IES Abroad is proud to announce the winner of this year’s Instructor of the Year award: Stephen McMahon of our Dublin Center.
Stephen currently teaches two courses for IES Abroad Dublin: "The Shadows That We Cast: Writing the Irish Short Story" and "Irish Literature in the Last 100 Years: Identity, Selfhood, and the State".
Semester after semester, Stephen gets close-to-impossible perfect scores on his course evaluations with students answering “strongly agree” to every question without exception. In a country filled with storytellers, you might expect to find a teacher with a great feel for Irish fiction, but many of our Dublin students mention what a great listener Stephen is. He enhances and cultivates the confidence of his students.
Here's what some of our Dublin students have to say about Stephen:
"When I started this course, I was worried I wasn’t prepared to write fiction pieces and had no experience in writing short stories. But by the end of the course, and due to Stephen’s phenomenal teaching and an amazing learning experience, I had a newfound love of writing and am looking forward to continuing my writing journey."
"He has gone above and beyond as an academic tutor. He has culturally and socially informed me while improving and inspiring my writing. No other professor of mine has compared to his dedication and unyielding interest in the student’s academic and professional capabilities."
In addition to Stephen’s literature and writing background, he is also an accomplished photographer, who has been granted a licentiate from the prestigious Irish Photographic Federation. He has also taught photography courses for IES Abroad and is currently developing a new course on the Graphic Novel.
As the regional expert of Moodle (our online learning management system), Stephen teaches faculty and staff about the potential of e-learning in Dublin and other IES Abroad Centers, such as London, Amsterdam, Rabat, and Cape Town.
Stephen is an extraordinary teacher and well-deserving of this honor.
