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Home School Community Liaison Coordinators (HSCLs) play an essential role in the Irish education system to address systemic educational disadvantage by supporting children and families. This paper focuses on the experiences of HSCLs during Covid-19 school closures in Ireland in 2020. Research questions focus on challenges and enablers for HSCLs in supporting families during the shutdown and the impact of a whole school response on remote learning. Findings highlight the pivotal role of HSCLs in supporting the wellbeing of children and families. This involves the identification of basic and learning-related needs and engagement in coordinating with the school community and external agencies to respond to those needs. In this study, addressing basic critical needs was identified as the prerequisite to supporting home learning. The internal organisation and strategy of individual schools promoting a whole school approach to wellbeing and home-schooling was highlighted as key to successful support mechanisms. Recommendations highlight the importance of establishing and provisioning appropriate communication approaches with families in order for HSCLs to fulfil their role. Crucial here was the benefit of real physical contact as well as digital means. This has clear implications for public health guidance for schools in adopting holistic approaches to support families.

The impact of the COVID-19 school closures on children and young people has been significant, with research suggesting that it has disproportionately negatively affected students from areas of socio-economic disadvantage. With the move to remote schooling, the focus on ensuring classes continued to 'cover the curriculum' left little space for considering how students were engaging with learning, or the factors that influenced their engagement. This paper aims to examine the extent to which student-teacher relationships, and modes of online teaching and learning, impacted on student engagement during COVID-19 school closures in Irish second-level schools. Using data from two research studies, this paper provides insights into the teacher experience of school closures and a more focused view of the experiences of second-level students attending schools in areas of socio-economic disadvantage. The findings highlight two things: firstly, that meaningful connection between teachers and students matters for student engagement in remote learning, particularly for students at risk of educational disadvantage. Secondly, where teachers use innovative teaching and learning methods and encourage the development of students' key skills there is increased student engagement. This paper acts as a timely reminder of the importance of relationships in student engagement especially during periods of crisis.

This paper presents a systematic literature review of academic staff experiences and perceptions of adopting Technology for Assessment OF/FOR/AS Learning in Higher Education. This paper is a qualitative synthesis of 65 peer-reviewed journal articles published between 2012 and 2017 reporting on the use of technology for assessment (TfA). The results suggest that there are some efficiencies for staff in implementing TfA but this can come with a cost at the set-up and maintenance phases. Furthermore, results indicated that assessment design is not of foremost concern to academic staff when introducing TfA, but that a wide variety of pressures and both educational and operational drivers are present. There were inconclusive findings in relation to understandings of appropriate institutional environments and supports for TfA to flourish in higher education. There is a need for empirical research, particularly longitudinal investigations, of academic experiences of implementations of TfA to investigate sustainability of adoption. The imperative of exploring the academic staff perspective as the instigator and manager of both the technology and the student learning experience requires deep consideration as TfA adoption progresses.

Given the experiences of educators and learners through the COVID-19 pandemic, it is certainly timely to explore disruption in higher education. As Flavin rightly states, despite radical changes in technology over the last 20 years, technology has not disrupted higher education in any meaningful way. However, within the last 12 months, COVID-19 has, at least temporarily. In this response the author will explore both why the transformative power of technology has not been harnessed to its full potential in higher education and what the transformative potential could be in pedagogical terms. The final section examines the potential of COVID-19 as a catalyst for change in higher education, looking at the identified needs of learners and the potential for technology to respond to these. [For the original article, "Disruptive Innovation and Technology Enhanced Learning," see EJ1288163.]

The terminal examination of post-primary education in Ireland, the Leaving Certificate, is often criticised for the reliance on memory recall over higher order thinking skills in the assessment process. In order to examine the evidence base for these critiques, this article presents an empirical investigation of the intellectual skills and knowledge domains implicit in the tasks in the written examination papers of 23 subjects in the Leaving Certificate in Ireland from 2005 to 2010. Data were collected from two sources: examination papers and student interviews. In an in-depth document analysis of the examination papers, 14,910 occurrences of command verbs were coded for the intellectual skill and knowledge domains required by the assessment task. As the same verb can require different intellectual skills in different subjects and in different tasks, each occurrence of every verb was assigned a specific value depending on its context. The article presents the frequencies and distributions of intellectual skills and knowledge domains within and across subjects. In light of key points in the literature search, the findings indicate concern regarding the level of challenge and stimulation for the development of students of the Leaving Certificate.

