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Sarah Thelen

Lecturer

20172025

Research activity per year

Personal profile

Biography

Educated at Bowling Green State University (Ohio and American University in Washington, DC, I moved to Ireland in 2010 and received my PhD in US history from American University in 2012. I have taught at American University, Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin, and University College Cork and am currently the Lecturer for Teaching and Learning Enhancement (Digital Education) in the Centre for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL) at UCC. Building on over a decade in Instructional Design, I am the programme coordinator for the Certificate in CPD in Digital Education as well as teaching on a variety of CIRTL and UCC programmes. My current research is in student engagement, staff-student interaction, making implicit knowledge/skills explicit, and delivery pathways for CPD. I also continue to teach, research, and publish in history with a focus on Twentieth Century US political and cultural history. My current work explores the ways that President Nixon sought to use patriotic appeals to rally support for his Vietnam War policies. I have published this research in peer reviewed journals and have contributed to edited collections.

Research Interests

My research is centred around questions of identity and change. In Digital Education, this involves research into writing practice/instruction, continuing professional development, professional identity, and the changing nature of technology in both higher education and in society more broadly. As a historian, I explore these questions through research into national identity and citizenship in the United States, specifically the ways these ideas shaped presidential efforts to rally domestic support for the Vietnam War. Taken together, my historical and digital education research seek to better understand why change happens and how individuals respond to (sometimes unwelcome) change. Which, most recently, has taken the form of wrestling with ways Generative Artificial Intelligence is changing how we think about authorship, assessment and education more broadly. I'm also on a larger project exploring the ways writing (both individual practice and structued instruction) can help students (and academics!) make implicit arguments, identities, ideas, and values explicit. 

Teaching Activities

Subject Areas Digital EducationStudent EngagementUS politics and foreign policy Modules Co-OrdinatedTL6200: Introduction to Digital Education (2022-present)TL6009: Digital Education for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (2023-present) ED6610: Professional Studies: Teaching in the Adult Learning Environment (2024-present)HI1006: US History since 1865 (2012-present)HI3138: The United States and the Vietnam Wars, 1945-1975 (2024-present) Postgraduate SupervisionMarie Ryan, MA Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (2024-present) Breda Connell, PhD (Higher Education Professionals), 'Using Lego® Serious Play® in the Library to Strengthen Emerging Academic Writing Identities in PhD Students at a Newly Established Technological University' (2024-present) Hao Zhang, PhD Asian Studies, 'Personalized Learning Paths Supported by Generative AI for Second Language Acquisition of Chinese' (2024-present)Paul Holloway, MA Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (second reader) (2023-2024)

PhD Supervision

  • Available for PhD supervision

Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

  1. SDG 4 - Quality Education
    SDG 4 Quality Education

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Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years

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  • 1 Organising a conference, workshop, ...