An Update from the Institute of Education

The DCU Institute of Education is approaching its fifth birthday. In educational terms, we are still in our earliest phase - establishing our identity and relationships, discovering our world, making our mark and finding our languages. When it comes to impact and innovation however, we have exceeded all developmental milestones!

We launched the search for our new Teacher Fellows at the end of 2020; the response was overwhelming - almost 350 aspiring candidates. Our six fellows take up their new roles in September 2021, and yes, some of them are alumni!

One aspect of our work that has really grown in the last couple of years is post-graduate research – at time of writing we have 82 postgraduate research students across PhD, Research Masters and our very popular Education Doctorate.

This programme is the first EdD from outside the US to have been invited to participate in the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate, and we are proud to be the first!

While much has been made about the impact of the pandemic on higher education, the Institute is proud to have made a mark on the pandemic – through our innovative Facebook live sessions to support schooling at home, through our research on the challenges faced by teachers working on calculated grades in the Leaving Certificate, and through a wide range of media engagement by our experts on everything from screen time to resilience. We made a difference. Onwards to six!