Conference to address issues in education

The second annual Limerick and Clare Education Centres Research Conference will be held at the Clare Education Centre this Saturday on the theme of Current Issues in Education.
Papers will be delivered on topics like curriculum development, raising special education needs, exploring the continued professional development legacy and cyber-bullying.
It is a landmark event for Clare Education Centre in Ennis that evolved from a conversation between Pat Hanrahan director of the Clare Education Centre, Dr Joe O’ Connell, director of Limerick Education Centre and retired Limerick teacher Dr Kevin Haugh. The conference provides a forum for practitioners in the Mid-West to showcase their work and share their learning through reflective practice in a professional and collegial setting.
Dr Niamh Kelly from the School of Applied Language and Intercultural Studies at Dublin City University will deliver a paper on her findings in The Language Learning Environment of the Language Minority Student in Irish Schools.
Dr Kelly will provide a ideal opening for the research findings of Liliana Kalinowska on Parental Involvement in Early Childhood Settings from the Polish and Irish Perspective and Marlene Schliepach’s Parents’ Views of the Outcomes and the Values of Family Learning Courses in County Clare.
Papers will be presented by Dr John O’ Shea (PhD) of Mary Immaculate College, Limerick on Fostering Positive Attitudes towards Mathematical Problem Solving in the Primary School; Sarah Fitzgerald on How the use of Explicit Comprehension Instructional Approaches Impact on Comprehension Development, of First and Second Class Pupils and Prof Tim Blair on The Inner-City Reading Camp Program: Successful Teacher Preparation and Parent Education for Diverse Communities in Central Florida.
The conference opening address will take place at 9.15am. While admission is free to the conference, anybody wishing to attend is asked to let the organisers know by email to pat@clareed.ie or by telephone to Clare Education Centre at 065 6845500. Registration will commence at 9am and the conference will start at 9.15am. Full programme is available on www.clareed.ie The day will finish with a light lunch at aproximately 2pm.