This paper presents an analysis of primary schoolchildren's attitudes to the Irish language, Gaeilge, in the context of national policy in the Republic of Ireland. In particular, the study examines the factors (social, cultural, cognitive and organisational) that may be related to a pronounced excess in disengagement with Irish over and above general engagement with schooling. The data derives from the nine-year-old child cohort of the national longitudinal study of children, the Growing Up in Ireland (GUI) survey. Unlike previous findings in relation to general engagement with school, excess disengagement with Irish is not found to be related to socio-economic or ethnic factors, factors related to teacher profile, training, self-efficacy or style or school ethos. As expected, children with less exposure to spoken Irish in school or at home are more likely to show excess disengagement with the language. Literacy activity, special education needs and school patronage are also found to be related to excess disengagement. Significant random effects indicate the importance of the individual teacher and school in the development of pupil engagement with Irish. The current study presents a timely perspective on attitudes to Irish among the younger population and possible implications for policy.

In the last two decades, there has been a global movement towards pedagogies that create more inclusive school environments in order to meet the needs of diverse learners. One such approach is Universal Design for Learning (UDL), which foregrounds the design of flexible and accessible learning experiences for all, regardless of learner characteristics. Technology is a key enabler in this. To date, much of the research on UDL has focused on its impact in higher education, with less evidence available on the use of UDL within second‐level education. This systematic literature review of n = 15 empirical studies selected from a wide‐ranging search that returned an initial result of n = 1253 explores how the affordances of digital technology have been harnessed for UDL enactment at second level. The findings show that, to date, empirical research at second level has focused mostly on the easy wins within the UDL principle of Representation, where educators offer choice about how learners access content. However, there is a clear gap in UDL research on the use of technologies to support the Engagement and Action & Expression principles of UDL, supporting student self‐regulation and self‐assessment, and on technology‐mediated communication and collaboration. The paper highlights the potential for future cross‐pollination of research in educational technology with UDL. Practitioner NotesWhat is already known about this topicUniversal Design for Learning has been extensively researched in higher education and special education contexts but much less so at K‐12, in particular at second level.Technology offers many affordances that can provide choice and variation in the learning process, which can be harnessed in a UDL approach.The transformative potential of technology in educational contexts was not fully realised pre‐COVID.The COVID pandemic saw an acceleration in technology adoption for learning, but it remains to be seen whether technology is being deployed to complement or transform existing practices.What this paper addsThis paper clearly identifies which affordances of technology are commonly deployed in UDL implementations, particularly noting the provision of choice through multi‐media options for Representation and expression.There is a clear gap in UDL research on the use of technologies to support self‐regulation and self‐assessment, (eg, peer, teacher and automated feedback tools) and on technology‐mediated communication and collaboration.The UDL literature does not address the potential negative impacts of technology within the learning context or the short‐lived nature of positive impacts (novelty effect).Implications for practice and/or policyWhile technology affords great opportunities for choice and Engagement, the design of the learning experience must take priority, availing of technology as needed.There are great opportunities for cross‐pollination of research at the forefront of educational technology and universal design to address any gaps in technology use in UDL implementations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the majority of people in Ireland speak English as a first language, the minority Irish language is spoken daily by approximately 3% of the population even though is a compulsory subject in Irish schools. Recent research has shown the language to be in crisis, with consistently declining standards of attainment in schools. This paper presents the first cycle of an Action Research project aiming to assess the potential of using a three-dimensional virtual environment (3DVE) as a platform for task-based learning of Irish in the primary school. The action phase of the cycle consisted of an intensive pilot of a language learning intervention using a 3DVE (n = 25 children aged 9-10 years). The reflection component was multiphase, involving analysis of pilot outputs, re-evaluation of the literature and an in-depth user consultation (n = 15 children aged 10-11 years), inspired by Student Voice methodology. The user consultation findings indicated goal orientation as the primary driver for children learning in a 3DVE with social connectivity understood as a given in any such environment. This paper offers a novel classification of games and virtual worlds for language learning which serves to integrate the two research literatures in a meaningful way.

