EPISTEM PODCAST

In this episode of the EPI·STEM podcast, Geraldine SimmiePhD and Michelle Starr PhD welcome Associate Professor Keelin Leahy as their special guest. Associate Professor Leahy is a Lecturer in Wood, Technology & Design in the School of Education and an EPI∙STEM Affiliate.In the podcast Associate Professor Leahy recalls how herresearch interest and passion for the subject happened through inspiration from a female teacher of woodwork in her school days in Coláiste Mhuire in Ennis, Co. Clare and through working in the medium of wood with her father. Keelincompleted her undergraduate studies in UL in Construction Studies. Later Associate Professor Keelin Leahy spent a sabbatical year in the University of Michigan in the US. There Keelin worked with a multidisciplinary team in ‘designheuristics’ including researchers interested in psychology and in design. While Design Thinking, both in the US and Ireland was focused more on the output there was less interest shown in the process, and especially in the ways thatyoung people could be inspired to think as creative designers. Today, Keelin has written textbooks for student teachers, for teaching design thinking in the post-primary curriculum in Ireland.Associate Professor Keelin Leahy goes on to explain the thinking tools, steps and skillsets that can nowadays be provided to young people when engaging in ‘domain readiness’ for problem-based learning. These includecognitive and metacognitive thinking tools and strategies that help students to push past ‘fixation’ and that can open minds and hearts to innovative approaches. This ‘heuristic design’ approach not only enriches competence in design thinking skills, it helps student wellbeing and has capacity for all involved to seek ways to make a difference to people, place and planet.  Finally, Associate Professor Leahy speaks to a recentresearch paper published with colleagues in UL who formed an online community of practice during covid-19. The platform supported the colleagues to reflexively engage in relation to their efforts to teach young people online and to learn with and from one another. Keelin speaks to the power of dialogue, the felt sense of collegiality, and the deeper, more meaningful and contextually significant learning arising from this encounter. We will now draw the podcast to a close from this semesterand plan to return when our spring semester starts again in January 2026. We are delighted to announce that the Irish Research Council have awarded us in EPI·STEM with a research fellow for Dr Vo Van De to work in a school-university-enterprise partnership with Eli Lilly and chemistry teachers in schools in Ireland. A special word of thanks to all our guests this semester and to Assistant Professor Matthew Noone for his support from the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance. Finally, thanks to the Digital Hub in UL for hosting our podcast and to our producer, Grzegorz Rogola for his expertise, skill and constant care.The music selection today is by Nora Gowran from Ennis inCounty Clare. Nora is a first-year student in the BA in World Music in The Irish World Academy of Music and Dance at UL. Here Nora sings a beautiful sean-nós song, Grá Mo Chroí (Love of My Heart).

In this episode of the EPI·STEM podcast, Geraldine SimmiePhD welcomes Professor Merrilyn Goos as the special guest along with Associate Professor Niamh O’Meara. Professor Goos is currently Professor Emeritus in the Sunshine Coast University in Australia. Merrilyn was a former Director of EPI·STEM The National Centre for STEM Education, where she is now an Adjunct Professor.In this episode, Professor Goos, who grew up in Brisbane inthe mid-eastern coast of Australia shares how her passion and research revolves around supporting teachers in their practices. In a former role, Merrilyn acted as the Course Director of the Professional Diploma in Mathematics forTeaching (PDMT) and published extensively on teacher upskilling programmes. Merrilyn understands that programmes do not seamlessly transport to a differentcountry and that higher level things matter in this regard, such as, the culture of schools and the relationships between a variety of actors. In this episode, Professor Goos shows how critical mathematical thinking has gained in significance in Australia and how this makes sense given that many complex problems encountered today require agility to move between disciplines and to generate new creative and critical solutions. For mathematics teaching this can mean connecting subject matter to real life issues of social justice, such as housing, flood protections, homelessness. Many of these ethical and contemporary issues require skills and competence in mathematics as a vital component of real-world solutions.Professor Merrilyn Goos also completed extensive research,and support of teachers, in relation to numeracy across the curriculum. This involved completing an audit of numeracy across the curriculum while helping teachers to see where numeracy matters in specific subject areas. These border-crossing partnership, including collaborations of mathematics educators and mathematicians, while having a sound theoretical basis can prove challenging in the living contradictions of practice. Merrilyn has recently written timely reviews of STEMeducation - while noting that STEM is included in the Primary Curriculum in Ireland, initial reviews reveal that teachers generally see themselves as subject experts. In addition, there is often no allocated space in the school timetable for STEM in post-primary schools and this thinking has yet to gainthat desired policy momentum.  After serving eight years on the executive of the InternationalConference for Mathematics Instruction (ICMI), Merrilyn is currently President of this prestigious organisation. ICMI works across the global world and especially in developing countries, where teachers of mathematics are often teaching young people without adequate upskilling and more often without resources. ​​The music selection today is by Sarbik Guha, a singersongwriter known by his stage name as Biki, and as Biki and his Buddies. Biki is a 3rd year PhD student in Arts Practice in the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance at UL. Here Biki sings his first original composition ‘Its High Time You Make Her Believe’, while playing his acoustic guitar.

