During the spring semester 2020 I got the opportunity to stay at EPI•STEM, the National Centre for STEM Education as a research scholar. The intention was to improve my written and oral english language, as well as get time for my own research. During this time at UL, I continued working on three projects. One of the projects is about how teachers handle students’ errors that occur in classroom conversation. I and some colleagues analysed fifty-one lessons from twelve teachers, and created error-handling teaching profiles across teacher cases. The goal of this study is to understand how teachers handle errors in the introduction of the lesson, when students are working alone, in pairs, and in whole-class situation. The second project is about teachers’ views of student capabilities within a national professional development initiative. We have studied how teachers, in the context of a professional development program, in collegial discussion talk about students’ mathematical capabilities. The third project is about programming in mathematics education. In the autumn 2020 programming will be integrated in mathematics in the Norwegian curriculum, with the rationale that it fosters problem solving and logical thinking skills and motivates students to learn mathematics. In this project I aim at getting a better understanding of how pre-service teachers view programming as a topic in mathematics education, by analysing their answers to a digital survey concerning their view on integrating programming in mathematics education. The intention was to present this research at the ESAI conference in Dublin. Initially, the plan was for me to be in Limerick for six months. Unfortunately, my stay was only for two months due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
I want to thank everyone at EPI•STEM for being so welcoming.

I want to especially thank Merrilyn Goos for giving me this opportunity, and everybody at the postgraduate room for fruitful discussions.

I visited EPI•STEM, National Centre for STEM Education in the spring semester of 2020. My visit to Ireland was funded by Erasmus+ staff mobility. I was hosted by Prof. Dr. Merrilyn Goos. The main aim of my research was to learn about the STEM education and approached used in teacher education in Ireland. My research area is pedagogical content knowledge, pre-service teacher education and STEM education so I thought EPI•STEM was the right place for me.

During my week in Limerick, I had the opportunity to talk to my host Prof. Dr. Merrilyn Goos and wonderful staff in UL. This gave me an opportunity to talk about the aim and mission of EPI•STEM, the kind of research conducted by researchers in EPI•STEM and compare the STEM education in Ireland and Turkey. Also, I met with Dr. Aishling Flaherty and Dr. Niamh O’Meara who work in teacher education. We discussed ways to set up research on teacher education. The visit was so beneficial for me, in addition to interacting with staff working in the same field, I saw the Irish culture and Irish people hospitality first hand. Thank you for an unforgettable experience.

I had the privilege of spending three months in the EPI*STEM Centre at the University of Limerick. I was a visiting doctoral student in the Centre from September to December 2019 as part of my PhD in mathematics education. My stay was funded by the Norwegian National Research School in Teacher Education (NAFOL).

In my PhD project, I study teaching for mathematical literacy/numeracy in Norwegian schools. As part of my theoretical framework, I use a model developed by Professor Merrilyn Goos, director of EPI*STEM. She is an experienced and recognised numeracy researcher and the opportunity to learn from her was my main reason for visiting. It was interesting and inspiring to get to know her and her colleagues in EPI*STEM and to learn more about their work.

Norwegian PhD students are encouraged to spend some time abroad during their fellowship. I found it interesting and informative to work in a different research community and experience a different country and culture. It has been educative both professionally and personally. I believe that my visit can contribute to enhanced collaboration in educational research between our two nations.

I want to thank everyone in EPI*STEM for being so warm and welcoming. I look forward to seeing you all again.

I was a visiting scholar from the University of Tasmania. I arrived at the Centre in April as part of an extended stay in Ireland combining study and family commitments.

My PhD concerns an investigation of interconnections between the Arts and STEM. I felt very welcomed at EPI*STEM and enjoyed the conversations I had with other students from as far afield as Indonesia, Cyprus and Turkey, and on topics as wide ranging as sean-nós and thinking in pure maths.

During my time in Ireland I was engaged in writing on the theory of STEM/STEAM, arts-based practice (ABR) as a qualitative research methodology and practice, as in creating artworks that can be explored for data.”