Dr. Ann Devitt

The purpose of this project is to empower teachers to develop pedagogical competences for establishing effective and engaging learning experiences in a digital space, whether as part of a blended experience or wholly online. With the consortium partners from Ireland, Greece, Belgium and Spain, representing a mixture of second-level teachers and education researchers, we will address the common aim of harnessing UDL to achieve 'an EU-wide common understanding of how to make distance, online & blended learning effective, inclusive & engaging' (a strategic priority of the EC Digital Education Action Plan 2021-2027). The project will address two key areas: inclusion and digital pedagogical competences, with the main target group being second-level teachers. The approach will be based on the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework (Cast.org), an inclusive approach to teaching and learning that offers all students an equal opportunity to fulfil their potential. This framework offers students different options for accessing, building and internalising learning. It guides teachers to provide multiple means for students to: a) engage with; b) represent; and c) action/express their learning. A key output of this project is to provide a digital overlay to the UDL framework to scaffold teachers' implementation of UDL principles in remote/blended contexts, such as during school closures. The other project outputs will flow from the development of this digital overlay, to provide further layers of supports for teachers to adopt digital learning principles of UDL. These include: a self-evaluation tool for teachers to identify aspects of the digital UDL framework with which they require support; an associated learning model to support teachers' creation of digital, UDL activities that include a focus on key skills and competences; Open Educational Resources to scaffold implementation of the framework; and a professional development module which will focus on Area 5 of the DigCompEdu Framework: empowering learners through accessibility and inclusion, differentiation and personalisation. These tools will aim to support teachers and schools to develop inclusive strategies for the digital provision of teaching and learning in their own educational context, with an overarching goal of ensuring high levels of student engagement notwithstanding the mode of content delivery.

ACT-AI Academy aims to establish a pan European academy for student-teachers, in-service teachers, and school leaders, focusing on equipping and/or upskilling them with the competences required to utilise AI effectively and ethically within the educational context, as well as part of their professional engagement. Additionally, the project aims to raise awareness about the potential benefits of AI for enhancing educational outcomes and supporting the holistic development of students while addressing societal and ethical challenges. It seeks to increase awareness within the educational community and advocate for policy recommendations to ensure the responsible and equitable integration of AI in education.

Formative feedback is an essential component of effective learning environments, establishing clear goals for students, where students are doing well and what they need to progress. It provides students with a range of benefits including positive motivation, promoting self-esteem and supports students to become self-regulated learners with the ability to self-assess and set their own goals and next steps for learning. It can also help to strengthen student teacher relationships. However, individualised and timely feedback is challenging for teachers to provide in the large and diverse classrooms of many education settings today. Teachers may not have the time and resources to provide targeted feedback when and where students need it. The growing linguistic and cultural diversity of students makes providing meaningful and accessible feedback even more challenging. Some students might be more comfortable using languages other than the main language of instruction in the classroom. Generative AI (GenAI) has the potential to address these challenges and help to support students by providing this feedback in a way that can meet them where they are in terms of their understanding both linguistically and conceptually. In this research we propose to investigate appropriate approaches to providing formative feedback through the application of GenAI. Through co-creation with students and teachers we will seek to develop guidelines, methodologies and best practice that aligns with their needs and the realities of the classroom.

The over-arching goal of this project is to use technology to improve the literacy skills of parents with literacy learning needs through a family digital literacy programme. This project will focus on parents in families with children in stages 1 and 2 of primary school (junior infants to second class). The specific literacy focus will be the constrained literacy skills which are key components of the Junior Primary Language Curriculum (NCCA, 2017). The over-arching goal will be addressed through the following research questions: 1. What are the individual and family literacy practices of families where a parent has literacy learning needs, in particular focusing on the uses of and access to technology? (See Work Package 2: Family digital literacy survey) 2. What technologies to support literacy are effective in developing constrained early literacy skills (e.g. letter knowledge, phonics)? (See Work Package 3: State of the Art Review in Technology to support early literacy) 3. Can these technologies, employed in a family literacy programme, support family literacy practices and develop the literacy skills of both parents and children? (See Work Packages 4 and 5 below to design and evaluate a family digital literacy module using an experimental research design)

This project assumes a view of assessment that is embedded and integral to teaching and learning and where assessment data is used by both staff and students to progress learning towards learning goals that are explicit and shared. It will focus on assessment as a measurement and record of learning, ultimately for accreditation (summative) as well as assessment as a tool for both teachers and students to evaluate and progress learning (assessment for learning). Assessment as learning focuses on the student as an actor in the assessment process, setting success criteria, peer and self-assessing, and using these activities to progress their learning. The Digital Roadmap identifies a clear need to prioritise the development of high-impact and best practices within the learning environment 'that leverage the potential of digital technologies to support student learning and substantially contribute to evidencing pedagogical excellence'. (Digital Roadmap, p49). Technology offers great potential in the area of assessment, opening opportunities for experiential learning, collaborative learning, speedy or instant feedback and among a range of possible affordances. However, the reality of incorporating technology into institutional structures and of transforming pedagogical practice to embrace the possibilities of technology can be fraught with difficulty. The aim of this project is to conduct a systematic literature review and meta-analysis to synthesize and summarize previous literature and to identify best and next practices through a depth of understanding of prior research in this domain. Incorporating both a quantitative and qualitative perspective. This will provide a holistic overview of research findings, generating a solid evidence base for professional transformation in this domain.