1. Headlines
 LIN 2012 Call for abstracts
 Update on LIN funded projects
 Feature article on teaching and learning in DIT
LIN 2012 Call for Abstracts
The 5th Learning Innova- themes of the conference mitted online here: http://
In this issue:
tion Network (LIN) Annual for either oral presenta- lin2012.exordo.com
Conference takes place on tions or posters. We are
Headlines 1
11th October 2012 in the particularly interested in The closing date for re-
Ashling Hotel, Dublin, Ire- papers that reflect prac- ceipt of abstracts is June
land. LIN, a sectoral pro- tice and issues of interest 22nd 2012. Abstracts will
ject, is the network of ac- to lecturers. be peer-reviewed and you LIN 2012 Call for 1
ademic professionals will know by 6th Septem- Abstracts
from higher education The opening session of ber if your presentation
that support academic the conference will be has been accepted. Keynote Speaker 2
professional development presented by Ewan McIn-
(APD) for staff in the Insti-
tosh, (http:// If your abstract is accept-
tutes of Technology and www.notosh.com/about/) ed LIN retains the right to
DIT. The LIN conference who will consider innova- make final minor edits. LIN Fund Project 2
provides a forum to dis- tions that are occurring in update
cuss practice and theory education currently and We look forward to re-
in higher education. how these could be uti- ceiving the abstracts and Eye on DIT 3
lised in higher education to an interesting and stim-
The conference theme is in Ireland. ulating conference.
Inspiring Creativity, Inno-
vation and Change in The keynote speaker is Important dates: Events 11
Higher Educa- Lord David Puttnam. 22nd June 2012: Deadline
tion. Abstracts are now for the Submission of Ab-
being accepted for post- Abstract Submission stracts
ers and oral presentations Abstracts being submitted 6th September 2012: No-
for each of the three sub- for consideration to this tification of acceptance of
themes: conference must be sub- presentation
 Creativity mitted on the abstract 5th October 2012: Sub-
 Innovation template (http:// mission of Presentations
 Change lin2012.exordo.com/data/ 11th October 2012: Con-
We are seeking abstracts message_attachments/3/ ference
(300 words maximum) on Abstract_Template.docx).
each on the three sub- All abstracts must be sub-

2. LIN 2012 Keynote Speaker—Lord David Puttnam (Queensgate) C.B.E.
David Puttnam spent thirty years 2002. From July 2002 to July organisations.
as an independent producer of 2009 he was president of UNICEF
award-winning films including The UK, playing a key role in pro- In 2007 he served as Chairman of
Mission, The Killing Fields, Local moting UNICEF’s key advocacy and the Joint Parliamentary Committee
Hero, Chariots of Fire, Midnight awareness objectives. on the Draft Climate Change Bill,
Express, Bugsy Malone and Mem- having performed the same role on
phis Belle. His films have won ten David is the present Chancellor of the 2002 Communications Bill. He
Oscars, 25 Baftas and the Palme the Open University, following ten has also been Chairman of two Han-
D'Or at Cannes. years as Chancellor of The Univer- sard Society Commission Reports on
sity of Sunderland. He is Presi- the relationship between Parliament
From 1994 to 2004 he was Vice dent of the Film Distributors’ Asso- and the Public; he serves as Senior
President and Chair of Trustees at ciation, Chairman of North Music Non-Executive Director on two pub-
the British Academy of Film & Tel- Trust (The Sage Gateshead), Depu- lic companies.
evision Arts (BAFTA) and was ty Chairman of Profero and a trus-
awarded a BAFTA Fellowship in tee of the Eden Project. David was awarded a CBE in 1982, a
2006. knighthood in 1995 and was ap-
He was Deputy Chairman of Chan- pointed to the House of Lords in
He retired from film production in nel 4 Television from 2006 until 1997. In France he was made a
1998 to focus on his work in public January 2012. He was founding Chevalier of the Order of Arts and
policy as it relates to education, Chair of the National Endowment Letters in 1985, becoming an Officer
the environment, and the 'creative for Science, Technology and the in 1992, and a Commander in
and communications' indus- Arts (NESTA) and for ten years 2006. He has been the recipient of
tries. In 1998 he founded the Na- chaired the National Museum of more than 40 honorary degrees
tional Teaching Awards, which he Photography, Film and Televi- from Universities in the UK and
chaired until 2008, also serving as sion. He has also served as a trus- overseas.
the first Chair of the General tee of the Tate Gallery, the Sci-
Teaching Council from 2000 to ence Museum and many other
Update on LIN funded projects
In January of this year the Learning and reusable learning re- sources.
