Teaching and Learning Projects and Research
Ireland's technological sector, combining the new technological universities and institute of technology, is launching the N-TUTORR program. This EU-backed effort, managed by the HEA, aims to enhance learning and development. It offers initiatives and tech support for students and staff. The program targets digital advancement, the Sustainable Development Goals, and inclusion. It seeks to boost education by leveraging digital tools. The goal is to make learning and teaching more effective for everyone.
Dr. Noelle Higgins, Dr. Niamh Plunkett, and Dr. Deirdre McClay lead the ATU Re-imagining Assessment Project. They've teamed up with the National Forum for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching and the N-TUTORR Transforming Learning project. Dr. Carina Ginty leads N-TUTORR. The project team worked with six ATU programs. They focused on Assessment, Feedback, and Academic Integrity. Their activities included data collection, events, a masterclass, and creating a resource directory. They also organized the Let's Talk about Assessment workshop. For more information, contact Emma.McDonald@atu.ie. the project's Research Assistant,
PATH 4 is an HEA-funded project to support targeted student groups through the implementation of UDL.
ATU is involved in several local, regional, and national projects that are aligned with PATH 4 funding:
- National Charter for Universal Design in Further and Higher Education
- ATU programme inclusivity audits
- National UDL workshops
- Designing a programme for students with intellectual disabilities at ATU
- National CPD course for university leaders
- ATU physical infrastructure improvements
- Partnerships with regional ETBs and FETs
In 2022/23 onwards, the Unlock initiative was funded for a phase 2 at ATU Donegal. The Unlock initiative aims to improve teaching, learning and engagement through learning analytics, student-staff partnership and co-designed interventions while ensuring sustainability. At the centre of all Unlock activities is a partnership model. This is evident in the promotion of the ‘Lets do this together’ approach whereby student and staff skills are valued and commended at each step in the evolution of the initiative.
The initiative focuses on four key elements:
1. Supporting academic units in identifying key areas for enhancing student success using data such as StudentSurvey.ie, and PGR StudentSurvey.ie. This was initially established through collaboration on programmatic, department and faculty level review reports.
2. Structured engagement with students to create a sense of ownership and understanding of studentsurvey.ie
3. Analysis of student responses within and across academic units based on consultation with academic units. This analysis took into account PGR student responses that have not been investigated at the institute before. Recurrent and key themes chosen in partnership from relevant learning analytics, such as StudentSurvey.ie and PGR StudentSurvey.ie, form the basis of staff-student co-designed Unlock initiatives supporting student success.
4. Implementing and evaluating further partnership initiatives.
Since 2023, the goal of Unlock has been to provide improved reporting on learning analytics to key stakeholders (senior management (e.g. academic council), teaching staff, support staff, and students) across each of the ATU campuses. Unlock was developed and has delivered an Unlock partnership model of effective engagement and co-design of Unlock initiatives to support student success with learning analytics. Unlock activities are shared through, presentation, publication and open science platforms to support initiative sustainability, transparency, reproducibility, evaluation, collaboration and growth.
The key activities to be/currently undertaken in 2023 are:
- Foster partnership with students, e.g. NTUTORR Student Champions, to ensure students are central to the co-design of all Unlock initiatives aimed at supporting student success across ATU.
- Lead analysis of national student surveys, i.e. studentsurvey.ie, and PGR StudentSurvey.ie. These findings will be disseminated to senior management (academic council) teaching staff, support staff, and students. This will be the first time this analysis and dissemination has occurred at an ATU wide level. This will form an important benchmark for future analysis and dissemination of these national student surveys for ATU.
- Key findings from the national student surveys, agreed in partnership with ATU management, staff, and students, will form the basis of the future design of staff-student Unlock initiatives aimed at ensuring student success across ATU.
- Support staff-led learning analytic initiatives aimed at improving key areas highlighted on the risk register to support student success, e.g. student retention.
- Support the design, analysis, and dissemination of ATU wide teaching & learning survey to better understand current teaching, & assessment practices across ATU, and the areas which the teaching & learning centre need to prioritise.
Open configuration options
Dr Catherine Jordan is a project officer with the ATU Donegal Teaching & Learning team, who is based in ATU Sligo. Catherine completed her PhD in psychology at the University of Edinburgh. Following her PhD, she completed two postdoctoral research fellowships, the first at the Global Brain Health Institute, Trinity College Dublin and the second at the School of Psychology, University College Dublin. Catherine also held teaching responsibilities at undergraduate & postgraduate level in the School of Psychology, UCD. Catherine has ongoing research collaborations with TCD & UCD. Currently, Catherine is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychology in UCD.
In her current role, Catherine is working with the teaching & learning teams across the ATU campuses. She primarily works on the Unlock Project with Dr Deirdre McClay (ATU Donegal), where she is leading the analysis of the studentsurvey.ie data. Catherine also supports other teaching and learning projects across the ATU campuses including a further learning analytics project (DAnIEL) led by Dr Etain Kiely and Dr Cormac Quigley Galway/Mayo campus.
Re-imagining Assessment:
The ATU Re-imagining Assessment Project is co-led by Dr Carina Ginty (ATU Galway-Mayo), Dr Niamh Plunkett and Gavin Clinch (ATU Sligo). and Dr Deirdre McClay (ATU Donegal). For further information on the project contact the project Research Assistant, Emma McDonald at emma.mcdonald@atu.ie. This project was supported by the National Forum for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching in Ireland under the SATLE fund.
Innovative Opportunities Transforming Education (iNOTE):
In January 2019, ATU was awarded a HEA Innovation in Teaching and Learning award to build digital capabilities in the region over 3 years. The iNOTE project provided opportunities to transform the higher education experience in ATU. The project included five work packages covering the development of quality assurance policies and procedures to enable digital learning; the development of a digital teaching and learning training programme and online education courses for all staff to build digital capabilities and pedagogic expertise, in order to design, deliver and support flexible, distance and e-learning programmes; the development of an online learning student support services model; design and development of three online learning programmes; and evaluation and dissemination of all project outputs across ATU.
The PASS program is based on the Supplemental Instruction (SI) method. It started in 1973 at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. SI has proved effective in enhancing student learning. It aims to improve performance, boost retention, and ease the leap from secondary and tertiary education. PASS also enhances the skills of student leaders, thus making them more employable.
The program at ATU supports first-year students in various ways. It helps them adapt to university life quickly. Additionally, it enhances their research, study, and teamwork skills. It also ensures they understand their course requirements well, and it prepares them for assessments.
PASS Leaders, the program's volunteers, gain valuable skills. These include mentoring, leadership, and time management.
For more information, visit the link or email pass.galwaymayo@atu.ie.
