring our shared values of Collegiality, Creativity, Diversity, Engagement, Excellence and Integrity to life.
The Adjudication Committee was chaired by Prof. Joe Carthy, Chair, UCD Employee Engagement Network; Assoc. Prof. Niamh Pattwell, previous VIA recipient, UCD School of English, Drama and Film; Andrea Forde, previous VIA recipient, UCD Agile; Rory Carey, Director Culture & Engagement; and Mark Simpson, Culture & Engagement.
Recipient: Dr Rachel Farrell
Unit: UCD School of Education
Nominator: Niamh Byrne McKenna
Rachel Farrell is being recognised for the values of engagement, creativity, diversity and collegiality demonstrated through her work to support Ukrainian refugees.
During the summer of 2022, Rachel helped empower Ukrainian refugees to have a voice through language acquisition support and development. She voluntarily gathered a team together to deliver English language classes three evenings each week on the Belfield Campus, accommodating some 350 people since May 2022.
In addition, to help those Ukrainian families living on the UCD campus during the summer, she sourced funding and organised multiple day trips to places such as Powerscourt, Glendalough and Tayto Park. This was a very welcome distraction for those families who were struggling with having left members behind in Ukraine.
Rachel continued to demonstrate her creativity and collegiality by successfully applying to The Community Foundation for Ireland, receiving €20,000 to help fund activities, delivered with UCD in the Community, to include moving classes online to facilitate those who cannot travel to campus.
Rachel has worked continually to encourage and engage members of the UCD community to come together to help others in their time of need and in doing so building a more diverse UCD community.
UCD School of Education and College of Science in association with Professional Development Service for Teachers (PDST) hosted the EDI in STEM Shared Learning Day with the theme of 'Look See What I Can Be' on Wednesday 1st June 2022 in the O'Brien Centre for Science, UCD. Over 600 students from 22 Primary Schools around the country attended and showcased their work on the project. They were addressed by Professor Jeremy Simpson, College Principal & Dean of Science, Realtín Berry, PDST Primary STEM Team Leader, Arushi Doshi, Cyber Risk Services in Deloitte Ireland LLP and Captain Sinead Harrison from the Irish Defence Forces. The students then had the opportunity to engage in a variety of STEM-related workshops, such as Learn-It, Beebots, Microbits from Microsoft, Vex Robotics and Schoo VR.
John Coolahan Award 2021
12 May, 2021Coolahan Awards, Published Reports, News
In recognition of John’s contribution to the foundation of SCoTENS, the John Coolahan award is made to the authors of the Seed Funding Report which is recognised to be most in line with the values and ideals of SCoTENS. This award is awarded annually at the SCoTENS Annual Conference.
Through his pioneering work on SCoTENS since 2003 John immeasurably enhanced cross-border cooperation in teacher education, such that the SCoTENS mission is synonymous with his name. Thanks to John’s vision, teacher educators, student teachers, serving teachers and doctoral students have learned to work across boundaries, to build bridges and to recognise common interests and challenges facing contemporary education on both sides of the border. The opportunities provided for cross-border working through SCoTENS have yielded new knowledge and understandings that shape daily practices and attitudes.
This year’s John Coolahan Award presentation took place as part of the Research Webinar held in March 2021. Prof Linda Clarke, Ulster University, Coleraine awarded the successful seed funded project Readiness and Practice to Teach and Learn in a Digital World (RAP) to Pamela Cowan, Queen’s University Belfast (Lead Partner: North) Martin Brown, Dublin City University (Lead Partner: South) Stephen Roulston, Ulster University and Rachel Farrell, University College Dublin
https://scotens.org/site/wp-content/uploads/RAP-Report.pdf
This project was motived by the systematic absence of women in narratives around STEM. There is some consensus among social scientists that negative stereotyping has deterred women from choosing science as a career. Furthermore, research suggests that for young women to pursue a career in this area, they must believe in the importance of STEM and believe in their ability to succeed in these subjects.
Storytelling plays a central role in fostering and deepening students’ empathy and their overall engagement in wider society, and this is critical to their long-term engagement with STEM. The aim of this research was to develop and strengthen interest in and attitudes towards STEM subjects among young girls from disadvantaged backgrounds, as they are currently less likely to pursue STEM-related study beyond school, and are generally under-represented in the field.
Funded by Science Foundation Ireland in 2018, and supported by the Professional Development for Teachers, Professor Harford and Dr Farrell worked with a range of primary and post-primary schools, exploring girls’ attitudes towards STEM and possibilities for increasing their engagement with it.
This initiative contributed to the lives of 1,000 pupils in participating disadvantaged schools in Leinster. It has made STEM-related subjects more meaningful and accessible to this underrepresented group, and it has made them more confident about pursuing the study of such subjects in post-primary education and beyond. See https://www.girlsinstem.ie/
I am the Director of Education for SchooVR where I have pedagogical oversite of resource development for immersive experiences linked to the Irish curriculum.
To mark the end of the SFI Discover Programme funded project Girls in DEIS Schools: Impacting Futures/Changing Attitudes in STEM, a Shared Learning Day was held in the O'Brien Centre for Science in UCD and was attended by all of the participating students, teachers, PME student teachers and representatives from all of the partner organisations. Ms Sabina Higgins openend the event and Professor Joe Carthy , Professor Keith Murphy and Dr Sharon Shannon facilitated sessions on various aspects of the role of women in science for all participants to enjoy. The students also had an opportunity to showcase their projects and discuss them with all stakeholders.
As a member of the ANGEL (Academic Network on Global Education & Learning) Network, I contribute to international dialogue and research on global education and learning for sustainability.