Innovation Network (LIN) provided sources on criteria based as-  The 5th annual LIN confer-
funds for 9 projects that focussed sessment, generic skills in ence, which will host a key-
on teaching and learning and which higher education and aca- note address from Lord David
reflected the LIN values. These pro- demic professional develop- Puttnam and will be used to
jects are now underway and are ment. For upcoming webi- showcase the outputs from
progressing well. The expected nars please visit http:// the LIN project since it began.
outputs from these projects are: www.linireland.com/events/
 The development of two new moodle-webinars.html. We are also planning to carry out
LIN modules; one online/  Presentations from leading an external evaluation of the LIN
blended module on research- educational experts such as project.
ing educational practice and Ron Barnett, Stella Cottrell,
one focussing on teaching Mick Healey and Jude Carroll Strong collaboration has been cen-
students with special educa- to stimulate discussion tral to the success of the LIN project
tional needs. Both of these around some of the challeng- since 2007 and this work continues
modules will be incorporated es that face higher educa- and enhances that collaborative
intof the existing LIN frame- tional practitioners today ethos.
work. such as enhancing the learner
 The production of a number experience and teaching a
of case studies, teaching ma- more diverse group of stu-
terials, exemplars, webinars dents with restricted re-
Page 2 May 2012

3. on
Background
The DIT Learning, Teaching & Tech- Technology Team (LTT) in 2002, teaching and learning in DIT. Work-
nology Centre (LTTC) was estab- various SIF funded posts, an NDLR ing with new academic staff, as well
lished in 1999 as the Learning, institutional coordinator and ILTA as established staff who wish to
Teaching Centre (LTC) at 14 Upper operations Officer. In 2009 the LTT develop their careers, deepen their
Mount Street. The original aim of merged with the LTC to become the teaching abilities and improve their
the LTC was to develop, support Learning Teaching & Technology students’ learning experiences, the
and facilitate good teaching and Centre. Centre provides a rich seam of ex-
learning practices across the six fac- Over the past ten+ years, the Cen- pertise, resources and information
ulties of DIT. Since then, staff num- tre has aimed to raise the profes- about higher education, learning
bers have increased and decreased sionalism, visibility, and status of and teaching, eLearning and aca-
as we have welcomed the Learning demic professional development.
In the last 12 months, we have won 3 awards!
In March 2011 we were September saw us come The Dublin eLearning
presented with an award joint second place for the Summer School won
by the Irish Institute of 2011 ALT Learning Tech- first prize at the UCISA
Training & Development nologist of the Year awards in December,
(IITD) for our MA pro- Award. as the best practice case study in
gramme co-designed with the Law engaging with academics in the use
Society. of technology enhanced learning.
Learning & Teaching Events
One of the first events we organ- “Broadening the Curriculum” and, meant to them sparked a valuable
ised in May following a wide discussion on how DIT might ap-
2000 was the variety of presen- proach this challenge.
DIT Showcase of tations, work- The keynote presentation was given
Learning and shops, and mod- by Dr. Kelly Coate from NUI Gal-
Teaching inno- erated poster ses- way. Her presentation was entitled
vations. This sions detailing a “The Curriculum and the Limits of
one-day event, wealth of innova- Imagination” and challenged
now held annu- tive projects hap-
attendees to consider what the con-
ally in January,
highlights inno- cept of ‘curriculum’ actually
vative practices means, what its purpose is,
in teaching and and how it should be
learning across shaped (and by whom) be-
the DIT. It also provides an oppor- pening around fore deciding whether it is
tunity for staff from across the insti- the institute, a ‘fit-for-purpose’ in the 21st
tute’s several sites to meet and ex- 15 minute Century. http://www.dit.ie/
change ideas in an informal and voxpop clip of lttc/events/
informative manner. DIT colleagues giving their thoughts ditannualshowcase/
This year, the central theme was on what broadening the curriculum
Page 3 May 2012

4. eLearning at DIT
It’s now ten years since DIT estab- the digital age. The use of infor- providing both telephone support
lished its elearning mation and support online. Now, over 90%
initiative in earnest, and com- of programmes have an online com-
rolling out WebCT as ponent, with almost 2,000 modules
its Virtual Learning active in Blackboard CE8™being
Environment of accessed by over 800 staff and
choice and setting 17,600 students, transferring an
itself the goal of hav- average of 17.92 GB of data a day.
