TEU Update 8 January 2026

The Educator’s Compass: Early-Career Educators Workshop Series

Are you new to teaching at DCU? Join early-career colleagues to learn more about best practice in teaching and learning, share challenges, and be inspired to try new approaches! 

This series of workshops from Wednesday January 28th will focus on specific aspects of practice, such as managing large classes or technology-enhanced learning. Attendance at all workshops is encouraged, but not mandatory.

Click here to register your place now! 

Please note, this workshop series is designed for early-career teaching and learning staff, or those with experience following a break, or teaching elsewhere. Postgraduate students with an interest in developing their tutoring or demonstrating skills should contact the Graduate Studies Office about the Teaching and Learning Fundamentals for Tutors & Demonstrators course. If in doubt, please get in touch at teu@dcu.ie.

Interactive Oral Assessment Introductory Workshop

Date: Wednesday, January 21st 2026

Time: 14:00 to 15:30

Location: DG10, Ground Floor, the Bea Orpen Building, Glasnevin campus

Have you heard about Interactive Oral Assessment and wondered if it could be applied in your module? How does it differ from other forms of oral assessment? What are the steps involved in designing an Interactive Oral?  The aim of this upcoming in person workshop is to provide an overview of Interactive Oral Assessment, highlight its value as an authentic assessment format and outline its design and application.

Please direct any queries relating to the workshop to Lily Girme (lily.girme@dcu.ie) and Martina Crehan (martina.crehan@dcu.ie), Teaching Enhancement Unit.

Register your interest here.

Interactive Oral Community of Practice Returns

The first weekly Interactive Oral Community of Practice session of 2026 will take place Wednesday January 14th, 10-11am online via Zoom.

There is a body of evidence-based research to show that interactive orals are an authentic assessment approach that effectively helps students develop graduate attributes and promotes academic integrity. Colleagues who may be interested in joining the IO Community of Practice, please contact Lily (lily.girme@dcu.ie) to be added to the CoP list. Please feel free to browse the website for more information on Interactive Oral Assessments.

Online Workshop: Engage Students During Class with Vevox

13 January 1:00-2:00 PM (online)

Join us at this online session where we’ll learn about the student engagement tool Vevox, which can be used during on-campus, Zoom or hybrid classes. 

As we welcome our students back to campus after the holiday, Vevox can be a great tool for engaging students during class to break the ice, gauge sentiment, and check their levels of comprehension in real time. Engagement tools like Vevox can also empower students to contribute when they may feel reluctant to do so verbally. Additionally, Vevox could also be used for fun polling activities like word clouds, to quiz students during lecture, and to facilitate Q&A, which can be particularly useful in managing large classes. In this session, we’ll also be covering several new Vevox features, such as bulk importing, team leaderboards, and improved AI quiz generation. More information about Vevox is available in this resource on the Loop Staff Support Page. 

Registration is essential. This session will be recorded and circulated afterwards to all registrants.

Applying Active Learning to Enhance Engagement

Active learning engages students in the learning process, requiring them to complete meaningful activities in which they think about and apply what they are learning (Prince, 2004). Active learning can create energetic, engaged classrooms and promote deep learning. 

Join this active, hands-on session to get started with all things active learning, and get familiar with some approaches which you might employ yourself this academic year.

Date & Time: Wednesday 14 January 2026, 14:00-16:00

Location: Room AG42, The Spark - Active Learning Spaces powered by DCU Futures, (ground floor, Albert College, Glasnevin campus).

Registration is essential. Places will be limited at this active and hands-on session. Note that parts of this session will be recorded using a 360 degree camera. Please bring devices (e.g. smartphone, tablet or laptop). Refreshments will be provided.

Creating Collaborative Classrooms

Learning through discussion, collaboration and production (Laurillard, 2012) are often some of the most impactful ways for students to co-construct knowledge. These types of learning can be leveraged in small group teaching scenarios, and can be facilitated through the pedagogically effective use of classroom technologies.

Join us at this practical lunchtime session to explore ways of creating collaboration for students in small group sessions.

Date & Time: Wednesday 21 January 2026, 13:00-14:00

Location: SPC.F119

Loop Guidance and Advice 

Loop preparation for semester two

• Please take some time to review your Loop Dashboard thoroughly to ensure you are enrolled as a Teacher to any module pages you are teaching for Spring 2026.

• If you do not have access, you need to contact your Faculty Office to be listed as an “Instructor” or “Primary Instructor” on Banner.

• The TEU team is unable to do this—it is a matter for your faculty office

• If you want access to a module page from 2024/2025, you must also direct that request to your faculty office

• Similarly, if there is a Teacher enrolled on your module page who should not have access, you will need to ask your Faculty Office to remove them as an instructor in Banner.

• If there is more than one instance of your module (i.e. more than one CRN), you need to confirm that with your faculty office and confirm you are listed as an instructor on one or more of the CRNs.

• If you wish for a shared page to teach out of if there are two or more CRNs, or if you have a module with subtopics and you want a different Loop page for each subtopic, please log a request via this form and the TEU will review it.

• Student access to Loop module pages is controlled by their registration on the relevant module CRNs, specifically when they confirm module selection as part of their registration steps. Staff should not manually enrol students to their Loop module pages.

• Follow these instructions to import your material from last year’s page to the new, blank page for Spring 2026.

Transferring coursework grades from Loop to Banner

The Loop Grades Transfer to Banner functionality is still unavailable, as Academic Systems continues to liaise with the Banner vendor to resolve the issue. Colleagues may wish to avail of the following workaround to input Loop grades into Faculty Grade Entry.

Check your Turnitin Similarity text-matching settings

If you want student submissions to Loop Assignments to be text-matched, you must ensure these settings are applied before students start submitting.

Please also notify students that they must accept the End User Licence Agreement (EULA) before uploading a file to a Loop Assignment to be processed.

The Sipping Point

New to DCU this semester? The Sipping Point provides a relaxed, conversational space to reflect on teaching practice and to connect with others across the university.

Why share your practice?

• Gain supportive feedback and fresh perspectives from colleagues
• Become part of a cross-disciplinary community of practice
• Test out ideas you may later develop for conferences or publications
• Strengthen an Advance HE Fellowship application
• Begin building (or enhancing) your teaching portfolio

Details of Previous Sipping Point Sessions

If you are interested in hearing more, please contact noeleen.okeeffe@dcu.ie.

Where to Find Help and Support

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 here

Stay in the loop 

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