Learn Think Act: a new resource from Trócaire

Trócaire have just announced their new on-line resources for schools.

Focusing on Honduras, this new resource includes photos and stories of the community of La Confianza. Tied in with Trocaire’s 2011 Lenten compaign the lessons explore the lives of the young people featured. The activities are suitable for whiteboard use and include a ‘Drag and Drop’, slideshows and video footage. The package also includes a comprehensive set of printable PDFs.

The resource is easy to navigate with different sections for Junior Primary, Senior Primary and Secondary schools.

Back to Basics event for teachers

Invitation to Post Primary Teachers and Development Educators to Development Education Conference

‘Back to Basics: A Skills Based Approach to Teaching About Global Issues’

Saturday 5th February 2011, 9.45 am – 3.30pm

An invitation from Ruth Mullan, Campaigns desk in Debt Ireland

You are invited to an exciting education conference taking place in Athlone on Saturday February 5th 2011. Entitled ‘Getting Back to Basics’, the day is aimed at teachers and informal educators who are interested in promoting justice education. The programme is available here: http://www.debtireland.org/images/documents/schools.pdf. The conference is co-hosted by  Comhlámh, Debt and Development Coalition Ireland, EcoUnesco and Trócaire in association with the Professional Development Service for Teachers (DES). Along with a range of skills based workshops on global issues there will be inputs from Michael O’Leary, National Co-ordinator  Transition Year Programme and Annette Honan, National Council for Curriculum Assessment (NCCA)

The day will focus on the skills learners need to develop in order to become active citizens – research and information processing skills, group work skills, critical thinking and reflection skills, dialogue and listening skills and skills associated with undertaking action for change. Practical ideas for developing these skills will be demonstrated in the various workshops and participants will be given lots of free resources to take away with them. The day is being funded by Irish Aid so there is no cost for attending.

For further information or to register contact Ruth at: campaigns@debtireland.org or phone 01-6174835.

2010 in review

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads This blog is on fire!.

Crunchy numbers

The Leaning Tower of Pisa has 296 steps to reach the top. This blog was viewed about 1,200 times in 2010. If those were steps, it would have climbed the Leaning Tower of Pisa 4 times

 

In 2010, there were 7 new posts, not bad for the first year! There were 18 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 3mb. That’s about 2 pictures per month.

The busiest day of the year was November 30th with 312 views. The most popular post that day was Programme.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were cdpc.ie, twitter.com, google.com, 203.145.141.245, and mail.yahoo.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for leave a reply, dev ed week nuim, and devedweek.wordpress.com.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

Programme November 2010

2

Sessions November 2010

3

Poster display November 2010

4

Speakers November 2010

5

About November 2010

Day three summary

Day three of Dev Ed Week was eventful, colourful and mildly chaotic (…but that was intended!…mostly!!).  The poster making activity resulted in many conversations taking place about how to integrate Dev Ed themes in teaching your subjects.  It provided students with the chance to pick up on ideas circulating during the week even if they had missed some of the sessions due to the appalling weather that week.

By popular vote the poster by Ciaran K. and Sarah G. was deemed the winner while Rick P. and Keith M. came second.  Our thanks to Self Help Africa and Combating Diseases of Poverty Consortium for sponsoring the generous prizes!  Photos of the posters and poster making process will be uploaded soon! Watch this space!

The morning’s activity culminated in a panel discussion with guests Matthias Fiedler (IDEA); Patsy Toland, (Self-Help Africa); Aoife Rush (Trócaire); Claire Glavey (Amnesty International) and Dr. Noel Murphy, (Co-Chair of CDPC).  The session was expertly chaired by Dr. Gerry Jeffers NUI Maynooth.

The discussion focused on a number of key issues and panellists were asked, among other things, to comment on the coherence (or lack of it) of the delivery of Development Education in schools and the engagement of school management in particular.  An interesting discussion ensued from the question as to what each panellist saw as the greatest obstacle experienced by them in their work with schools.

Overall the department is very satisfied with how the week went, in particular with the quality of students’ engagement with the spirit and values of the week. (In fact a number of our guests commented on this.  One said “They’re great students, you should be proud of them!”  Note: We are!)

We were, of course, disappointed that not everyone could attend – in particular the students and teachers of Coláiste Bhríde, Carnew.  But a key message is that this is not a ‘once off’ event: our commitment is to keep the momentum going and to continue to work with those of you who wish to integrate Dev Ed themes and resources in your teaching practice in the coming semester.

All of the participating facilitators are keen to support student teachers who wish to do so and we are would like to keep up with how you promote the values of Dev Ed in your schools on over the course of the rest of the year.  We are planning some further activities in the second semester that will be of interest.

Meanwhile, students who missed the workshops (and even those who did attend) may be interested in an event being held in Athlone in early February that covers some and more of the material covered last week in Maynooth.  See here for details.

Best wishes and Happy Christmas to you all!

