Faculty profile
Dr Aisling O’Connor
Assistant Professor in Education (Post-Primary)
Contact information
Suite 3, The Academy Building,
42 Pearse Street,
Dublin 2.
Education
- BA
- PDE
- PGDip
- PhD
Crawford Memorial Prize for Highest Overall Grade in Professional Diploma in Education. Trinity College Dublin
ASTI Prize for Highest Grade in Teaching Practice. Trinity College Dublin
Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship for PhD research. Irish Research Council
Centre for Teaching and Learning Scholarship. University of Limerick
Plassey Campus Scholarship. University of Limerick
Advanced Scholars’ Programme for highest grade point average in graduating year. University of Limerick
Beca de Estudios Scholarship. University of Alcalá de Henares
Biography
Aisling is an Assistant Professor in the School of Education in Hibernia College Dublin, specialising in Spanish and Modern Foreign Language pedagogies. Aisling leads the “Core Teaching Methodologies” and “Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment” modules on the Professional Master of Education (PME). She also teaches across a range of modules from “School Experience and Professional Practice” to “Inclusive Pedagogies”.
Aisling has a Bachelor of Arts (1st class honours) and Professional Diploma in Education (1st class honours) in Spanish and English. She holds a Post-Graduate Diploma in Teaching, Learning and Scholarship and received an Irish Research Council postgraduate scholarship for her PhD research in Spanish. Her doctoral thesis was entitled “Postgenerational perspectives on the Spanish Civil War and Franco Regime” and explored how contemporary cultural texts narrate Spain’s 20th century history. Aisling is in the final stages of an MA in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education with University College Cork. Her Master’s research applies Bandura’s self-efficacy framework to the context of blended learning, and it examines student experiences of combining online and face-to-face modalities.
Aisling has taught at second level and third level for over fifteen years in the University of Limerick, Munster Technological University and post-primary schools in Dublin and Kerry. Undergraduate and postgraduate modules she has taught include: “Spanish for beginners”; “Intermediate Spanish”; “Narratives of the Spanish Civil War”; “Spanish Women’s Writing”; “Contemporary Spanish Cinema”; “Comparative Literature”; “Learning to Learn at 3rd Level” and “Academic Literacies”. Aisling has taught all year groups for post-primary Spanish and has been a Spanish oral examiner with the State Examinations Commission since 2019. Her practice is research-informed and her teaching philosophy involves a learner-centred and action-oriented approach to teaching, learning and assessment in Spanish. Aisling has worked in Initial Teacher Education since 2015. Aisling is currently a member of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment’s Leaving Certificate Modern Foreign Languages Development Group which is tasked with developing the re-formed Senior Cycle MFL specification.
Research interests
Aisling’s research interests lie in the areas of affect, self-efficacy and inclusive practices in the second-level language classroom.
Publications
O’Connor, Aisling. “The Postmemorial Journey of Ángeles López’s Martina, la rosa número trece” (2026) Under Review.
O’Connor, Aisling. Active Learning Methodologies Handbook. 2nd edn. (2026). Dublin: Hibernia College Dublin
O’Connor, Aisling. “Putting Left-wing Women into the Frame and rethinking what Constituted “Resistance” in Franco’s Spain: A golpe de tacón (2007) by Amanda Castro.” Ámbitos Feministas. 3.3 (2013): 163-180. Print.
O’Connor, Aisling. Gender, Memory, Fiction: Postgenerational Perspectives on the Spanish Civil War and Franco Regime. (2013) PhD Thesis. University of Limerick.
Conference Presentations
2026: Student experiences of blended learning: self-efficacy and belonging. EdTech Annual Conference. Dublin City University
2026: Exploring teachers’ self-efficacy during curriculum reform: A study of English teachers’ perspectives on Senior Cycle reform in the Republic of Ireland. Educational Studies Association of Ireland Annual Conference. National University of Ireland, Galway
2015: Developing self-regulated learners: Examining theories that underpin transitional ‘Learning to Learn’ modules. Educational Studies Association of Ireland Annual Conference. National University of Ireland, Maynooth
2013: A postgenerational perspective on Republican women and Spain’s stolen babies: Benjamín Prado’s Mala gente que camina (2006). Postgraduate Hispanic Studies Conference of Ireland and the UK. National University of Ireland, Galway
2013: Enjoying the “Sweetness of Melancholy”? Narrativising the Spanish Civil War at the Zenith of the Memory Boom. Annual Conference of the Association of Hispanists of Great Britain and Ireland. University of Oxford
2012: Memory of the Spanish Civil War and Women-Authored Fiction in the Post- Transitional Justice Era. Annual Conference of the Association of Hispanists of Great Britain and Ireland. University of Stirling
2012: The HEI as a Forum for Civic Engagement: The Perspective of Early-Career Academics. (co-author). 62nd Political Studies Association Annual International Conference. Belfast
2011: Investigating the Francoist past through fiction: a comparative study of contemporary novels by Spanish writers. Annual Conference of the Association of Hispanists of Great Britain and Ireland. University of Nottingham
2010: Detective fiction and memory politics: Eva Díaz Pérez’s El club de la memoria and Ken Bruen’s The Magdalen Martyrs. Comparative Literature Association of Ireland Symposium. University of Limerick
2010: Women’s Memory Work in Contemporary Spain: Un largo silencio by Ángeles Caso and Martina, la rosa número trece by Ángeles López. Annual Conference of Sibéal. Women in Action – Active Genders. NUI, Galway
2010: The novel as a tool of remembrance and social transformation in post-transitional Spain. Women’s Memory Work: Gendered Dilemmas of Social Transformation. International Conference. University of Limerick
