Dr ClÃona Murray of the School of Education at NUI Galway has been awarded a prestigious teacher researcher award for her work on research literacy skills.
Dr Murray’s main areas of research at NUIG focus on teacher identity and professional development, education policy studies, and inclusion and diversity in education.
On top of her research she also teaches in the Professional Master of Education and Máistir Gairmiúil san Oideachas programmes at NUIG.
She has been given the Teacher’s Research Exchange National Award within the Module Innovation Framework for her work.
The T-REX programme is coordinated by Mary Immaculate College, Limerick with partners NUI Galway, University of Limerick, and Marino Institute of Education, Dublin.
It consists of an online platform and set of tools to support teachers and educational researchers and professionals to collaborate, undertake and share research, and is freely available to all teachers in Ireland.
Following an open call for project applications an independent review panel with both teacher and student representation examined all applicants.
The five national awardees developed proposals which impressed the panel in terms of their creativity and innovativeness; value for student learning; and exploitation of what the T-REX platform has to offer.
Each of the awardees will receive financial, academic and technological support to develop their modules and to integrate the T-REX research platform and approach.
Speaking of her award, Dr ClÃona Murray said “This funding from the T-REX Module Innovation Framework will support the development of a collaborative research community within the Practitioner-Based Research module of the Máistir Gairmiúil san Oideachas”
She added that it will also improve the research literacy skills of students in initial teacher education at the School of Education in NUI Galway.
Dr Tony Hall and Dr Cornelia Connolly, the T-REX Principal Investigators at NUIG said that this programme is designed to bridge the gap between research and practice in Irish education.
“It is designed to support lecturers and teacher educators to embed the T-REX platform and philosophy within their own teaching practice.”
“We would like to congratulate Dr ClÃona Murray on her award, which should help to enhance teacher education at NUI Galway.”
