Mom and I are just leaving County Kerry. We enjoyed a lovely weekend at the home of Con and Eilish O’Hanlon. Eilish is mom’s second cousin.
New Reflection: Dublin Carvery
It’s been absolutely beautiful in Dublin this past week. Long, sunny days… and I love them!
American Students: Want to Become a Fulbright?
The Fulbright Student program is now taking applications!
Click here to get started on your application.
My colleague Amanda Bernhard is in Ireland this year on the Fulbright Student program. She is studying Irish Language.
Exhibition Catalog
Colleen brought me a copy of the exhibit catalog. It includes every image in the show — I’m ecstatic!
Cover of the exhibition catalog
Opening statement by Dr. Colleen Dube
An example of the page layout
Show’s Up!
Colleen and I have finished hanging the photos for my exhibition at O’Connell House. We’ve just got a few finishing touches before the May 8 opening/launch. Here’s a sneak preview for you:
Entry hall of O’Connell House on Merrion Square.
The show includes images from cities in Europe and the USA…
…with a large selection of images from Dublin…
…and other parts of Ireland.
There are 41 prints in all.
Problem-Based Learning — Live in Setúbal
In Problem-Based Learning, participants work in groups to: explore a problem, determine what they need to know to understand the problem, identify sources they can use, formulate hypotheses, and begin designing responses to the “problem” they’ve been presented.
In the PBL workshop Bill Williams and I conducted in Setúbal, there were three teams working to address the “problem” of how to integrate PBL into one of the institutions’ engineering programs.
These photos show the groups working together. Participants in this workshop included engineering students, engineering teachers, and members of the central administration.
The room set up worked pretty well…
…but would have been even better if the groups could have met in circles…
…instead of rows.
The rows works for groups of four, but not so well for five.
The participants here were highly engaged.
And they came up with some excellent ideas.
Inter-changes: Reflections from Dublin and Beyond
The Fulbright Commission of Ireland and the University of Notre Dame
are hosting the launch of a new photo exhibition
Inter-changes: Reflections from Dublin and Beyond
By Dr. Shannon Chance
6:00 – 8:00 p.m., Wednesday, May 8th, 2013
Keogh Naughton Notre Dame Centre, O’Connell House, 58 Merrion Square, Dublin 2, Ireland
RSVP: joanne.davidson@fulbright.ie / 01.660.7670 by May 1st, 2013
The show will be available for viewing throughout the month of May (weekdays 9-5 at the above address). You can come meet the artist at the launch or 5-7 on May 16, 12-2 on May 22, or 12-2 on May 27. Here’s a sneak peek at the show in preparation….
The photos drying at Dave’s new studio in downtown Portsmouth, Virginia.
The photos arrived in Dublin beautifully intact…
…thanks to the high level of care Dave gave them in printing and packing.
I mounted backing boards in Dublin…
…and got them ready to hang…
…with Colleen Dube, the CEO of the Fulbright Commission in Ireland.
It takes a lot of concentration to get them hanging on the walls.
But thankfully Colleen has experience at this….
…she used to work at the National Gallery.
And she has a really good eye for aligning and leveling…
…which I’ve never been good at myself.
But I’m learning by doing…
…and the show is shaping up.
We’ll finish hanging the rest tomorrow in preparation for the May 8 opening.
A Warm Welcome to Lisbon at the Casa do Alentejo
One of the very best things about the Fulbright program is meeting knowledgable, energetic, and talented people like Bill Williams. He is a teacher at the Escola Superior de Tecnologia do Barreiro – Instituto Politécnico de Setúbal who is clearly dedicated to his students and to the craft of teaching. He’s the kind of guy who works at the university all day then goes home and works on his research.
He’s even completing a PhD — for fun. Can you believe anyone would do a thing like that? 😉
Nearly as soon as I hit the ground in Portugal, Bill provided me a short orientation complete with dinner at Casa do Alentejo — a place that epitomizes Lisbon. This restaurant is where Bill and his wife invited all their friends to celebrate their marriage.
