Sipping Point – Digital Learning Dispatches

By Clare Gormley

I remember three things very vividly from my primary school education: on my first day of school, I remember feeling immensely proud of the little plasticine/márla ‘biscuits’ I made with the approval of my first ever teacher Mrs Kenny. A few years later, I remember the delight of learning the wonderfully atmospheric poem The Listeners by Walter de La Mare. And lastly, I cannot overstate the excitement of childhood memories from getting on the train in Galway and going to Dublin Zoo with my pals for a school tour. It is that last memory that leads me to this blog post where I’d like to share some thoughts on what I believe are the under explored opportunities of outdoor learning – not just for little ones but for much older students too.

At ‘The Sipping Point’ recently we ran a session on the great outdoors with a promise we would “experience some outdoor learning activities, and begin to appreciate the potential for learning in, through and about the outdoors”. So it was that on two days in January (one cold but crisp, the other cold and damp) we found ourselves gathered to set off on an ‘Outdoor Learning’ walk under the expert tutelage of Dr Orla Kelly, DCU School of STEM Education, Innovation & Global Studies.

So what exactly did we do, you may wonder? To find out the answer to this question, then read more on Clare’s person blog Learning Rush.

By Clare Gormley

Last month at The Sipping Point our teaching conversations focused on the theme of ‘Making Group Work ‘Work’’. This particular topic attracted the most people yet to the Sipping Point so for those who couldn’t be there, I think it’s well worth reflecting on some of the points that emerged.

group-work-session-st-pats — Some of the participants at the DCU St Patrick’s Campus Sipping Point

At DCU’s St Patrick’s campus, the session opened up with the irrepressible Martin Molony (School of Communications) asking us to consider common group work stereotypes. No doubt familiar to many of those in the audience, these ‘types’ ran the gamut from the uber enthusiasts to the seemingly work shy. We were presented with the common challenges of group work which included varying abilities, varying skillsets, varying motivations, and varying commitment levels. In a nice about-turn of transforming a negative into a positive, we were asked to encourage students to think about these challenges as potential opportunities and indeed enablers of successful group work.

The inspiring Susan Pike (DCU School of STEM Education, Innovation & Global Studies) walked us through several examples of different types of group work projects she has been running in geography teacher education. These ranged from projects that had small groups of students getting to socialise and know each other through completing a local field trip, to class-wide activities that got everyone engaged in a collective, high-energy buzz about the posters they created. The confidence-building effects of these activities proved a wonderful counterpoint to all the negative ‘stuff’ we tend to hear about group work in HE, reminding us of why it’s so important to include it in curricula in the first place.

Continue to read more of Clare’s reflections on this event at her personal blog, “Learning Rush“.