ing a virtual presence This high level of activity generated
for 50% of its under- 3,700 elearning-related queries
graduate programmes by 2005. The munication technologies to support from staff in the academic year
mainstreaming of that three-year and enhance interactions for learn- 2010/11, a level of demand exceed-
project and the subsequent estab- ing is now firmly established, and ed in the following academic year
lishment of the Learning, Teaching the LTTC is recognised for the quali- with 3,975 support calls being dealt
and Technology Centre (LTTC) indi- ty of its workshops (http:// with already by the end of March
cated DIT’s wholehearted commit- www.dit.ie/lttc/ ), seminars, webi- 2012! September and October are
ment to supporting staff in develop- nars, one-to-one and one-to-many the busiest months followed by
ing their knowledge and skills for consultation sessions, and for February, reflecting the modular-
10 years of the eLearning Summer School!
This week was were streamed and archived online.
year, a resound- Feedback showed that the week
the ing success had exceeded expectations for 65%
UCISA award win- and since of the participants, that 100% of
ning 10th eLearning then has them found the elearning summer
Summer School will become a school a worthwhile experience, a
run from June 18-22. permanent good use of their time, and they
DIT have been feature in would recommend it to a colleague.
hosting the week DIT’s aca- Participants now have the option of
long eLearning Sum- demic cal- earning 5 ECTS credits through an
mer School since endar. To associated DIT module. It is envis-
2003. Initially, it was conceived as a date it has been attended by almost aged that this course will provide
way to provide WebCT training for 500 academic staff from across the the participants with the time and
DIT staff who had missed work- Dublin region and beyond. space in which to immerse them-
shops during the academic year but selves completely in both existing
it quickly morphed into more of an 2010 saw the eLearning Summer and emerging learning technolo-
‘event’. That 1st summer school School expand to become the first gies. The finalised programme will
ever Dublin eLearning Summer soon be available from:
School under the auspices of the http://www.dit.ie/lttc/
Dublin Region Higher Education
Alliance (DRHEA). Approximately 50
staff representing the eight Higher
Education Institutes in the wider
Dublin area worked together that
year forging links, fostering collabo-
ration across the institutes, and
stimulating thought towards a vi-
sion for elearning in the Dublin re-
gion. Twitter was introduced for the
first time and the main sessions
Volume 1, Issue 1 Page 4

5. LTTC PG programmes, APDs and workshops
We aim to offer ‘leading-edge post- grammes. Essential to this is the
graduate programmes relevant to high-quality experience for partici-
learning, teaching and eLearning’. pants, which requires an environ-
We believe we have begun the jour- ment that fosters critical inquiry as
ney of providing a tradition of well as innovation and creativity,
scholarly, diverse, exciting and re- and we believe we deliver on this
warding learning environments score. Our current suite of pro-
across our postgraduate pro-
grammes includes the Postgraduate
Diploma in Third Level Learning and
Teaching, the MA in Higher Educa-
tion, and MSc in Applied eLearning.
