Senior Lecturer and Course Director of Technology Education at the School of Education, University of Limerick.
Senior Lecturer and Course Director of Technology Education at the School of Education, University of Limerick.
Keelin Leahy is a Senior Lecturer and Course Director of Technology Education at the School of Education, University of Limerick.
Leahy’s research activities focus on creativity within education. As PI on an IRC, Research for Policy and Society grant, the project focused on creativity tools in education, which resulted in the development of IDEAS hub (www.ideashub.eu). IDEAS hub informs teachers and educates students on idea generation for enhancing creativity and innovation. To date, IDEAS hub has engaged with over 60 schools, 20 Education Centres, the Junior Cycle for Teachers Professional Development service, and the Creative Schools Programme. International collaborations and partners on this project include the Design Heuristic team in the USA; Seda Yilmaz, Iowa State University, Shanna Daly, and Colleen Seifert, University of Michigan. The impact of the IDEAS hub sessions resulted in opportunities for interdisciplinary connections, due to the tools inclusivity across a range of disciplines from the Arts to the Technologies (STEM). This project informed and afforded educators the opportunity to design their STEAM programmes, which will feed-forward empowering Europe’s young innovators, through promoting thinking and advanced creating, required for developing creativity, innovation capacity, and problem solving skills.
Leahy is a project partner on an Erasmus+ Capacity Building project, focusing on an integrated approach to STEM education teacher training. This international multilateral project aims to enhance quality of STEM Teacher training in line with Bologna provisions and needs of knowledge economy. To meet the needs of knowledge economy in high quality STEM specialists in Russia, India and Kazakhstan by increasing the number of young people choosing the STEM career routes. International collaborations include colleagues from Linköping University, Hacettepe University, University of Helsinki, Southern Federal University, Belgorod State University, Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University, L.N. Gumilyov Eurasian National University, M. Auezov South Kazakhstan State University, S. Amanzholov East Kazakhstan State University.
Leahy was co-Chair for DRS2018: Design Research Society International Conference. In 2016, Leahy pursued a 12-month research sabbatical to University of Michigan and Iowa State University.
Leahy has led or participated in a number of research projects that have conducted systematic or targeted literature reviews. Several of these reviews have been commissioned by government departments or non-government statutory authorities with a view to making recommendations for improving education policy or practice. The latest DES / SFI report (2020) involved a ‘Review of Literature to Identify a Set of Effective Interventions for Addressing Gender Balance in STEM in Primary and Post Primary Education’.
Leahy is also a member of the UBUNTU network, which support teacher educators to embed into their work a living understanding of and commitment to education for global citizenship, sustainable development and social justice.
RIS Profile http://scieng.ul.ie/departments/dmt/people/dr-keelin-leahy
Linkedin Profile http://ie.linkedin.com/pub/keelin-leahy/2b/b1a/176