The night Bill and I went there, a group of men was wandering through the halls singing traditional Portuguese songs.
So to give you a taste of my time in Lisbon, I’ve uploaded photos from that night… including the area around the Casa do Alentejo, some rooms of the Casa itself, and others of the singing group that made it shine for our visit.
Refining PBL in Setúbal, Portugal
I’ve been away from blogging to focus on my mini lecture tour. I spent a week in Portugal and a week in Belgium visiting universities, meeting with students and educators, and sharing ideas about how to teach and learn effectively.
My first stop in Portugal was to an engineering program located a ferry ride from Lisbon.
My colleague Bill Williams teaches there. I had met Bill at the European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI) conference in Greece last September. Bill was born in Cork, Ireland. He teaches English to engineers, is working on a PhD, and does high-quality engineering education research. He helped coordinate my trip in a way that allowed me to visit five different campuses while I was in Portugal. Bill seems to know everyone in Portugal who is doing research about how to educate engineers.
Bill hopes to get more people using active learning approaches in the classrooms at Escola Superior de Tecnologia do Barreiro – Instituto Politécnico de Setúbal so the two of us conducted a two-hour workshop on Project-Based and Problem-Based Learning. Thirteen people came to learn about PBL, hear about methods in use at Dublin Institute of Technology and about research I’ve been doing at DIT, and work together to develop ideas for implementing PBL across one program at the institute in Setubal.
Bill and I hope those ideas will move from hypothetical to actual someday soon.
Today, I’m posting images that the institute’s photographer took of the event. I have many more of the participants working in groups to explore the “problem” of how to implement PBL in Setubal. I was thrilled to receive email from participants after the event via Bill — I was really impressed that they took time to say they enjoyed the workshop.
International Lecture Tour
In less than two days, I fly out of Dublin for a two-week “lecture tour”. I’m being sponsored though Fulbright Portugal next week and Fulbright Belgium the week after. This is part of the larger Fulbright Inter-Country Lecturing program.
We have an exciting, action-packed schedule outlined.
In addition to speaking and learning about how other people teach architecture, engineering, and education, I’ve also got a heavy load of homework to carry along.
While I’m away, I’ll hopefully find time to write three conference abstracts, finalize and submit a funding proposal, and prepare for the class I’m co-teaching in May.
Wish me luck!
Lisbon (photo downloaded from Cunard Cruise line)
PORTUGAL
Wednesday, April 10
Visit to Escola Superior de Tecnologia do Barreiro of the Instituto Politécnico de Setúbal.
Thursday, April 11
Round-table talk at Setubal Polytechnic Institute (IPS).
Friday, April 12
Presentation on Tools for Assessing Design Students’ Cognitive Development to Architecture PhD students at Instituto Superior Técnico (IST).
Monday, April 15
Presentation on The Use of Staff Learning Groups to Transform Engineering Education at the Dublin Institute of Technology to the Department of Education at the University of Aveiro and engineers from the Polytechnic School of Águeda. I’ll also meet some of the students and teachers using Problem-Based Learning at the Polytechnic School in Aveiro and/or Águeda (25km away).
Tuesday, April 16
Meet with engineering teachers at the Universidade do Minho engineering campus in Guimarães.
Leuven (photo downloaded from KU-Leuven website)
BELGIUM
Wednesday, April 17
Meet with the president of the European Society of Engineering Educators (SEFI), an engineering professor at Katholic University of Leuven who also directs KU-Leuven’s Teaching and Learning Department.
Thursday, April 18
Deliver a presentation 7-9 PM on Research Paradigms: Filtering What We See and Know to the architecture school (I will discuss major research paradigms and then provide examples of studies I’ve done that used methods aligned with positivism, interpretivism, constructivism, and critical realism. Presentation includes examples of work I’ve done in Africa).
Monday, April 22
Presentation on Tools for Assessing Design Students’ Cognitive Development to members of the LESEC (the Teaching and Learning Department) at KU-Leuven.
Tuesday, April 23
Interview with Fulbright Belgium for use on their websites.
Ireland by Chance 