Initiative Lead
Athlone Institute of Technology

Primary Contact
Dr Michael Tobin
mtobin@ait.ie

€36000

Enhancement across Disciplines

Athlone Institute of Technology (AIT) is committed to addressing the mission-based compact objective of providing a strong talent pipeline combining knowledge, skills and employability to respond effectively to the needs of our enterprise, public service and community sectors, nationally and regionally.

To achieve this ambition, is necessary to expand the number of programmes offered through flexible modes of delivery across all faculties in the institute. However, this requires support for both staff and students who are new to teaching and learning in this environment. The recently established Faculty of Continuing, Professional, Online and Distance Learning will collaborate with the Learning and Teaching Unit in this T&L initiative to address current needs and inform future practices. This initiative comprises of two key elements:

1. To support staff who teach online through a shared Community of Practice (CoP). This will involve working collaboratively with the members of staff in AIT who are delivering a component of their module in an online/blended mode for the first time. The objective of the CoP is to identify, support and address the potential professional development needs of the academic, while also introducing them to best practice in online delivery

2. To support initial student engagement and success when undertaking online programmes. This will involve developing a comprehensive initial online induction and support system using available technology and supports across the institute

Engaging in this process will in turn lead to the development of guidelines for the design/redesign of online and blended modules.