There are limited spaces left for
September 2012 http://www.dit.ie/
lttc/programmes/
PG Diploma in Third-Level Learning and Teaching
Our Diploma aims to enable teach- ways been the practitioner focus. sess a teaching qualification, or
ers to be effective, competent prac- Since its inception as a Postgradu- equivalent, are required to under-
titioners by providing them with a ate Certificate in 2000, 224 partici- take the programme. As part of our
range of skills and knowledge to pants have successfully completed Centre review process, we asked
design, deliver and evaluate educa- the Programme. Currently we have graduates to indicate whether the
tion programmes that can meet the 32 participants enrolled on this pro- programme had impacted upon
needs of an increasing diverse stu- gramme. Effective from 1 March their teaching practice:
dent population. One of the 2006, all new academic staff ap-
strengths of this Diploma has al- pointed to the DIT who do not pos-
My teaching style has altered dramatically after completing Since completing the course I have found that my teach-
the PG Dip. I have become more reflective; taking time to ac- ing has become more student centred. Class time is
tively note down my feelings on a class, what went well (or spent less on traditional lecturing, and more on student
badly!) and what actions I need to take to improve in the fu- activities, allowing students to work together to solve
ture. I now include as much group work and student-based problems, construct knowledge and teach each other. I
active learning in my classes as possible. These new methods have integrated more technology into my teaching, in-
from the course were very helpful; not only to me, but also my cluding ‘Clickers’, blogs, and wikis. I have a better ap-
students became more engaged and attentive in lectures and preciation of the importance of feedback, and of good
labs. Following the Diploma course has forced me to view my alignment of assessment to learning activities and
teaching from a different angle and, as such, I believe it has learning outcomes. As an educator, I have become more
improved my teaching. reflective.
Barry Ryan Graduate 2011 Julie Dunne Graduate 2011
As part of the building capacity phase of from IT Sligo and IT Tralee travelling to these
the development of the LIN PG Diploma, Centres to attend. We are currently offering
the LTTC delivered an off-campus blocked 2 PDP 5 ECTS short modules as part of LIN
version of the DIT PG Cert in Athlone and AIT award.
Carlow Institutes of Technology with staff
Page 5 May 2012

6. Masters in Applied eLearning
The programme was developed in gained in modules taken, and gives
2007 as a response to the perceived them the opportunity to develop
need within Ireland for an accredit- and research their own ideas and
ed professional development pro- has received approval from both interests and leave the institution
gramme for academic staff involved external examiners and partici- with a show piece of work for po-
in eLearning design and develop- pants. The applied nature of the tential employers. For more infor-
ment. The curriculum, which re- programme is crucial to its success: mation and comments about this
flects the strong focus on the appli- the Applied eLearning project com- programme and to see examples of
cation of theory to professional bines the participants’ knowledge participants’ work please see:
practice as well as rigorous training and understanding of theoretical http://www.dit.ie/lttc/programmes/
in educational research methods, and practical aspects of eLearning mscinappliedelearning/
Launch of a new online Journal for Irish Higher Education: Journal of Irish Academic Practice (IJAP)
This coming June, the LTTC will be ers can subscribe to IJAP via RSS brary Archives Context’; ‘An exami-
introducing IJAP, a new online Jour- feed and have the latest articles nation of the experience of a group
nal at http://arrow.dit.ie/ijap/, delivered directly to their news of Women returners to education’;
which is free, unconstrained by feed reader of choice. If subscribers ‘The effectiveness of active learning
space and accessible to all. The prefer to receive email updates, techniques in legal professional
journal has a fresh, contemporary they click on the "RSS feeds" link. training lectures from the trainees’
look, a user-friendly navigation sys- Volume 1 includes a wide range of perspective’; and ‘Using Gardner’s
tem, and a ‘most popular papers’ articles including: ‘Irish Students Theories of Intelligence in the
feature based on the average num- and Facebook - Informal Learning teaching of early childhood educa-
ber of full-text downloads per day Choices in a Web 2.0 world’; tion’. The editorial staff welcome
since the paper is posted. Initially, ‘Nurturing and Developing Creativi- articles from all disciplines and on a
the journal will publish manuscripts ty in First Year Design Students’; range of topics from curriculum
on a rolling basis rather than in dis- ‘The role of Flickr in a National Li- development, learning technolo-
tinct issues, and authors will gies/media to educational
reflect a range of experience leadership, teacher education
as well as different approaches and educational research and
to the study and practice of policy. For further details
learning and teaching, with email the editors at:
specific topics focusing on is- Roisin.Donnelly@dit.ie
sues that academic staff tend Martina.Crehan@dit.ie
to face in their practice. Read-
Volume 1, Issue 1 Page 6

7. MA in Higher Education
This programme is an ideal develop- about this programme please see work conducted as part of our post-
mental route for staff in higher and http://www.dit.ie/lttc/ graduate programmes – In 2010
further education wishing to deep- programmes/mainhighereducation/ Michael Seery and his colleagues
en their knowledge of the third lev- won a NAIRTL award for Excellence
el sector and to develop their pro- in Teaching and in 2011 he won the
fessional role. The first participants Jennifer Burke award for Innovation
on the MA in Third Level Learning in teaching and learning.
