Professor Brendan Tangney

Dr. Brendan Tangney is a Professor in Computer Science & Statistics and a Fellow of Trinity College Dublin. He holds an M.Sc. from the University of Dublin (Trinity College Dublin) and a Ph.D. from the University of Bolton. His research focuses on the areas of technology & learning, educational reform, teacher professional development and equality of access. He works closely with Trinity Access and was principal investigator on the Bridge21 project - which is now part of Trinity Access. He has held visiting positions in the Universities of Sydney and Kyoto. He is a member of the Editorial Board of Computers & Education and the Journal for STEM Education Research. He chaired the Ministerial Advisory Board on the Implementation of the Digital Strategy in Schools (2017-2020) and was co-chair of the 2020 Constructonism Conference. At college level he is a tutor and has served as Registrar, Warden of Trinity Hall and Junior Dean.

  Computer Education/Literacy   Computer-Aided Instruction   Computers & Education   Creative music education   Educational/Instructional Technology   E-Learning   Information technology in education   Innovation in learning   Technology & Learning

The overarching research question driving my research is "how best to make use of the affordances of technology to support learning?". This lead to the exploration of different pedagogical approaches and the development, and evaluation of, tools to align with them. The tools covered subject areas ranging from music to mathematics and it emerged that tools designed to support social constructivist, and constructionist, pedagogies were effective. The then emerging area of mobile learning was a particular focus. From the work it became clear that greater insights were needed into how technology enhanced learning can be embedded in the classroom. This lead into research on the needs of teachers to help them transform their practice. Findings revealed that teachers needed a pragmatic pedagogical model with which to structure teaching, so that learners could master curriculum content and develop key skills (communication, collaboration etc.) which have become of increasing importance in education at all levels. The Bridge21 pedagogical model, and the corresponding approach to teacher professional development, emerged from this research. My approach to research is to marry the conceptual with the applied. This is particularly important in educational research where the paradigms for action, and design based, research are often used as they include an element of trying to transform practice on the ground. Of late my research has overlapped with involvement in the Trinity Access Programmes. Here the research questions are "How can the educational aspirations and attainment levels of students in areas of socio-economic disadvantage be improved?" and "How can interventions in this field be implemented at scale?" A body of evidence has been produced to demonstrate that the Bridge21 pedagogical model helps to attain these goals in both informal settings and in schools when teachers have been provided with appropriate professional development. This is a very significant result from research and policy perspectives as it address obstacles identified by the OECD in the embedding of key skills in school systems. More immediately the Bridge21 work with TAP, and other, schools is having a direct impact on the lives of tens of thousands of students. Measuring change in educational contexts is a well known research problem, so I have spearheaded work in TAP to gather longitudinal data on impact. This is producing an invaluable, and unique,dataset which is allowing a myriad of research questions to be addressed by the TAP team. The data is being made available, on request, to other researchers.