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Teaching Enhancement Unit

TEU Update 22 January 2026

Heading 22 January 2026

Workshop for Early Career Educators: Lesson Planning & Reflective Practice


Are you an early career educator looking for top tips towards long-term improvement in your teaching and learning practice? Join this online workshop on Wed Jan 28, 2-4pm to learn more about developing sustainable habits in lesson planning and reflection, including an introduction to key features of the Loop Reflect tool. Register your place now. 


This workshop is part of a series aimed at early career educators, and/or colleagues new to teaching at DCU, called the Educator’s Compass: finding your way in teaching and learning. Queries to maeve.odwyer@dcu.ie.
 

 

Loop Reflect 


How Students Can Activate their Loop Reflect Account

Before using Loop Reflect for an assignment, students must activate their account (if they have not already done so). To do this, they should:

  1. Go to their Loop dashboard.
  2. Click the DCU Loop Reflect icon in the Quick Links section.

After activation, they can continue accessing Loop Reflect through this link.
 

Group Portfolios in Loop Reflect

Do you have a group assignment that requires students to work together to present evidence of their learning? Loop Reflect offers a collaborative space for students to create a shared portfolio, bringing together individual contributions, reflections, and supporting materials into a single, cohesive submission. Once complete, the portfolio can be submitted directly to Loop for assessment. If you would like to hear more about group portfolios please contact teaching.enhancement@dcu.ie.

 

ESD Consultation: Have your Say!

The Higher Education Authority is looking for opinions on the development of a new ESD Maturity Framework for Higher Education in Ireland.

The resulting resource will act as a guide for HEIs, enabling them to enhance ESD and ensure sustainability principles are integrated across teaching and learning as well as wider institutional practice.

Feedback can be submitted using the online form. The deadline is the 13th February.

 

Register for the DCU Spring 2026 Universal Design Badge Course
 

This Spring, the TEU will be facilitating a UDL Badge course locally for DCU staff. Along with offering the "Universal Design in Teaching and Learning" badge, this instance of the programme will also offer a second track for professional staff in "Universal Design Beyond the Classroom", focusing on opportunities to apply universal design principles in non-academic roles. Participants who complete the course will be awarded a digital badge recognised by the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning. The course will run from mid-April to early June. 

Register your interest for the course via this form. For more info on the content of the UDL badge course, see this page, or you can reach out to steve.welsh@dcu.ie with any specific questions.

 

Call for Interested Participants: Loop AI Question Generator


The Loop Team is piloting an experimental quiz question generator that leverages an AI technology to create quiz questions in Loop based on simple prompts from the lecturer. This technology can both aid in the generation of quality quiz questions as well as streamline the process of populating quizzes in Loop, thus saving the lecturer the time of manual question creation. Loop AI Question Generator. Initial feedback from pilot participants shows that the generator can provide time-saving efficiencies in formative assessment design at scale. 

We are looking for lecturers who might be interested in exploring the features of this tool for creating quizzes. Upon completing a brief expression of interest form, you will be contacted by a team member to schedule a consultation where we will provide you with access to the tool along with a brief orientation and guidance.

 

ECIU CBL & Micro-module Community of Practice
 

The first ECIU CBL Community of Practice of 2026 will take place on Thursday January 29 at 12.10 pm.  This is a great opportunity to engage with colleagues from ECIU partner universities and discuss the planning and implementation of CBL. The meetings follow a set pattern whereby an individual presents a question from their own context and the group, via a reflective team approach, discusses potential solutions or ways forward. In this session, Dr Jasper Homminga will speak about a challenge currently running in the University of Twente and will ask the group to consider questions in relation to the value of a real world stakeholder in relation to “wicked” problems and keeping online students involved and engaged..  If you are interested in attending please click here to register for the session and you will be sent the Teams link.

 

Pedagogical Innovations for a Changing Planet: Environmental Chemistry & Engineering Education

DCU colleagues Dr Jenny Lawler & Dr Brian Feeland (School of Biotechnology) invite submissions of abstracts to a session (online/virtual only) they will co-chair at the American Chemical Society Fall Meeting. 

Submission deadline: Monday, March 30 2026

Conference dates: August 23-27, 2026

Pedagogical Innovations for a Changing Planet: Environmental Chemistry & Engineering Education

This half-day virtual symposium will showcase cutting-edge teaching approaches that prepare the next generation of scientists and engineers to address complex environmental challenges. We invite presentations highlighting novel pedagogies (e.g. active and experiential learning, technology-enhanced instruction, community-engaged projects, interdisciplinary course design, and research-integrated teaching) that advance environmental chemistry, biochemistry, and chemical and environmental engineering education. 

Please ensure to select the correct session when submitting your abstract.

 

Where to Find Help and Support



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

 

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