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Buggy, Conor J.
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Buggy, Conor J.
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Buggy, Conor J.
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Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
- PublicationOnline Learning - Levelling the playing field to achieve Sustainabel Development Goals 4 and 5(2017-04-29)Invited Keynote Address Striving to be responsive to ever changing societal demands, new information, classroom dynamics and to students¿ expectations and learning issues is a common difficulty facing teachers globally. The time honoured methods of teaching are being tested by growing class sizes, diminished budgets, timetables and teaching days extended to accommodate students travelling to avail of good teaching. Intermingled with this is the aim to ensure gender equality within education in order to provide all young men and women with equal opportunities. Online teaching can be integral to managing these issues and advance the achievement of both the sustainable development goal for quality education (SDG4) for all as well as gender equality (SDG5). Teaching is not merely about lecturing to students and providing them with information to soak up like a sponge; it is about introducing fundamental theories, ideas, and empirical evidence to students in a way that they can integrate this information into their own life and professional experience. To many teachers using online learning pedagogies to achieve this can appear daunting. Student learning environments can either enhance or hinder so ensuring a safe and stimulating learning space can encourage active participation. Online learning environments must also aim for active participation otherwise students disengage and the opportunity from online learning is lost. Communication and active participation by the teacher is essential to maximise the benefits of online teaching. In order to encourage critical thinking in online students, utilising online discussion fora that have the purpose of creating a space and time for informal, open-ended thinking to occur facilitates this. The asynchronous components of online learning does not inherently prompt students toward enhanced critical thinking, but it can serve as a vehicle for the encouragement of increased engagement and critical thinking. Critical thinking requires a consistent emphasis placed on the discussion fora through the posing of questions and ideas to provide purposeful engagement amongst the students. This means that the teacher must be present in the fora to stimulate discussion, but cannot control it. Online teaching can also be 'blind' to gender and age which allows for all students to achieve their learning outcomes without unconscious bias or even prejudice from their fellow students or their teachers. Anonymised online interaction and assessment strategies can allow all students to flourish and learn at their own pace while the teacher has no preconceived notion of the student. This is critical for ensuring equity and removal of bias from assessment strategies.
225 - PublicationOccupational safety and concussion injury awareness of Irish professional and semi-professional footballersIn recent years, there has been a growth in research examining concussion and injury risk in football, with national football associations and leagues in countries such as the Netherlands and Italy undertaking much needed research. Studies of high-school, university-level and professional football players also now exist in the recent literature. However, the significance of parameters such as player age and professional occupational status remains unclear. Moreover, despite a growth in studies examining concussion-reporting rates and practices with professional rugby players in Ireland, studies examining the occupational risks associated with injury and concussion in particular amongst Irish semi-professional and professional footballers are lacking. Finally, research examining personal safety awareness and attitudes towards safety management amongst professional athletes has been limited. In response, the purpose of this study was to investigate safety awareness and concussion-reporting frequencies of a cohort of Irish professional footballers.
317 - PublicationUsing Structured Debating for In Class AssessmentStructured debating was incorporated into the in-class activities and assessment strategy of a postgraduate module in order to improve student’s communication capabilities and awareness of the value of self-reflection. The debate process was designed using the principals of universal design to provide all students with an equitable chance of participation.
103 - PublicationClimate change awareness in a developing nations' second level education system - Tanzania(2014-09-16)
; Even if stringent global emission reductions and mitigation efforts over the next few decades prove to be successful, global climate change appears to be inevitable. 'Adaptation' has therefore emerged as a key policy response to manage the impending impacts of climate change. Adaptation is particularly relevant in the context of developing nations, as climate change impacts pose a substantial threat to their continued sustainable development. Adaptive capacity is affected by many socio-economic, political, and gender-based factors, and may be enhanced by climate change awareness. Ascertaining levels of climate change knowledge in different sectors of society is therefore an important aspect of dealing with future climate change, in order to understand how best to improve climate change awareness and adaptive capacity. Elevating such awareness in society as a whole can be facilitated by focusing on the education system, and particularly by enhancing school students’ knowledge and understanding of climate change. It is essential to determine students’ conceptions (and misconceptions) of climate change, while also focusing on curricula content and on secondary school teachers’ knowledge of climate change, in order to plan and design effective instruction that builds on these concepts. The Climate Change Awareness and Education Programme (CCAEP) aims to ascertain secondary school student teachers, teachers and students’ prior knowledge of the causes and consequences of climate change, and to determine the existing status of climate-change related material on the secondary school curriculum in Tanzania with an initial focus on climate change awareness among secondary school teachers. The research outputs currently envisaged will make it possible to develop or update a climate change knowledge instrument for proposed inclusion in the school curriculum. The programme is aimed to progress between 2014 and 2017. CCAEP Stage 1 data gathering commenced in May 2014 and focused on the knowledge and awareness of trainee secondary teachers at Dar es Salaam University College of Education (DUCE). Students at DUCE were surveyed using a questionnaire to determine climate change knowledge, awareness and emotional response to climate change. The questionnaire was adapted for Tanzania from a range of established and validated climate change awareness instruments.908 - PublicationClimate change awareness amongst secondary level students' in a Dar es Salaam University College of Education (DUCE) affiliated school in urban Tanzania(2015-09-24)
; ; This research is the second stage of a five-year programme on Climate Change Awareness and Education at secondary school level in Tanzania. The stage which has been completed (stage 1) involved an assessment of the current secondary school curriculum in Tanzania for its inclusion of climate change material and an evaluation of awareness of climate change among third level trainee teachers at the Dar es Salaam University College of Education (DUCE). The next stage (stage 2), which this study has undertaken, is to assess the knowledge of climate change among secondary school students at a DUCE affiliated school in Tanzania.1942