This case study shares the strategic approach adopted by UCC’s School of Education (SoE) towards
“innovations in teaching and learning” in collaboratively aligning and updating three undergraduate
B.Ed. programmes of Initial Teacher Education (UG-ITE) (Irish language, Physical Education, and
Sciences), comprising around 450 students, to the national accreditation standards (Teaching Council
of Ireland, 2020) and UCC’s Academic Strategy. This cross-programme collaborative alignment aimed
at harmonising and consolidating the three curricular structures towards an improved student experience, through conceptual and academic coherence and rationalisation, while updating each
individual programme to the new accreditation requirements. This process entailed frequent meetings
between programme directors and administrators to coordinate a common response to the requested
standards that illustrate and justify all programmatic elements (school placement, research, subjectspecific studies, and foundation education modules) across curriculum, assessment and pedagogy. In
particular, this case study, within a contextually complex environment, describes the collegial
alignment process where school placement element is a core pillar of commonality across the three
UG-ITE programmes. The impact from this collaborative alignment process is already visible in a)
enhanced multidisciplinary collaboration through shared values, understanding, experience, and
resources; b) streamlined and rationalised management of school placement across the three
programmes, contributing to the external profile and standard of the institution; c) cross-programme
delivery and assessment of aligned common modules; d) implementation of strategic staff recruitment
and workload distribution; and e) identification of future opportunities for cross-programme shared
learning and research collaboration on teaching and learning.