TEU Update 20 November 2025

Focus on assessment and feedback

The Loop Gradebook is an area of your Loop module page where you can combine and calculate overall student grades, if you have graded them in Loop Assignments, Loop Quizzes, or other types of Loop gradable activities. It’s a powerful feature that allows you to arrive at each student’s final grade for their coursework (continuous assessment) activities on your module.

Many of you will currently be grading or preparing to do so. Keep these tips in mind for grading on Loop.

1. Keep your grade items hidden in the Gradebook while grading if you do not want students to see grades while you are still grading.

2. Ensure that grade items in the Gradebook are weighted correctly and all weights add up to 1.0

3. Organise assignments, quizzes, and other graded activities into ‘Grade Categories’ (e.g., Class Tests, Participation, Weekly Quizzes), which makes it easier to view things, and helps students clearly see their coursework grade breakdown.

If your module is graded on a “Pass/Fail” basis you may wish to follow this guidance for setting up your Loop Gradebook to facilitate that.

Once you are happy your Loop Gradebook is set up correctly and you have graded students’ coursework, you can choose to transfer some or all of the students’ Loop grades to Banner’s Faculty Grade Entry system during the university’s grade entry period.

A comprehensive suite of resources on grading and Loop Gradebook are also available on the Loop Staff Support Page in the Assessment section—including a specific-purposes resource on Loop Gradebook.

Thursday December 4th from 10 am - 1.30 pm, Polaris Building DCU Glasnevin Campus

We are delighted to invite colleagues across DCU to register for this seminar on large group teaching jointly hosted by PHELC and the Teaching Enhancement Unit (TEU), in which DCU colleagues will share reflections and/or research on pedagogical practice in large class contexts.  Topics covered will include designing authentic assessments to address AI challenges; facilitating feedback at scale; co-creation approaches with students in large group teaching contexts, and much more. Detailed abstracts and schedule for the seminar will soon be available at the Seminars and Other Events page of the PHELC website. In addition, the TEU will offer a workshop from 2.30 - 3.30 p.m. on Peer Observation of Teaching and its role in reflecting on practice. 

 To secure your place for one or both events, please register using this Google form.

Our first workshop about researching and publishing educational scholarly research went very well and you are still very welcome to join us if teaching-related research is on the horizon for you. The next workshop in the TEU series will further explore how to identify potential research questions for your inquiry, choose an appropriate methodology, and access advice on completing the REC approval process. We are delighted to announce that Dr Catherine Dean, DCU Research Ethics and Integrity Officer, will be contributing to this series. Click the following links to find out more and register for sessions of interest.

Workshop 2: Locating a suitable research project from your teaching practice

• DCU St Patrick’s - Tues Dec 2, 2-4 pm (in-person St Pat’s, Block E, Room E203)
• DCU Glasnevin - Weds Dec 3, 10-12 pm (in-person, Glasnevin, Bea Orpen, DG10) 

Please register for whichever Workshop 2 session suits you best.

Workshop 3: Writing educational research for publication

Wed Dec 10, 2-3 pm (online)  Please register for Workshop 3

In the third installment of our new webinar series on immersive learning, our colleague Patrick Boyle from the School of Chemistry and Dr Peter Tiernan from the School of STEM Education, Innovation and Global Studies will share their experiences of using virtual reality for students in initial teacher education to practise classroom management skills. We will also have a guest contributor from RWTH Aachen University in Germany, telling their story of using authoring software to create 360 degree immersive video learning content. Further information available on our webpage, including the link to register for this webinar.

Submit a request at DCU Help for Loop queries
More complex query or prefer to chat? Join a Loop drop in clinic
Find comprehensive resources on our Loop Staff Support Page - enrolment key is 'staff'
 

For advice on teaching practice, including on the use of technology, email teaching.enhancement@dcu.ie
Request a workshop or extended consultation

Stay in the loop Professional and technical staff - Join Group to stay informed on TEU activities, including Loop communications and professional development opportunities.