An Irish perspective on education for all who value teaching
Episodes
Wednesday Feb 27, 2019
Wednesday Feb 27, 2019
Presented and produced by Seán Delaney
Theme music by David Vesey
This week I bring you my third and final episode from the 2019 annual conference of the Irish Primary Principals' Network. First of all I step inside the Aquaculture Remote Classroom to find out what's in store for schools when the mobile classroom visits and I speak to John Hurley of H2 Learning who was involved in designing the experience.
I also speak to Damian White who is Deputy President of the Irish Primary Principals' Network. Among the topics we discuss are:
- The highlight of the conference for him
- Prioritising initiatives for schools
- The role of a school in a community
- How the IPPN has encouraged cooperation across schools
- Teachers who taught him
- How he’d like to be perceived by students in his school
Wednesday Feb 20, 2019
Wednesday Feb 20, 2019
Presented and produced by Seán Delaney
Theme tune by David Vesey
On this week's programme I continue my conversation on teaching literacy in the early years with Dr. Tara Concannon-Gibney from Dublin City University. The occasion was to mark the publication by Routledge of Tara's book Teaching Essential Literacy Skills in the Early Years Classroom: A Guide for Students and Teachers. Among the topics we discuss on this week's programme are:
- Her definition of literacy
- Digital texts and literacy
- Why some children struggle with reading
- How parents can help their child to read
- How a parent should react to a child reading when the child comes to a word that is not known
- Advice for choosing a book for a child
- The benefits of repetitive reading of texts
- Poetry and literacy skills
- How she became interested in the area of literacy
- How she went about writing the book
In the course of our interview Tara mentioned texts by the following writers: Mem Fox, Georgia Heard, Lucy Calkins, Oliver Jeffers, Hervé Tullet, and Julia Donaldson.
Wednesday Feb 13, 2019
Wednesday Feb 13, 2019
Presented and produced by Seán Delaney
Theme tune by David Vesey
The guest on this week's programme is Dr. Tara Concannon Gibney who is an assistant professor in Dublin City University. The interview is to mark the launch of Tara's new book Teaching Essential Literacy Skills in the Early Years Classroom: A Guide for Students and Teachers, which is published by Routledge. Among the topics we discuss this week are the following:
- Why she wrote the book
- Phonological awareness and how to develop it using games
- Using big books to teach literacy (e.g. Owl Babies)
- How to teach phonics
- Sequence for teaching phonics
- Developing fluency
- Teaching concepts of print
- Tier 2 vocabulary
- Comprehension strategies – Gradual release of responsibility model
- High frequency – Dolch - words
- Guided reading literacy centres
- Role of play in developing language and literacy
Wednesday Feb 06, 2019
Wednesday Feb 06, 2019
Presented and produced by Seán Delaney.
Theme tune by David Vesey.
On this week's programme, the guests were two of the keynote speakers from the 2019 annual conference of the Irish Primary Principals' Network, the IPPN, Adam Harris and Patrick O'Shea. Adam Harris is the Chief Executive Officer of AsIAm, an organisation set up to give people with autism a voice. My conversation with Adam included the following topics:
- His message for primary school principals
- The importance of school culture
- The “scattered skill sets” of people with autism
- The value of focusing on a student’s strengths
- Disclosing the having of autism
- Support for students with autism
- A student’s relationship with their SNA
- The work of As I Am
- Awareness of versus Understanding People with autism
- Coping mechanisms for difficult situations and places
- Being diagnosed as having autism
Professor Patrick O'Shea was appointed President of University College Cork in 2017 following a three-decade career in academia in the United States. My conversation with Patrick included the topics below:
- Why he sees Brexit as a tremendous opportunity for Ireland and Irish education
- Why he emigrated to the United States and how Ireland changed while he was away
- His impression of University culture in the United States
- The mission of University College Cork
- How learning will happen without teaching
- Educating explorers rather than training tourists
- Motivation of Students
- The role of a School of Education in a University
- Comparing leadership of a university with leading a primary school
- A typical day
- Junior Conferring
- Why history is what’s left when the noise and the news are gone