The 4th annual LIN confer-ence took place on Octo-ber 27th in the Ashling Hotel in Dublin. 24 oral presentations and a num-ber of poster presenta-tions were given on a range of subjects across the themes of the first year experience, diversity of the learner experience and staff development. A workshop on each of the three themes was also run and these led to fur-ther discussion and de-bate amongst attendees. The presenters came from the Institutes of Technol-ogy, Irish universities and from the private higher

education providers. The event was very well at-tended and feedback from attendees was exception-ally positive. The keynote address was given by Douglas Thomas, professor at the Annen-berg School for Communi-cation and Journalism at the University of Southern California. The presenta-tion entitled Cultivating the Imagination in a World of Constant Change: Learning Strate-gies for an Unknown Fu-ture invigorated the crowd in the morning ses-sion and this enthusiasm for sharing knowledge and

experiences among higher education practitioners was carried on throughout the day. For more information on the keynote speaker visit www.douglasthomas.com The papers presented at the LIN conference are available on www.lin.ie and further material from the conference will be available there in the com-ing weeks.

LIN would like to thank all who attended, presented and sponsored this event and for making the confer-ence the success that it turned out to be.

Headlines

In this issue:

Headlines 1

LIN Conference Review

1

LIN PG Dip For-mally announced

1

NAIRTL Award for LIN Chair

2

2011/2012 LIN modules

2

Eye on GMIT 3

Events 7

4th Annual LIN Conference review

LIN Announces Postgraduate Diploma

NAIRTL Award for LIN Coordination Group Chair

IT Tallaght to run Certificate in Learning and Teaching early 2012

Feature article on Teaching and Learning developments in GMIT

LIN Conference Review

This year’s conference opened with the announcement of yet another milestone achievement for the LIN project. Nuala Harding from AIT summarised the work carried out by LIN to date and the positive impact this has had on staff. She then announced that the LIN Postgraduate Diploma in Learning, Teaching and Assessment has been vali-dated and is ready to process its first graduates. This is a hugely significant achievement for the project and through this measure the IoT sector is implementing some of the major recommendations outlined in the Hunt report. For more information on the postgraduate diploma programme, contact lin@ioti.ie.

LIN Announces Postgraduate Diploma in Learning Teaching & Assessment

LIN is delighted that Dr Marion Palmer Chair of the Coordination Group was presented with a NAIRTL Award of Teaching Excellence for 2011 on Monday 7 November by the Minister of Education and Skills Mr Ruairi Quinn TD. The National Academy for the Integration of Re-search, Teaching and Learning made five awards at a ceremony in the Clock Tower Marlborough Street, Dublin. Marion is chair of the Learning In-novation Network Coordination Group www.lin.ie as well as Head of Department of Learning Sciences at IADT and chair of the Teaching and Learning Committee. Marion is a member of the Council of the Higher Education and Training Awards Council (HETAC) and was awarded a doctorate in education

at Queen’s University Belfast on teaching in Institutes of Technol-ogy. Marion was a founder member of WITS Women in Technology and Science and was chair of the Educa-

tional Developers in Ireland Net-work (EDIN) 2009-2011. Prior to working in IADT Marion was a teacher at schools in Dublin and London and worked on curriculum development with the NCCA.

NAIRTL Award for LIN Coordination Group Chair

Page 2 December 2011

For the fourth year running LIN accredited professional

development modules are running in a number of insti-

tutes. The programmes currently running are:

ITTD

Certificate in Learning and Teaching **NEW**

AIT

Certificate in Learning and Teaching

Certificate in Assessment and Evaluation

Certificate in Technology Enhanced Learning

(commencing Dec 2011)

IADT

Certificate in Learning and Teaching

GMIT

Certificate in Technology Enhanced Learning

As other modules become available they will be an-

nounced on the LIN website, www.lin.ie, and through

the institutes.

Module Number of Credits

Learning & Teaching 15

Technology Enhanced Learning 10

Assessment & Evaluation 10

Formative Assessment & Feedback 10

Mentoring 10

Enquiry Based Learning 10

Engaging in Educational Research Practice 10

Practice & Reflection in Teaching & Learning

in Higher Education

10

PDP1 Personal Development Planning 5

PDP2 Reflection, Action & Evidence 5

LIN Accredited Professional Development 2011/2012

All of these modules are validated at level 9 and the

credits achieved can be used on various progression

routes, including for the completion of the LIN Post-

graduate Diploma in Learning, Teaching and Assess-

ment. Table 1 shows the full list of LIN modules. For

further information contact lin@ioti.ie.

