TEU Update Jun 5 2025
Engaging in consultation and feedback with students
As consultation days approach, take a look at this resource, created jointly by the TEU and the Counselling Service, which offers some advice around managing difficult consultations/feedback with students. It also offers advice on assessment design and management and student inclusivity, which might prove useful for planning assessment next semester.
Exploring a student’s performance in assessment
The My Feedback report on Loop gives lecturers a one-stop-shop of students’ continuous assessment performance. It allows lecturers to choose a particular module and see how the class performed in relation to the module’s assessments (‘assessment breakdown’). It also showed how an individual student performed in the module’s assessments (‘student breakdown’) and their relation to the class average. This might prove useful as lecturers prepare for consultation days with students.
Access the My Feedback report from your Loop Dashboard by selecting the icon in the right-hand Quick Links block, or alternatively choose the green My Feedback button on the right-hand side of any of your Loop module pages.
Need help scheduling your consultation days? Try the scheduler tool in loop
The Scheduler tool allows you to set up time slots for meetings with students on Loop. Students can select their own time from a list of slots you provide, or you can manually assign them a particular time slot, and the Scheduler sends automatic reminders to students. Logging meetings in this way on Loop gives you an electronic record of the meetings, a place for notes, and you can also assign a grade to the meeting.
Learn more in this resource on the Loop Staff Support Page.
Many of you may wish to make grades in your Loop Gradebook visible to students around promulgation of results. A minor Loop bug may leave grade items still invisible to students even though they appear visible to you. Hiding and then showing the grade items in your Gradebook once more should resolve the issue. A case of “turning it off and on again!”
Theme: Teaching and Learning in Turbulent Times: Recognising Diversity and Promoting Inclusion
Dates: September 29th - October 3rd 2025
Modes: Series of In-Person and Online Events
In the face of global challenges such as climate change, shifting political landscapes, and social unrest, the values of equity and equality are being tested. In these turbulent times, there is an urgent need for universities to be spaces that encourage reflection and resilience in response to these issues. To quote Peter Drucker “The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence - it is to act with yesterday’s logic.” This year’s Teaching and Learning Week will focus on the theme: Teaching and Learning in Turbulent Times: Recognising Diversity and Promoting Inclusion.
We invite all staff to share teaching and learning practices that re-examine those challenges, recognise diversity, and promote inclusion. Inclusive teaching that recognises diversity not only ensures every learner feels seen, heard, and valued, but also celebrates the values of justice and open-mindedness that contribute to the mindset of global citizenship and lifelong learning for both students and staff. We aim to explore innovative strategies, share experiences, and foster discussions around the critical issues of diversity, inclusion, and decolonisation in education.
Staff from across the university are invited to contribute their insights and experiences on how to navigate and thrive in these turbulent times.
For further details on relevant topics and opportunities for participation, please refer to the Call for Contributions. If interested in sharing your work, please complete the form by Friday July 18th and a member of the Teaching Enhancement Unit will get back to you asap. An early response would be much appreciated.
We look forward to hearing your ideas and seeing you during T&L week! More details to follow over the coming months.
TEU is leading a QUID-funded project on ‘Decolonising the Curriculum’ and aims to develop an interactive toolkit which can support DCU educators in relevant decolonising activity in teaching, learning and assessment. Decolonising the curriculum involves undoing the colonialist power that shapes the production, circulation and reproduction of knowledge. It is also about creating a diverse and inclusive curriculum in which everyone, especially those who are marginalised, are heard and represented. See further explanation here.
We are interested in including examples of practice of decolonising the curriculum in any aspect of teaching, learning, and assessment across DCU. These practices will be integrated in the interactive toolkit to support wider staff engagement and guide future Communities of Practice. If you are interested in sharing any examples of current or indeed past work in this area, please contact samantha.xu@dcu.ie for an initial conversation.
The upcoming upgrade to Loop includes a number of improvements to course pages and navigation, designed to support clearer structure and faster editing.
The new text editor is cleaner and more accessible, with a simplified toolbar and consistent formatting. You can now also create permalinks to sections and subsections, allowing you to direct students to specific parts of your course from labels, announcements, or emails.
Highlights:
- Collapsible Course Index for improved navigation
- Modern, accessible text editor
- New "View one section" mode when editing
- Support for subsections and custom layout formats
- Permalinks to sections and subsections
- Improved Book navigation with floating next/back buttons
As part of the Loop Enhancement Project, system downtime is necessary to facilitate upgrades. The details of downtime are as follows:
- Loop will be offline 17th-20th June inclusive.
- Loop Reflect will be inaccessible 17th-20th June and offline 24th-26th June inclusive.
Thursday 12 June, 10:30am
Location: Information Commons, O’Reilly Library
As part of Pride at DCU, the Pride+ staff network invites all staff to the Pride in Teaching & Research event, where members of the DCU community will share their research and teaching practices as they relate to LGBTQIA+ issues and topics. This event will facilitate DCU’s LGBTQIA+ community to come together to meet, network and make visible their work and impact, through the lens of teaching and research. Presenters from across the Institute of Education, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Faculty of Science and Health, and DCU Business School will present on topics such as queer literature and poetry, homophobic language in sport, gender neutral language learning, and more.
The event will also feature the launch of "G-Book 3: Audience engagement activities for the social and emotional education of EU teens through gender-positive literature and digital technology (2024-2027)", part of the EU-funded Creative Europe project, of which DCU is a partner.
This event is open to all staff in DCU, whether academic, research, or professional, as well as postgraduate students and postdoc researchers, and undergraduate students.
Please register to attend here.
Following the success of the digital badge earlier this year, we will be offering it again to staff during Semester One of the new academic year.
This is a six week course, involving a total of 25 hours learning time.
The six sessions will take place over Zoom on Wednesdays at 1pm during weeks 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 and 10 of the semester. Each session will last one hour. Participants will also be required to complete pre-session tasks and group reflections.
The course has been designed to meet the needs of staff at DCU. Sessions will focus on a range of issues: sustainability and sustainable development; education for sustainable development; sustainability competencies; integrating ESD into modules and programmes; and integrating ESD into assessment.
To register, please complete this form and if you’ve any questions contact barry.peak@dcu.ie.
If you require assistance or guidance with teaching and learning or Loop related matters, avail of the below methods.
Support for technical issues
For Loop technical queries, go to help.dcu.ie. You can also attend one of our regular online Loop drop in clinics, details in the TEU calendar. The drop in clinics are particularly useful for more complex queries. The Loop Staff Support Page also provides a comprehensive range of resources on Loop and Zoom. For new users, the enrolment key for this page is ‘staff’.
Advice on using technology for Teaching and Learning
If you are looking for advice on developing your teaching practice, including but not limited to the application of technology, please contact the TEU team teaching.enhancement@dcu.ie. We will endeavour to respond to you as soon as possible.
Consultancy request form
Interested in requesting a workshop or more extended consultation on a specific topic? Use this consultancy request form.
TEU mailing list
Going forward, the TEU newsletter and other updates will be issued to the academic staff mail group. Anyone else who wishes to receive our communications, please click “Join Group” to be added to our mailing list. This is particularly important if you wish to receive updates on Loop related communications; professional development opportunities such as Advance HE supported journey, etc.
