Dr. Jake Byrne

Trinity is part of the CHARM-EU (Challenge-driven, Accessible, Research-based, Mobile European University) alliance, along with partners Eötvös Loránd University (Hungary), the University of Barcelona (Spain), the University of Montpellier (France) and Utrecht University (Netherlands). Today, CHARM-EU was confirmed as one of 17 pioneer alliances selected by the European Commission. As part of CHARM-EU, Trinity will form part of an inter-university campus around which students, doctoral candidates, staff and researchers can move seamlessly. Alliance members will pool their expertise, platforms and resources to deliver joint curricula or modules covering various disciplines. These curricula will be very flexible and allow students to personalise their education, choosing what, where and when to study to get a European degree. All European Universities in the alliances share a long-term strategy and promote European values and identity. They will also contribute to the sustainable economic development of the regions where they are located, as their students will work closely with companies, authorities, academics and researchers to find solutions to the challenges their regions are facing

Exten.(D.T.)2 uses Emerging Technologies (ET) to enhance the pedagogical value, sustainable digitization and potential for wide deployment of Design Thinking (DT). DT is a promising transformative pedagogical innovation based on engaged interdisciplinary learning and the growth of 21st-century (21C) skills for everyone, through entrepreneurial co-creation. Like other such innovations however, it has yet to pull its potential weight in terms of impact in educational transformation. Exten.(D.T.)2 will use design-based research to support/provide evidence for pedagogical transformation via DT enhanced by ET. It will employ already institutionalized, home-grown and open-access digital expressive media of advanced technical readiness for students to engage in DT projects. It will also uniquely integrate with these expressive media ET i.e. ΑΙ-enhanced Authorable Learning Analytics, Augmented Reality, 3D printing/scanning and virtual robotics, to leverage digital implementation, monitoring and assessment of DT projects by teachers in schools. Implemented/developed in different social contexts across 6 European countries, Exten.(D.T.)2 will explore the risks and potential of the pedagogical use of ET and how they support 21C skills, in turn increasing the scope, transformative potential and applicability of DT with ET in mainstream schooling. Exten.(D.T.)2 will invite and inspire teachers and other stakeholders to design and implement such projects, by running original strategic teacher professional development, providing courses and guidelines for them to design, implement and evaluate DT projects in their classrooms. The Exten.(D.T.)2 consortium includes 8 research sites with complementary interdisciplinary academic expertise, to support project development and at the same time with maintained active and sustainable connections with educational institutions and policy-making centers across 6 European countries.

As the maker movement is increasingly adopted into K‐12 schools and nonformal makerspaces, students have more opportunities to generate unique, personalized projects and artifacts, such as computer programs, robots, DIY electronics and to develop new competencies and skills. Digital making technologies if coupled with proper learning methodologies such as suggested by Constructivism (Piaget, 1974) and Constructionism (Papert & Harel, 1991) can provide learning experiences that promote young people's creativity, critical thinking, collaboration and problem-solving skills, the essential skills necessary in the workplace of the 21st century (21st C Skills). However, assessment of these higher order skills is not easy, particularly within these open-ended environments where students create unique solution paths to problems, interact with peers, and act in both the physical and digital worlds. Currently, digital technologies offer novel methods and solutions to assess the 21st century skills and offer insights to learners' efforts and achievements that become available for both learners and researchers. Thus, the goal of this project is to provide, pilot and validate novel assessment methods and tools intended to use for the assessment of 21st century skills. The assessment solutions will be piloted in different learning contexts but focused on makerspaces (schools and nonformal i.e. the makerspaces will be either currently located in Schools or will be nonformal spaces whose programmes engage with School groups). The project partnership will run learning environments that will enable students to act as makers using a wide variety of physical and digital tools through hands-on experiences that emphasize collaboration and creativity following inquiry-based approaches instead of direct instruction of facts and formulas. Teachers and non-formal educators will receive training and will be highly involved in planning and implementing the activities. Finally, the project will report findings and conclusions from implementations and assessments that will take place in 5 schools and 4 non-formal maker spaces in 4 countries.

Bridge21 is a design based research programme which is exploring a new model of technology mediated learning, that can be adapted for use in Irish secondary schools.