The 1 year add-on Honours BSc in Applied Biopharmaceutical & Healthcare Science has been of-fered on a blended learning basis for several years. This year, the delivery of this degree has moved to a fully online delivery mecha-nism. Students log in for weekly lectures using the Adobe Connect virtual classroom facility. This facil-ity allows for interaction between the lecturer and students during the lecture and is also archived and thus accessible to students at later

dates. Such a delivery mechanism better suits the students of this course who are based at various locations around Ireland and in Europe.

A Level 6 Higher Certificate in Sci-ence, which will also be delivered online, is due to start soon. At that stage the online learning student cohort will represent approximately 10% of the students in the Depart-ment of Life & Physical Sciences.

Peer Assisted Learning, PAL, is a joint programme between GMIT and AIT. Originally funded by SIF 2, it is designed to improve the 1st year experience through structured expo-sure and interaction with more senior students from the same discipline. It started in Janu-ary 2009 with 6 programmes, 15 leaders and 143 1st year students. It is now in its 4th phase with 48 programmes, 105 PAL leaders, available to 1,800+ 1st years and across 7 disciplines. In GMIT alone, it is run on 31 programmes, with 65 PAL leaders, available to 1078 1st years and run across all disciplines.

2nd National PAL Leader Conference

Four GMIT PAL leaders, Agnese Petersone - School of Science, Sinead Kelly, Catherine Rus-sell - both from the Castlebar campus and Jamie Mullen - Hotel School (Photo 2), attended the 2nd National PAL Leader Conference at the University of Brighton from 11th - 12th November. The conference enabled PAL leaders from Third Level institutions across the UK and Ireland to network with other PAL leaders, learn about the PAL schemes in other institutions, learn new skills and give feedback into how the PAL scheme can be improved in GMIT.

Scale of PAL Programme in GMIT/AIT

Page 3 December 2011

ON

Online Learning in the Department of Life & Physical Sciences

Claire McCrudden, taking the online class as part of the Biopharmaceutical Degree from her home in Belgium.

To bring the conference to a fantastic end the GMIT PAL leaders won the poster competition explaining the PAL scheme in GMIT, beating 15 other Universities.

Twenty-six students from the GMIT Hotel, Business and Engineering Schools completed a new Civic En-gagement module (worth five cred-its) this year and presented their learning experiences at a special seminar in June.

The module was developed as part of the Strategic Innovation Fund (SIFII) project (Carina Ginty) in part-nership with the Hotel School (Ann Flanagan Kelly) and the School of Business (Evelyn Moylan). It en-gages academic programmes in re-sponsible and challenging actions with a range of non-profit commu-nity organisations. Students ran cookery classes for the Brothers of Charity Services Holy Family School in Renmore, provided marketing and public relations support for COPE and refurbished old com-puters for the Camara charity group (for third world schools).

New Civic Engagement module

Prof. Phil Race, well known author of ‘Making Learning Happen’ (Sage, 2010) was back in GMIT this term to deliver two workshops; Making Learning Happen and Learning Methodologies. His ‘passion is about making learning happen in an approachable way, without re-course to jargon, acronyms or elit-ism’ and GMIT staff can vouch for that.

Page 4 Volume 2 Issue 2

Race in Galway

Pictured are GMIT Computing & Electronic Engineering students who worked as volunteers for the Camara charity with their lecturer and Camara project co-ordinator Natasha Rohan and Head of Dept Des O’Reilly.

LIN Technology Enhanced Learning

16 staff members of GMIT regis-tered in LIT on the LIN module authored by Dr. Liam Boyle in March 2011. They all found the module extremely informative and developed multimedia ma-terial for their teaching.

The response to the module was so successful that it is being offered again, this time in GMIT, commencing in Decem-ber. It will be delivered by Dr. Mark Glynn and our thanks to him for his encouragement and enabling this positive contribu-tion to upskilling our staff.

