TL21 Programme

The programme has a number of key aims (https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/tl21) including:

• To address the isolation and insulation that teachers can, and do, experience in their day-to-day professional lives.
• To strengthen teachers’ capacities as the “authors” of their own work – to encourage and support them in actively engaging with a wider repertoire of active teaching strategies.
• To encourage students to become more active and responsible participants in their own learning.

We will work with a cluster of post-primary schools in the Donegal Education Support Centre’s catchment area and the following is a brief outline of what is involved for schools that participate in TL21.

• The TL21 Programme is a two-year programme.
• The programme is not a series of lectures; rather a series of collaborative professional development workshops planned in a development sequence.
• There will be 5 workshop sessions in a school year.
• Each school may like to suggest the themes or aspects of teaching and learning they would like to address: e.g. assessment, AFL strategies, differentiation etc.
• Each participating school will have the opportunity to progress the chosen theme(s) in their own school and report back on progress to the whole group of schools participating.
• Ideally there should be five participating teachers per school, and the Principal or a Deputy Principal.
• Full attendance is expected.

Note:
A university accreditation path has previously been available for those TL21 participants wishing to pursue an M.Ed. degree by action research (three years in total). It is expected that this will also be the case for the 2023/25 cohort.

Participants following this path take some research workshops in Maynooth University as well as the professional development workshops in the Education Centre.