Initiative Lead
University College Cork

Primary Contact
Dr. Eithne Hunt
e.hunt@ucc.ie

€30000

Enhancement across Disciplines

Bookended by puberty and culturally defined adult roles, it is now accepted that adolescence extends from 10-24 years, meaning that the majority of undergraduates are still adolescents, without fully developed cognitive, social, emotional and self-regulatory capacities.

With the curriculum as the only point of guaranteed contact between a HEI and its students, under this T&L initiative, the collaborative interdisciplinary team aims to create an innovative digital badge (DB) to provide academic/academic support services staff with a greater understanding of the unique developmental stage of adolescence. It will enable staff to tailor curricula and programme management approaches to harness the power and potential of adolescent brain and behaviour for enhanced learning and wellbeing, as students transition into and through higher education.

Underpinned by an evidence-base in neuroscience and motivated strategies to learn, the following objectives apply:

• Understand brain development as it relates to students in HEIs
• Identify the risks and opportunities of contemporary socio-cultural contexts relating to students’ learning
• Explore practical strategies for enhanced student success and the development of graduate attributes through curriculum design, learning, teaching and assessment