GMIT plans to offer various LIN modules in the future to further staff development.

The 2011 GMIT President’s Award for Teaching Excellence was pre-sented to Barry McMillan at the School of Humanities graduation ceremony.

This award was inaugurated in 2007 to recognise and honour teaching of the highest standard which en-gages students and enables them to reach their potential.

Barry is a teacher who believes that every student can achieve very high standards of work once appropri-ately challenged and supported. His belief in a student’s innate ability is reflected in the personal testimoni-als of some of his students. I quote “He was never less than passionate, inspiring, supportive and encourag-ing” (Trish Thompson BA)

“his open and honest approach brought all subjects to life and stimulated and fuelled broader in-dependent learning and re-search” (Aoife Ralph BA)

“he is so supportive of students, believing in them even in times when they didn’t believe in them-selves” (Edel Mulvihill BA)

Barry has been working, nationally and internationally, in the fields of education and community develop-ment since the early 1990s. He has

been a member of the teaching staff of GMIT since September 2008 and currently teaches in the Schools of Humanities, Business and Hotel. He is a widely-published author, an acclaimed conference speaker, and an experienced broadcaster. His academic specialities are Ethics, Religious Studies, English, Commu-nications and Research Supervision.

Teaching Excellence Award

Page 5 December 2011

LIN 2011 Conference Sponsors

GMIT has recently been successful in attracting €246,000 from the Leonardo Da Vinci program in Europe for the development of novel online training on renewable energy systems using a state of the art energy laboratory that has been developed in the college over the last five years. Uniquely the stu-dents in this laboratory learn about the installation, analysis and per-formance of integrated, real work-ing renewable energy systems using a sophisticated web enabled inter-face which allows them to under-stand and analyse the construction, live operation and performance of these systems.

The consortium consists of experts on renewable energy systems, in the academic field (GMIT), the world of work (Daikin B.V. and Unitherm Ltd), industrial organiza-tions as well as expertise in online learning (Knowledge Management Institute in the Technical University of Graz Austria). The Knowledge Management Institute undertakes interdisciplinary research on know-ledge management and technology enhanced learning in a broad spec-trum of domains, integrating tech-

nological and application-oriented perspectives, including cognitive and social science aspects with a special focus is on contextualising and personalizing learning events in the professional workplace and other learning environments.

Tangible outcomes from the project will comprise certified online train-ing content on renewable energy systems deployed using state of the art online infrastructure. In addi-tion there will be transfer of know-ledge and expertise from the Tech-nical University of Graz to GMIT in

the area of technology enhanced learning and online program devel-opment and delivery.

Staff recruited on the project in GMIT will be Dr. Attracta Brennan (formally of LIN) whose expertise is on online program design and de-velopment for engineering. Dr. Aurora Dimache is a mechanical engineer with experience in online content development and delivery for engineering over many years. The team will be lead by Dr. Tho-mas Roche from the Mechanical Engineering department.

Innovative Online Vocational Training of Renewable Energy

Technologies (INNOVRET)

Page 6 Volume 2 Issue 2

LIN 2011 Conference Sponsors

The EAIE conference brings together more than 4000 higher education professionals eager to share knowledge and

best practices, and take part in topical discussions within the dynamic field of international higher education.

The 24th Annual EAIE Conference, based on the theme Rethinking education, reshaping economies, will take place

from 11 to 14 September 2012. For details visit http://www.eaie.org/dublin/

EVENTS

Page 7 December 2011

INTED2012 will be an International Forum for those who wish to discuss the main aspects and the latest results in the field of Education and Research. The general aim of the conference is to promote international collaboration in Education and Research in all educa-tional fields and disciplines. Attendance of more than 700 delegates from 70 different countries is expected. For details visit http://www.iated.org/inted2012/announcement

INNOVATION 12 Conference IADT February 1st - 4th 2012. Visit http://interaction12.ixda.org/home/ for

more details.

Learning by Developing - New Ways to Learn

Conference on Creativity in Higher Education

May 8th – 11th 2012 in Finland Tracks a) How to learn creativity b) How to teach creativity c) Creative management in a Higher Education Institution d) Developing a creative region http://lbdconference.laurea.fi

www.lin.ie