Trinity College Dublin

This course provides a broad understanding of language learning and familiarizes students with some pedagogical considerations and second language acquisition theory as a necessary underpinning to the use of technology in language learning. Students learn a range of speech and language technologies that can be deployed in educational applications. Students learn practical skills in the design/development of digital educational content. 

This course includes prediction using machine learning; choice of features, including for text, images, time series; model selection (e.g. linear, kernel, neural net); learning as empirical risk minimization; common machine learning techniques (linear regression, logistic regression, SVMs, kernel trick, neural nets, convolutional neural nets, kNN, k-Means); evaluating machine learning methods (cross-validation, bootstrapping, ROC, use of a baseline); and practical experience of applying machine learning methods to real data.  

This course explores the art of Europe in the long 15th century (approximately 1380-1520) with particular attention to religious culture and belief; how gender and the body were understood and expressed; the role of pilgrimage, suffrages and the saints; the differences of artistic expressions between northern Europe (e.g. Flanders) and southern (Italy); the art of crises such as witchcraft, plague and religious reform; and the ways in which naturalism and humanism challenged existing modes of artistic expression. Students also look at whether the view of the period as one steeped in pessimism, the macabre and thoughts of decay, known according to the formulation of Jan Huizinga as the "waning of the Middle Ages" is still useful. The dominant centers to be examined are the cities of Flanders and Italy, but the art of northern France, England, Germany, and elsewhere is also drawn on.

This course teaches the foundational concepts of geomorphology in preparation for advanced courses and a final Capstone project. It relies less on traditional rote lecture and more on activities and application of concepts presented in the text and during class time. This course focuses primarily on large-scale geomorphology, and how the large-scale topography students observe on Earth today is both created and broken down through time. Students examine the two primary drivers of geomorphology: tectonics and climate. They consider questions that on their face seem very basic- for example, why is the Earth round? but which have complex, fascinating answers with implications for the whole of the Earth surface. 

This course examines images of astrology found in illuminated manuscripts, astrological charts and talismans, playing cards, prints, maps, paintings and tapestries, as well as in architecture in the broad global early modern world to explore their political, medical, divinatory, and magical use. Considering the early modern Western astrology as the result of the intercultural exchanges from Greece, Babylon and India to the rest of the world via images and texts that translated diverse ideas on natural philosophy, the students will learn key concepts from Renaissance Neoplatonism and Hermeticism to discuss the reception of astrological knowledge in a variety of everyday objects. Students will also reflect on the role of astrological images in the transmission of Western knowledge (deemed magical or scientific) via colonization, as well as on the influence that early modern celestial observations taken forth by cutting–edge artifacts and novel circumnavigations around the world had on the global shaping of astrological imagery.

This course addresses the core topics in medical law: clinical negligence, consent to treatment, and confidentiality. These are the legal and ethical issues that arise in all healthcare interactions, and therefore the topics that arise most commonly in practice. The course focuses on mastering the black letter law aspects of these topics, but also on delving into the theoretical principles that underpin them. 

The course introduces the fundamental conceptual aspects of the study of human behavior that have informed the applications of the science of behavior change. Behavioral principles are essential to understanding all aspects of "what humans do" and why they behave in such ways. The number of therapeutic approaches and interventions which have been researched and developed from the science of behavior analysis has rapidly expanded especially in recent decades. Such behavioral interventions have impacted significantly across a wide range of clinical issues including for example: child development and behavioral/emotional difficulties, individuals living with brain injury, people living with dementia, the assessment and treatment of self-injurious behavior and other challenging behaviors, accelerated educational outcomes, and best practice in treatment for children with neurodevelopmental and related conditions. The course content is designed to provide an introduction to the impact and scope of behavior analysis as a "helping profession" across contexts and populations.

This course exposes students to many different facets of the Black lived experience, thereby encouraging the development of a more informed, nuanced perspective. Critical engagement with topics such as the history of the Black diaspora, debates surrounding the decolonization of the curriculum, the soft colonialism of Irish religious aid, and social justice movements encourages a global perspective among students and enable them to act on the basis of this knowledge and understanding.

The course examines how values, social relations and institutions have changed in European societies. Are there similar trends in all or at least most European societies? Have European societies converged, i.e., become more similar over time, or are there persisting divergences and cleavages? The course identifies the forces that drive changes in values, social relations, and institutions in European societies and the structures that shape particular regional and country-specific responses. It deals with a variety of topics such as religion, gender relations, and friendship patterns. While the course does compare a few countries at one point in time, it tends to look at many European countries (and occasionally countries beyond Europe) for longer periods to identify common patterns and the main differences between them.

This course covers the topic of food to explore the history of Mexico and its diaspora from the time of the Conquest, with a particular focus on food as national and cultural identity as reflected in cinema and literature. It will also explore how food provides a multifaceted lens through which to examine issues such as food and poverty, food as a transnational site of both community and exclusion, and ecological issues, such as control of natural resources essential to food production and security. Students examine the topic of food as both a political issue and a source of creative inspiration through our analysis of texts, art, films and television series.