and Teaching were registered in http://www.jenniferburkeaward.ie/
September 2002. The MA in Higher
Education is structured around key
areas in higher education, and ena-
bles participants to deepen their MA Higher Education, Professional
knowledge, develop their research Legal Education and Skills: Some
skills and apply these skills to their years ago, building on the success
educational interests and special- of our partnership with the Law
isms. Through the completion of a Society to design and offer our
thesis they learn to develop and 5ECTS course in Learning and teach-
carry out educational research us- ing collaboratively, we obtained
ing traditional and emerging re- funding to develop the MA pro-
search designs informed by a criti- gramme in Legal Professional Edu-
cal awareness of developments at cation and Skills. The negotiated Here Michael describes the experi-
the forefront of policy and practice programme won an Irish Institute of ence of applying and then
in higher education. For more infor- Training & Development award in winning the award:
mation and student comments 2011. http://youtu.be/_6bW66RLW28
Many of our To find out more about our pro-
graduates grammes and /or APDs Contact Lin-
have gone da Boyd (Linda.Boyd@dit.ie)
on to win
awards with
LTTC Accredited professional Development short courses
Our 5 ECTS Accredited Professional offerings by designing 3 new short sessment (18 June) and Supervising
Development Short Course on courses and making some of our Undergraduate dissertations & the-
Teaching Learning and Assessment existing Masters modules available ses (1Oct). Credits from these mod-
has always been popular externally. as stand-alone courses. These APDs ules can also contribute towards
We have offered the programme in include Teaching in Virtual worlds our other postgraduate qualifica-
ITB and 3 times in collaboration (starting 17May), Technology- tions http://www.dit.ie/lttc/
with the Law Society. In 2011, we enhanced Learning Teaching & As- programmes/shortcoursesapd/
decided to expand our repertoire of
Page 7 May 2012

8. Snapshot of other support for learning, teaching and assessment we provide across the DIT
DIT Staff
have been
successful
DIT has supported an internal com-
in obtaining national NAIRTL quiry &
petition for Learning Teaching and
funding awards. Since 2009, fund- Problem
Assessment project funding for
ed DIT projects have included Based
over 15 years. Themes for the an-
‘Untying the Accountancy Knot: Learning (EPBL)’.
nually awarded projects are agreed
design, development and imple- DIT staff have also been actively
by the Learning Teaching & Assess-
mentation of interactive anima- involved in the design of the NDLR
ment Strategy Committee. In 2008,
tions and simulations to support Learning Innovation Projects
Dissemination awards for staff who
underperforming 1st year ac- (LIPs) and LINCS projects over the
have had a paper accepted for an
countancy students, including last 3 years. This year 10 LIPS are
education conference were intro-
those with dyslexia’ and being supported and the Institute
duced. In 2011/12, we funded 6
‘Facilitate: Irish network for En- is involved in 3 national collabora-
projects and 3 dissemination pa-
pers. http://www.dit.ie/lttc/ tive LINCs projects with other in-
projects/ stitutions http://www.dit.ie/lttc/
DRHEA funding was
also used to purchase
sets of classroom re-
sponse systems or DIT initiated Teaching excellence
‘Clickers’. Through an awards in 2003. Since then, the
annual competitive funding pro- awards process has evolved. In
College Teaching Fellowships cess, staff have been awarded a 2009, we
were established in the DIT in set of clickers and provided with intro-
2009 under the auspices of the training as appropriate. A blog is duced
DRHEA SIF 2 project. In DIT, an used to share experience. http:// and inte-
annual research Fellowship is ditclickers.wordpress.com/ grated a
awarded to an individual or a student
team in support of their work de- nomina-
veloping and evaluating a specific tion process through use of an
project that supports the en- online survey. In 2011, the institu-
hancement of learning and/or cur- tional Presidents Award for Excel-
riculum development at a pro- lence in Teaching was replaced by
gramme, school or College level. 4 College Teaching awards. These
One of our teaching Fellows Dr awards now involve two
Michael Carr Dept of Engineering ‘nomination paths’ – students
Science & General Studies, was In 2011, DIT established the Lead, nominating staff and staff nomi-
selected as one of the five DRHEA Engage, Achieve, Develop (LEAD) nating peers. College Teaching
Teaching Fellows to work on an Award. The module is designed to Awards are made at the relevant
integrated group project on the conferring ceremony http://
encourage, promote and support
first-year experience as part of a www.dit.ie/lttc/awards/
collaborative Fellowship award to student development of a range of
be conducted April -October 2012 employability skills through taking a
http://www.dit.ie/lttc/projects/ leadership role within extra-
institutionalprojects/ curricular and co-curricular activi-
