Biography

Dr. Gertrude Cotter is a Lecturer at the Centre for Global Development, UCC. She lectures in the field of Development and Global Citizenship Education. She is the academic coordinator of the Praxis Project, UCC’s flagship project aiming to promote and integrate Development and Global Citizenship Education across the university. This project is based at the Centre for Global Development. She is also the co-academic coordinator of ‘Id Est’ a project which introduces student teachers to Development Education. In the past, she has lectured in International Relations and Latin American History at the school of education and also coordinated UCC’s Diploma in Development Studies. She also lectured in Community Development, Social Care Management and Reflective Practice at the Tralee Institute of Technology. She was previously CEO of Nasc, the Irish Immigrant Support Centre, and played a seminal role in its development. She also managed community development projects and family resource centres in Ireland. She has worked in France, Italy and the UK in different capacities. In earlier years she worked as a development worker in Bolivia and Thailand. Alongside Development Education, she has a particular interest in Refugee, Asylum-Seeker and Migrant support and advocacy, education for people with disabilities, Community-Linked Learning and Multimedia Learning. Her PhD research is about engaging students in development education through community-linked learning and multimedia storytelling, locally and globally. She has a wide range of third-level qualifications, including three masters, an MSc in Development Management, an MA in (Latin American) History and an MA in Digital Humanities. She is a qualified secondary school teacher and has four higher diplomas, in Education, Social Science Research, Public Relations and Creative Digital Marketing. ‍

Research Interests

Education for Social Justice, Human Rights and Global Citizenship.

Teaching approaches and methodologies include, where relevant: Critical Pedagogy; Multimedia; Community-Linked Learning; Creative Arts, Drama, Digital Storytelling and Film.

Activism
Community-Based Learning
Story Telling/ Social Justice
Technology Enhanced Learning
Radio and Development Education