Funded by:

Presented By:

Ms. Shelley Crawford, European Mentoring and Coaching Council
Mr. Ruairí Ó Ceilleachair, Edelia Coaching and TLU, CIT
Dr Brigid Lucey, Biological Sciences, CIT

Seminar Descriptor:

Vygotsky’s (1978) theory of social constructivism highlighted the importance of the contribution of others to every individual’s learning. With the increasing use of ICT and the internet, learning communities can expand beyond geographical limitations leading to new and exciting educational dimensions and learning opportunities across schools, colleges, communities and cultures. The term ‘learning community’ has become increasingly common in education usage and can mean many different things, from bringing members of the local community in to the college to collaborative learning among students or lecturers.

Colleges today are complex, interwoven, interactive environments where learning flourishes when there is a spirit of openness and transparency and where lecturers are more likely to adopt a collegial approach incorporating shared leadership and authority thereby facilitating the work of the students. In colleges that are learning communities, everyone is a learner, and everyone is a teacher.

This seminar will explore how a coaching skill set can be used to enable learning institutions to develop the skills of enquiry, collaboration, sharing of practice and critically evaluate beliefs about teaching and learning.

The overall aim of the seminar is to enhance the quality of professional communication and dialogue one of the four domains underpinned by the National Professional Development framework’s values. The seminar will employ a blended learning approach involving experiential learning techniques complimented by facilitated debriefs, group discussions and short presentations.

Having attended this seminar, participants will have:

Deepened their understanding of the nature and benefits of peer coaching.
Gained a heightened awareness of how coaching skills can be used to enhance individual and group learning.
Gained insight into how a departmental wide peer mentoring model is evolving in CIT.
Increased their knowledge and expertise in the use of coaching skills in their professional roles.
Have practiced their coaching skills in challenging situations.
Constructed an action plan to utilise the workshop content to improve their peer coaching skills so they can better support their peers and engage in purposeful conversations regarding professional development, development of learning communities and communities of practice.

Presenter Biographies:

Shelley Crawford is the creator and developer of the Jess (TM) Resilience-building Certification Programme and Team Resilience-building Programme for coaches, psychologists, psychotherapists, counsellors and HR wellbeing facilitators. The programme provides unique tools that can assist people to build resilience in individuals, teams and groups. An experienced Resilience and Executive Coach, EMCC EIA Assessor, Coach Supervisor and Lecturer, Shelley's resilience-building work is underpinned by robust positive psychology, social and health psychology, cognitive behavioural principles and neuroscience research. Shelley is registered with the European Mentoring and Coaching Council and International Coaching Federation.

She has a vivacious, insightful, positive and dynamic personality which she brings, with an extensive experience in a variety of business areas, to her profession.

Her passion is resilience-building in leaders, individuals & teams. Shelley’s deep interest in helping people to be resilient assists them to realize their fullest potential & talents to achieve their goals - in diverse & culturally different environments. Global clients include, amongst others: EAP, SAP, Apple, GIBS, DAA, Health Services Executive, Lilly, QAAET, ESB, UCC.

Over the past 20 years, Shelley has coached clients through honest conversations, performance issues, resilience & stress management - designing programmes for government, corporate & higher education in Ireland, South Africa, New Zealand & Bahrain. Her work involves extensive travel in Europe, Africa & the USA.

Shelley’s selected areas of expertise include:

Resilience-building - Creator of the Jess (TM) resilience-building programme. She presented the original design at the EMCC Conference in Mar 2017
She designs & facilitates Leadership Development & Coaching courses globally
Speaker & Conference Presenter

Shelley assisted with the development of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Coaching Programme.

Mr. Ruairí Ó Ceilleachair, Edelia Coaching and TLU, CIT

Ruairí Ó Céilleachair is currently leading the Staff Mentoring Programme for the Teaching and Learning Unit at Cork Institute of Technology and is also acting as an external consultant to the Human Resource Department of Waterford Institute of Technology as they pilot a staff induction mentoring programme.

Ruairí has over twenty-five years of teaching experience, is an Associate with the Professional Development Service for Teachers (PDST) and a former Associate of the National Induction Programme for Teachers (NIPT).

Ruairí has extensive experience in developing, delivering and assessing teacher education and coach education programmes, having worked with the Department of Education and Skills in Ireland, the National Coaching and Training Centre at the University of Limerick and with sports governing bodies in Ireland, UK, France and USA.

He has unique expertise in enabling organisations, teams and individuals to identify and harness existing strengths and to take advantage of current best practice in order to make work more productive and enjoyable.

Prior to his engagement with CIT he worked with the Department of Education and Skills and the National Induction Programme for Teachers in the development and delivery of the current National Programme for Teacher Induction. He was a member of the Teaching Council Steering committee during the recent introduction of the new induction model for newly qualified teachers at Secondary and Primary level called Droichead. AS part of this programme Ruairí with a small team, trained over 500 mentors toward their NIPT accredited Mentor award.

Ruairí has designed and delivered accredited coaching courses for the Association for Coaching and the European Mentoring and Coaching Council and has lectured in pedagogical and coaching skills at Coláiste Stiofán Naofa College of Further Education. He has conducted seminars at WIT for the past two years as part of the National Teaching and Learning Forum Seminar Series.

Ruairí works as an Executive Coach for private sector companies. He has published numerous articles on coaching, training and teaching and has designed and delivered hundreds of coaching and training workshops and courses in Ireland, the UK, France and the USA.

As well as being a qualified mentor, mentor trainer, coach and coach trainer, Ruairí holds a MA in Educational Management and Leadership and a Post graduate Diploma in Educational Leadership from NUI Maynooth. He also holds certification in Positive Psychology.

Dr Brigid Lucey, Biological Sciences, CIT

Dr Brigid Lucey joined the fulltime staff of the Biological Sciences Department in 2010, having previously worked as a senior medical scientist in the Department of Clinical Microbiology at Cork University Hospital for many years.

Dr Lucey lectures undergraduate medical scientists in diagnostic microbiology, professionalism for medical scientists, and quality management. Dr Lucey is currently President of the Academy of Clinical Science and Laboratory Medicine (ACSLM), which has been the Irish accrediting body for the joint BSc (Hons) in Biomedical Science programme (with Clinical Laboratory Placement), a programme that is run jointly between CIT & UCC.

Compulsory state registration is imminent for medical scientists and reflective practice is an integral part of maintaining Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and one’s state registration status. Coaching is also integral to CPD. These are aspects of healthcare professions that need to be reflected in their undergraduate programmes to prepare future practitioners for professional life.

Brigid is currently undertaking a postgraduate programme in Teaching & Learning at CIT. Through mentoring training, a mentored mentoring continuum has been developed in which mentee becomes mentor in a model that extends to students.

Developing Peer Mentoring Skills to enhance CPD in Teaching and Learning and better enable Learning Communities