ties. The module is assessed
through the completion of a reflec-
tive portfolio containing evidence of
their personal skills development
during the module http://
www.dit.ie/lead/
Volume 1, Issue 1 Page 8

9. Academic Development Workshops
Part of the LTTC’s remit is to sup- feedback can be awkward!
port academic development and It’s not unusual for partici-
innovation in teaching practice. One pants in the same workshop
of the main ways we support this is to give completely contra-
through the provision of regular dictory feedback, with one
workshops. Workshops are run on a person saying “too slow!”
weekly basis throughout the aca- and another “too fast!”.
demic year, usually three to four Also, staff can sometimes be
per week, encompassing short one- a little aspirational in their
hour lunchtime sessions to formal feedback - Friday afternoon
three-hour lab sessions, with a is often named by them as
small number of workshops running the time of week most suitable for workshop is run: because DIT is
up to six hours (usually over two workshops. But, perhaps unsurpris- such a diverse campus with over 30
days). We try to be as responsive as ingly, Friday afternoon workshops different locations, we try to move
possible to staff needs when de- tend not to have a great uptake! the workshops around each of the
signing the workshop schedule. Ex- Quirks aside, getting feedback on six main campuses, sometimes run-
amples of recently developed work- workshops is an essential part of ning the same session on both the
shops include: ‘Lecture capture the process, and something we rely north and south side of the city in
with Echo360: What it is and how upon to keep workshops up to date quick succession. Days and times
to do it’ and ‘Using social media in and relevant. are varied continually also in order
education’. While aware of the to offer as much choice as possible,
need to continually review and up- Participation rates for staff across a common response to workshop
date our workshop offerings, we’re the DIT are generally good: since feedback being the difficulty of har-
also conscious that some work- September 2008, we have run al- monising workshop attendance
shops and skills are required by most three hundred workshops, with timetabled teaching hours.
staff on an ongoing basis. Therefore with approximately 2,500 attend-
sessions such as ‘How to help your ances. Almost 900 individual DIT Our most popular workshops are
students think: An introduction to staff have engaged with the LTTC listed below –the left shows all
PBL’, ‘Supervising Dissertations’ and through workshops*, with many attendances since 2008 while the
‘Introduction to webcourses’ re- staff attending five or more work- list on the right shows the current
main on the schedule from year to shops over the period – for exam- academic year only, to reflect more
year. ple, twenty one DIT colleagues have recently developed and newly pop-
attended more than 10 workshops! ular workshops. For more infor-
We also survey staff after all work- Interestingly, the DIT lecturer with mation on our workshops please
shops to ensure that the content the single highest participation rate email lttc@dit.ie or see our website
met their expectations. Again, this has been recognised for innovation at http://lttc.dit.ie. All DIT LTTC
information is used to update both in teaching practice both within DIT workshops are open to staff from
the training schedule and the con- and nationally. An important factor all Dublin Region HE Alliance institu-
tent of individual workshops. But in participation rates is where the tions (http://www.drhea.ie/ )
* the annual showcase of learning and teaching innovations attracts well over 100 academic staff each year
Volume 2 Issue 3 Page 9

10. Annual Graduate Student Conference in the LTTC
We are looking forward to our third practice associated with academic
DIT annual Graduate Student Con- disciplines and professions. This For our very first conference (in
ference on 12 June. The purpose of conference focuses attention on 2010), Professor Gráinne Conole
this graduate conference is to dis- how learning and academic writing delivered a keynote on How to
seminate educational research from happens within the ‘Writing and begin educational research. Last
across our two programmes – the Disseminating Research’ Module as year, Professor Jon Nixon chal-
MA in Higher Education and the well as how it is experienced in lenged us about Seeing what is
MSc Applied eLearning (involving different subject contexts; specifi-
both present and past graduates), cally it encourages participants to
which is relevant and interesting to critically reflect on their thinking
all DIT academic staff. and learning about educational re-
The theme of this year’s conference search in which they are currently
is Getting your Research Published: engaged, and to share these reflec-
From Student to Scholar, and the tions with others by involving them-
keynote speaker is Dr Rhona Sharpe selves in this student-led confer-
from Oxford Brookes University. ence and resulting subsequent na-
tional and international publica-
tions.