In this episode of the EPI·STEM podcast, Geraldine SimmiePhD welcomes Associate Professor Nicolaas Blom as the special guest. Nicolaas is a Lecturer in Technology Education and Course Director of the International Master’s programme in the School of Education at UL.Here Associate Professor Blom shares how he came to UL in2020 from his former role as a Lecturer in Design Technology in South Africa. Nicolaas was attracted to the education system in Ireland through an education technology conference he attended in 2018, where he was highly impressed by the creativity and modelling in the projects on display.Associate Professor Blom’s research specialism lies in interrogation of where young people’s creative ideas and thinking come from, such as, from the layout of the problem, the role of memory and prior experience, and/or the part played by stimulating learning environments. This was the topic of interest in Nicolaas’s PhD study in Technology Design 2016 and continues to interest him nowadays in relation to the cognitive, metacognitive, including learning from indigenous communities. In this regard, Associate Professor Blom isinterested not only in the complexity of students’ thinking, designing and doing but also in navigating their personal ethical journeys of (human) becoming. Nicolaas invites his students to partake in action research projects while working in teams and navigating what the Celtic philosopher, JohnO’Donohue called ‘the web of betweenness’.As part of public engagement, and aligned with AssociateProfessor Blom’s interest in the notion of social sustainability, Nicolaas works in a cross-national partnership project between transition year students in one school in Ireland (Kanturk, Co. Cork) and a rural resource centre in South Africa, with the aim of designing and manufacturing low cost resources for students with severe disabilities, and for instilling a felt sense of social consciousness, for responsibility and action with and for others.  The music selection is by Sarbik Guha, known by his stage name as Biki, and as Biki and his Buddies. Biki is a 3rd year PhDstudent in Arts Practice in the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance at UL. Biki sings an original composition ‘Fly Away to Another Shore’, while playing his acoustic guitar.

In this episode of the EPI·STEM podcast, Geraldine SimmiePhD and Michelle Starr PhD welcome Dr Sarah Hayes as their special guest. Dr Hayes is the Chief Operations Officer in SSPC, a research centre hosted in The Bernal Institute in UL through the Department of Chemical Sciences. As a Pharmaceuticals Research Centre, SSPC works with pharmaceutical industries inIreland in designing and delivering academic-enterprise partnerships in research, innovation and public engagement. In this episode, Dr Sarah Hayes charts her journey into herundergraduate degree in science education in UL and later into her PhD study with Dr Peter Childs. Sarah’s doctoral research focused on interrogating science in transition year from the perspective of impact, if any, on future career choice. At the same time, Sarah worked with Dr Childs to plan and deliver a public series of Science Magic Shows to schools. The aim was tomotivate young people to feel the ‘awe’ and wonder in science experimentation as much as to gain improved scientific literacy. This emphasis on affectivity has grown substantially in science education in recent years and moves us beyond former stereotypes.SSPC works with nine other organisations in Ireland,including the universities in Ireland, The Royal College of Surgeons, SETU in Waterford and NIBERT (National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training). SSPC collaborates with over 50 industries in Ireland in the pharma and biomedical sectors. Of the 400 IRC (Irish Research Council) funded PhDsstudents in SSPC, more than two thirds progress afterwards into industry. Nowadays, the challenge to solve complex problems through Research & Innovation requires a next level of multidisciplinary practices that rely on very different styles of leadership and scientific communication than heretofore.We conclude with a chat about the public engagement activities underway for Science Week in Limerick and across the country (www.scienceweek.ie). We briefly open the question of how we might inspire a diversity of young people in Ireland toselect chemistry as a school subject, for a love of the subject in its own right; its intellectual prowess; and using a critical appraisal approach to have chemistry today make a difference to science-in-society, for citizen science and the planet.The musical selection is Gan Anam Jig, a lively traditionaltune played on keyboard by Ciara Geaney from Dingle, an accomplished piano player and a student in the BA in Irish Music in The Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Limerick.

In this episode of the EPI·STEM podcast, Geraldine SimmiePhD and Michelle Starr PhD welcome Assistant Professor Patrick J. Dundon as their special guest. Assistant Professor Dundon is a lecturer in science education in the School of Education and an affiliate of the EPI·STEM research centre. Pat is also Course Director for the undergraduate programme in UL in biologyeducation, with additional options either in agricultural science or in physics and chemistry.In the podcast, Pat shares his journey into the academy of science teacher education at UL from completing his undergraduate studies in science teacher education and his PhD study in the life sciences in UL, to becoming a science teacher in Castletroy College. In addition, AssistantProfessor Dundon has acted as an examiner with the State Examinations Commission and a resource person with the OIDE team, the teacher learning team overseen by the Department of Education and Youth.Dr Dundon shares his insights of the complexities and nuancesinvolved in teaching young people science, taking a reflective and relational positioning and coming from a rich understanding that the canon of science knowledge is itself provisional and constantly changing. This invites multiplepedagogical approaches - it relates to citizen science and moves science teaching beyond a static body of knowledge.  As a science teacher your aim is to keep the tension alive between being present to the young people and delivering the class that you had carefully planned.Dr Pat Dundon has published school-based textbooks, generalscience books for junior cycle and a recent book for the new Leaving Certificate Biology specification. His current research studies are interested in the multiple experiences of student teachers during their school placement and developing with colleagues a research-led framework for teaching science practical skills. The music selection today is by Yoghan, an original songwriter from Limerick and a final year student in the BA in World Music in the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance in UL. Here Yoghan is playing his acoustic guitar and singing his originalcomposition called ‘Butterfly’.