Teaching & Learning Officer(Curriculum), Education
Dr John Kubiak lectures at the National Institute for Intellectual Disability (NIID), School of Education, TCD. His doctoral research was conducted with the input of students of the Certificate in Contemporary Living. This inclusive research project has led to the development of a model of how people with intellectual disabilities learn while in tertiary education. In 2012 John was a recipient of the prestigious Provost Teaching Award which is designed to recognise and reward Trinity staff who have made an outstanding contribution in the pursuit of teaching excellence. In May 2013 he was awarded a Post-doctorate research position and bursary with TCD's School of Education and is a member of the research group IES (Inclusion in Education and Society). His teaching philosophy centres on a belief that education is about enriching the lives of people by empowering them to think about how and why they learn. For John, a teacher should be an inspirational figure who instils in students the belief that they are valuable and functioning members of society. He sees the student/teacher relationship as a reciprocal one: he fosters an atmosphere in which the student/teacher hierarchy is minimised and the educator learns as much from his students as they do from him. No student walks through the doors of the NIID or any academic institution with the same educational needs, the same skills, the same difficulties, or the same aspirations as any other. Some of John's students are strong readers and writers, while others wouldn't know a comma from a colon but can relay in detail the content of the undergraduate lecture they attended on the effects of global change on ecosystems and human populations. Other students have a keen visual learning style and a significant ability to memorise and process information through concept mapping or PowerPoints. For this reason John tailors his teaching methods to suit individual students. His aim is to build on student's obvious strengths and accommodate their preferred learning styles, rather than trying to address their supposed weaknesses. All students, not just those with an intellectual disability, deserve the chance to learn in the best environment possible and be taught by methods informed by rigorous empirical research. As a teacher, John's research influences his practice and his students in turn collaborate in his research. It is through such inclusive practices that the voices of the marginalised can finally be heard by those with the power to make meaningful changes.
Inclusion; inclusive research; Learning for people with intellectual disabilities; Phenomenography.
