Blog

Nurturing Critical Thinking in Preschool Through Oral Storytelling

I am delighted to share my new article The storythinking programme: a framework for nurturing critical thinking in preschool which was published today (04/10/24) by Taylor & Francis Online.

Imagination, Creativity and Critical Thinking in Preschool

Critical thinking, a multifaceted cognitive process, is more crucial than ever in the digital age. It involves listening, comprehension, understanding information from multiple viewpoints, comparing the information to what you know and looking at new information to find out how accurate (or fake) the information might be.

Doctoral Commencements 2024

Congratulations to all of our PhD and D.Ed students who graduated. Wishing you all the best in your future endeavours. This year’s doctoral commencement at Trinity College Dublin was a momentous occasion, filled with pride, joy, and a sense of accomplishment.

The Journey so Far: Reflections on my Graduation Day

June 14th, 2024, marked a day that I will cherish forever, my PhD graduation. It was a culmination of intense study, sleepless nights, and (for much of it) not really knowing what I was doing.

Dyslexia and Self-Esteem

Dyslexia is a word used to describe a learning disability that commonly affects reading, writing and related skills, such as the use of language, articulation and grammar. However, this blog will not examine reading, writing or language use. Instead, it highlights the impact of dyslexia on self-esteem.

The Socratic Method

To summarise a complex topic, all humans think it is our nature to do so, but left unexamined, thinking can be biased, misinformed and prejudiced. Socratic questioning in education is a way of questioning that minimise the chance that student will accept information at face value.

Nurturing Critical Thinking in Young Children

In this week's Scéalta, Catherine O'Reilly, PhD research student at Trinity College Dublin, discusses how critical thinking relates to early childhood and how we can use storytelling to give children in Early Years settings the same opportunities as older children to learn how to communicate, collaborate, be creative and engage in problem-solving.

What is Educational Research?

Have you ever wondered how educators decide to teach the way they teach and why they use the practices they adopt in the classroom to support learning and development? There are many ways to answer this question; your answer will be influenced by your knowledge of the educational system and your values, beliefs and hopes of how your children will experience their time in school.

Book Review: Sad Book

This beautifully illustrated book is a story portraying sadness and grief. It is written carefully and honestly by an author who took his own suffering and used it to support others to understand that sadness is real and we do not need to hide it.

A Busy & Exciting Month

I started February off by submitting an abstract (fingers crossed) for the European Early Childhood Education Research Association (EECERA) 2023 conference in Lisbon, which is taking place from August 30th to September 2nd. This year's theme is Children's Curiosity, Agency and Participation.