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Megan Turner (L), a past winner of the “Best Education Essay in Ireland”, was invited by conference organisers
to facilitate conference proceedings with this year’s winners, including Breda O’Kane (R)
St Mary’s Success at Undergraduate Awards
Top Education Essay in Ireland Again Goes to St Mary’s Student
St Mary’s students certainly made their presence felt this year at the 2016 International Undergraduate Awards in Dublin. Recent graduate, Breda O’Kane, won this year’s award for “Top Education Essay in Ireland” with her final year capstone project, “Grammar Wars”. Her piece critically surveys recent research on the relationship between the teaching of grammar in schools and its impact on the quality of students’ written communication.
Sean McCullagh achieved “Highly Commended” status for his capstone study of the impact of gender on the study of ICT.
In addition to awards success, St Mary’s was pleased to learn that past student Megan Turner was invited back to the Undergraduate Summit conference this year to act as facilitator. Megan won the “Top Education Essay in Ireland” award in 2014 for her capstone on the teaching of poetry.
The week-long conference for Undergraduate Award winners sees high-achieving students from all over the globe meeting up in Dublin for what is often called “The Junior Davos”. The competition received a record number of submissions this year, totalling a massive 5,514 papers from undergraduates in 244 institutions and 121 nationalities.
Speaking about this year’s Winners and Highly Commended Entrants, Chief Executive Officer of the Undergraduate Awards (UA), Louise Hodgson, said, “This is a huge achievement for St Mary’s and its students. UA received the highest number of submissions to date with only the best papers making it through the judging process — the competition was extremely tough and the judges were astounded at the high quality of undergraduate research in the programme this year. Congratulations to this year’s successful entrants.”
“It was an incredible week,” Breda O’Kane said, “and I am looking forward to writing up my reflections from my days at the summit. It was wonderful to meet so many different people from all over the world, to listen to their presentations and then have the opportunity to collaborate with them throughout the week.”
A video which captures the atmosphere and intellectual rigour of the summit week is availabe to view online.
Breda O’Kane receives the Undergraduate Award for “Top Education Essay in Ireland”.
Here she is pictured with Dr Matthew Martin, her research supervisor, at the reception in Dublin
Breda O’Kane pictured alongside other Undergraduate Award winners
at the reception in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Dublin
Breda O’Kane with her prize shortly before giving a presentation to conference
attendees on “Grammar Wars”, her winning capstone project on writing pedagogy. |
