76 Building a Community of Practice for Sustainable Teacher Education

Richard Egan described how Hibernia’s Community of Practice (CoP) model has become a critical mechanism for ensuring coherence and consistency in GCE/ESD across the PME Post-Primary. Given the blended structure of the programme and the large network of adjunct faculty and school placement tutors, the CoP creates a regular forum where academic tutors and placement tutors meet to share practice, explore pedagogical challenges, and align expectations between university teaching and school-based assessment.

One CoP session focused specifically on GCE/ESD, featuring inputs from a history methodology lecturer and a school placement tutor. Together they demonstrated how GCE pillars—including unlearning, examining root causes, local-global connections, and solidarity—can be authentically integrated within Junior Cycle history through topics such as famine, migration, conflict, and the Industrial Revolution. Participants examined how to link subject content to Sustainable Development Goals and how to design success criteria that promote critical literacy, empathy, and social analysis.

To support ongoing faculty development, Hibernia has also established an online Adjunct Faculty Hub containing curated GCE resources, subject-specific materials from WorldWise Global Schools, and outputs from CoP sessions. Mr Egan noted that this work aims to strengthen programme coherence, deepen staff capacity, and ensure that student teachers encounter consistent modelling of GCE across lectures, webinars, and school placement observations. The CoP model will continue to expand as the college builds further exemplars and digital supports.

About the author

name: Richard Egan

institution: Hibernia College

Richard Egan is the Deputy Director of the PME Post-Primary and School Placement Lead at Hibernia College.