Two of IT Sligo’s online lecturers have been shortlisted for the National Forum Teaching Experts Award 2015.
Brian Coll and Dr John Donovan have made the final selection for their work in delivering Ireland’s first Massive Open Online Course (MOOC).
The award, co-ordinated by the National Forum of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, aims to identify expert teachers who are models for excellence in teaching and whose knowledge about learning impact is strong and evidence based.
35 nominations were submitted from across the sector for assessment by an international Teaching Experts Panel. A shortlist of 15 lecturers/teams of lecturers will be recognised at a special award ceremony in Dublin in December.
In delivering the Lean Six Sigma MOOC Brian and John successfully addressed the challenges that a large number of participants brought to online education. With 2400 participants (from over 45 countries) the MOOC presented new challenges to the assessment of and for learning – particularly as assignments involved complex engineering design problems. Brian and John used peer assessment, as supported by current research, to successfully address this challenge and this practice has since been adopted by other online lecturers at IT Sligo.
Brian Coll is a lecturer in the School of Engineering & Design and teaches on the quality and engineering courses. Dr John Donovan is a lecturer in Quality Engineering and his research focus has been in the area of Industrial Statistics, process simulation, modelling & optimization.
The National Forum Teaching Experts awards ceremony takes place on December 10th.
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L-R: Dr John Donovan and Brian Coll, lecturers at IT Sligo, who have been shortlisted for the National Forum Teaching Experts Awards 2015.