In the 2011 census almost one in three Irish teenagers claimed to be unable to speak Irish (Central Statistics Office, Ireland, 2012), despite the language being taught daily in school. The challenges facing the Irish language in schools are complex and multifaceted. The research reported here attempts to address some of these challenges by adopting a novel approach to teaching Irish to primary school children using an online detective game. This paper details how a group of 10 year old children (n = 17) report their experience of the game, and how this compares to its proposed affordances for language learning. Overall, the children responded very positively, and identified significant motivational factors associated with the game, such as rewards, positive team interactions, challenge and active learning. Their feedback demonstrates that this use of gaming technology has the potential to support children's language learning through creating a language community where users are motivated to use Irish in a meaningful way.

Peer teaching has been used as a mechanism for promoting learner autonomy in a range of language learning contexts. This article explores how absolute beginners in a Chinese class can engage in reciprocal peer teaching (RPT) from the start of their language learning experience and how this contributes to the development of their autonomy as learners in addition to improving their linguistic competence in Chinese. RPT, as it is implemented in this study, entails students working in teaching teams, with each team taking responsibility in turn to teach the whole class during a short beginners' course in Chinese. The study was conducted as an action research project in three cycles, with modifications to the form and content of students' engagement in each cycle based on analysis of data from students' reflective language learning journals and group reports. The findings suggest that the cooperative and challenging activity of RPT fostered students' individual responsibility and motivation for learning while at the same time developing group solidarity in the classes. Individual and group development together served to promote the learner autonomy. The findings also suggest that the reciprocal element, whereby each student identifies with both teacher and learner roles at some point during the course, is critical in this intervention, functioning as a catalyst for students' activities.

This article seeks to consider the place of development education (DE), including climate change education (CCE), in initial teacher education (ITE). The article focuses on a DE elective module for Professional Master of Education (PME) students which enables student teachers to learn and to teach about a variety of global justice topics including climate change. The methodology is based on two qualitative phases. Firstly, three focus groups were conducted, one with students, one with graduates and one with ITE pedagogy lecturers (not involved with the elective module). Secondly, a narrative account from one of the study's authors captures examples of practice and challenges when engaging with DE (including specifically CCE). The article provides evaluative reflection on the DE elective as well as insights into the translation of the student teachers learning into schoolbased practice. Focus group findings suggest that more general issues regarding ITE and school culture surrounding DE integration impact on the approach taken by student teachers to DE teaching in schools. The article goes on to examine the transition between an ITE experience which aims to support student teachers use of experiential and transformative pedagogical approaches to global justice issues - including climate change - and the broader ITE and school culture which may foster or inhibit such practice. Furthermore, the article discusses the need to embed CCE in a theoretical framework of care derived from sustainability literature in order to bring a clearer focus on the Policy & Practice: A Development Education Review 58 |Page intricate and interconnected knowledges and ways of knowing sustainability and DE. This article concludes by reaffirming the significant contribution of DE but suggests further gain might be made by engaging the broader ITE community and school context to nurture teachers' and pupils' love for the environment and enhance the lifelong journey of learning for global justice and sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deploying technology to support and improve the quality of teaching, learning and assessment in higher education offers significant opportunities. The complexity of such educational interventions, however, also has the potential to create significant unintended consequences arising from the actions of and interactions among students, academics, technology designers, publishing companies and other stakeholders. Based on the experiences derived from a four-year adoption and implementation process of a theory-based online simulation game, this paper reports on and discusses three such unplanned and unexpected consequences and identifies both obvious and more hidden lessons that will be of value to academics in designing and deploying effective and meaningful technology-supported educational and assessment innovations, particularly for those which take an assessment for/as learning perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]