questionable.
As well as colleagues from within
DIT, delegates presenting as part of
the conference have come from
other institutions in Dublin and
Background to the Conference: across Ireland: IADT, Dublin Busi-
One of the aims of the graduate ness School, the Liberties College,
student conference is to build a the Law Society of Ireland, IT
network of research-informed par- Blanchardstown, DCU, IT Carlow
ticipants across our LTTC pro- and Waterford IT.
grammes. By encouraging such net-
working, it is anticipated that this
event will also reinforce partici-
pants' understanding of the value
of involvement in communities of
Student Transition: Expectations, Engagement, Retention
The STEER (Student Transition: of Ulster STAR Project) and Dr
Expectations, Engagement, Re- Amanda Gibney, UCD Teaching
tention) initiative focuses on the Fellow. These all combined with
‘DIT student experience’ with par- recommendations emanating
ticular reference to students in from the work of Campus Life to
their first year of study. As well as inform the creation of FYI DIT
a number of STEER workshops and 10STEPS to engage our first year
presentations through this year, students – designed by Martina
the team coordinated a ‘10steps Crehan from the LTTC.
to engage your first year students’
event on 30March. This event http://www.dit.ie/lttc/events/spe
incorporated Keynote presenta- cialevents/fyi-firstyearexperience/
tions by Dr Tony Cook (University
Page 10 May 2012

11. EVENTS
Students as Producers and as Change Agents
Athlone Institute of Technology
June 12th 2012 from 2.00pm to 5.00pm
Mick Healey
HE Consultant and Researcher
mhealey@glos.ac.uk; www.mickhealey.co.uk
This talk will explore the theoretical basis for this approach and illustrate, with reference to many examples from
different disciplines and countries, how students can be engaged throughout their undergraduate courses in pro-
ducing knowledge, not just consuming it. By involving students in Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), stu-
dents may act as change agents to enhance the quality of teaching and learning practices and policies in their uni-
versities. Too often students are simply the subjects of our SoTL research; by engaging them as co-researchers and
independent researchers we can give them a more empowering and transformative educational experience as pro-
ducers and as change agents.
Register here: http://www.eventbrite.com/org/2195583247
Facilitate Enquiry/Problem Based Learning Summer School
Registration for the Facilitate Enquiry/Problem Based Learning Summer School 2012 (24th and 25th May), which is
now open, will close on 21st May. This year the summer school will incorporate the 'PBL.doc Symposium' Problem
-based learning approaches to teaching academic writing. Day 1 of the summer school is ideal of anyone starting
out with PBL or interested in refreshing their skills. On this day questions such as 'What is PBL?', 'How do I set up a
PBL tutorial?' and 'How do I design problems?' will be addressed.
If you would like to register for this event please click http://facilitatesummerschool.eventbrite.ie/
The Programme for the two days is also available from http://facilitate.ie/
If you have any queries about this event please email info@facilitate.ie
LIN 2012 – Call for abstracts open
http://lin2012.exordo.com
www.lin.ie
October 11th 2012
Ashling Hotel, Dublin
Keynote speaker: Lord David Puttnam
Page 11 May 2012