Angela

Working in workshops



Dev Ed week – Day two and a busy one also with a range of workshops facilitated by three very actively involved agencies that work with teachers and schools.  Amnesty International, Worldwise/Irish Aid and Debt and Development Coalition Ireland work with teachers and link with the NCCA to maintain connectedness and relevance to the curriculum.

In total three separate sessions were offered today of which participating students attended two. Annette Honan (NCCA) worked with Nessa Ní Chasaide (DDCI) to raise awareness of global financial justice and convince student teachers that there is no need to ‘be an expert’ in order to be effective in raising pupils’ awareness and encouraging their engagement. How the World Works is the resource they were were exploring in the session.

Annette also worked with Mary McCarthy from Worldwise on that organisation’s Schools Linking programme. They presented and discussed how that programme works; what supports are available to schools and how to encourage and develop strong working relationships between schools in Ireland and in the developing world with a view to the mutually enriching learning experiences that can be gained for everyone involved.

Claire Glavey and Clodagh from Amnesty took PGDE students through issues of Human Rights and explored Amnesty’s brilliant resources such as the visually stunning, newly re-edited Voice Our Concern resource with its extremely adaptable, visual arts dimension.  They explored the also recently published Geography, Development and Human Rights.  Although aimed at the development strand of the Geography syllabus this resource is highly adaptable for other subjects because of the emphasis on active learning and varied activities and to cater for the very diverse learning styles of pupils.

Students who participated today and yesterday are encouraged to talk to the others who attended sessions they didn’t or couldn’t attend themselves and all are strongly encouraged to talk to colleagues who were prevented from attending at all because of the snow so as to share what they have learnt so far.

Dev Ed – what is it?

Braving snow and ice today close to 80 PGDE students attended the first day of Dev Ed week.  Weather was an issue for a number of our speakers and our schedule needed some adjusting.  However, we covered the broad overview of Dev Ed as planned and presented some of the work being done in schools by viewing  the video entitled Development Education: A Chance for Change.

This video was filmed in a number of schools where a specific course on Development Education is offered.  The impact of the course on the young people in the video is evident and this viewing, along with Patsy’s introductory presentation, led to very stimulating and engaging discussions before and after break.

Students interested in getting a copy the video may do so. Some terms and conditions apply! Namely you will need to undertake to show the video to colleagues (other PGDEs who missed today, and/or colleagues in your school).  Contact Gerry Jeffers for more information.

Regrettably Colm O’Regan (80:20) was unable to make it to Maynooth due to airport closure in London and Michael Doorly (Concern) also had to re-schedule due to the weather.  Dee Clare from Concern facilitated a workshop on promoting debate (Want to start and argument? or end one?) and Patsy stood in for Colm and explored a range of resources as a lead in to discussion.

Global Awareness Report

Students, you are invited to read a report entitled “Global Awareness“.  It is a piece of research completed last year by Development Options in association with the Education Department, NUI Maynooth. The text was written by Nuala-Crowe Taft and Winifred Jeffers of Development Options in association with project co-ordinator Dr. Gerry Jeffers, Education Department NUI Maynooth. The report looks at very different approaches to Development Education in a small number of schools. It will be of relevance to PGDE students in that it shows how individuals can and do make a difference at school level.

Development Issues: A Course for TY students

On Thursday 9th December – weather permitting – we will welcome as keynote speakers at Dev Ed Week three pupils from Coláiste Bhríde, Carnew namely, Orla, Paul and Melissa, as well as their teacher, Eleanor Lee and Linda Dunne, principal of the school.

As a preview of the work the school has been doing in Development Education you can view some or all of the following short videos about their work.

Dev Ed Week will focus, among other things, on resources that are suitable for integration with the curricular content of a range of subjects and for use with Transition Years focusing specifically and explicitly on Development Education.  The Development Issues: Course for Transition Year that is coordinated by Joe Clowry and Patsy Toland as featured in the videos above will also be presented and discussed during the week

Updates to the programme

A small number of adjustments have been made to the programme, as well as a number of other updates to this site.

First an important schedule change has been made for Thursday.  In addition to the excellent speakers and facilitators coming on Tuesday and Wednesday we also welcome some very special guests on Thursday, including teachers and pupils from Coláiste Bhríde, Carnew, Co. Wicklow. this session, now scheduled to take place at 10 a.m. and believe us when we say you will not want to be late for that session! Fifth year pupils will talk to PGDE students about the impact of the Development Education programme in their school. Also on Thursday we have a panel of very distinguished educationalists and specialists in Development Education. Gerry Jeffers will chair that session which promises to be very interesting and interactive.

Introducing Dev Ed Week

We are pleased to announce the details of this year’s Dev Ed Week.  This year’s programme draws on the expertise of a number of the Staff of the Education Department and a range of external partners in Education working in the field of Development Education.

This website provides all the relevant information about Dev Ed Week and will be updated as the week progresses.

We welcome your comments!