TEU Update January 16 2025

Are you new to teaching in Higher Education? Have you past experience but perhaps have taken a break from teaching and now returned? If so, you may be interested in our series of workshops over the course of semester 2. In these workshops, you will:

Explore evidence-based pedagogical approaches and their application in your teaching context.
Develop strategies for planning and implementing effective learning experiences for students. that promote student engagement and participation in their learning.
Recognise the importance of reflective practice in your professional development.
Participate in a community of fellow early career educators.

Workshop Schedule

Introduction; Lesson Planning; Reflective Practice - Wednesday January 29th 2- 4 p.m. (online)
Active learning in Large Group Teaching - Wednesday February 5th - 2 - 4 p.m. (online)
Facilitating small group teaching - Wednesday February 19th - 2 - 4 p.m. (in person)
Assessment: Assessment of, as and for learning; assessment types in DCU including innovative assessment - Wednesday March 19th 2-4 p.m. (online)
A wrap up session for those who have participated in all sessions - Wednesday April 9th 2 - 4 p.m. (in person)

Attendance at the full suite of workshops is encouraged as you will gain the most benefit from progressing through each topic area but you may, of course, choose to attend just one or a number of the workshops as your schedule permits. To express an interest, please complete this form by January 22nd. You will then be contacted with additional details. Depending on level of interest, we may need to cap attendance numbers so, if you are interested, please sign up as soon as possible.

Please note that this workshop series is not aimed at DCU postgraduate tutors/demonstrators. Our Discover Teaching & Learning Fundamentals for Tutors & Demonstrators course is offered in parallel to this series.

Over the past year DCU has partnered with other Irish universities on the compilation of an Open Publication on the use of GenAI in educational practice. This open resource features two inspirational reflective pieces that serve as a guiding frame for 31 innovative teaching, learning, and assessment practices across diverse disciplines, including 5 contributions from DCU.

Its goals are to:

· Promote AI Literacy
· Inspire new teaching, learning, and assessment approaches
· Spark innovation across disciplines

We are delighted to invite you to the launch of the publication which will take place on January 23rd at 14.00 (online). To attend on the day, please join the Zoom meeting at this link. We will share the link to the publication and highlight the contributions of our DCU colleagues following the official launch.

Enrolling external examiners to Loop module pages

You may wish to enrol your external examiner to your module page so that they can peruse students’ submitted coursework. If they already hold a non-DCU Loop account, you should be able to enrol them with the role of “External examiner” through the usual method - by selecting “Participants” and then “Enrol users” and searching for and selecting them.

Newly appointed external examiners will have their non-DCU Loop accounts created in advance by the TEU (with thanks to the Guru team for supplying the details). Therefore they should appear in the enrolment screen when you search for them.

Please note that all holders of non-DCU Loop accounts need to authenticate into Loop via multi-factor authentication.

Requesting an ad-hoc page

Do you have multiple Loop pages for your module, with different CRNs (Course Reference Numbers)? Or do you have a singular Loop module page (e.g. for a consolidated module) but would prefer sub-pages to organise your material by strand? If so, we can create such ad-hoc pages to meet your needs (or indeed a page for other requirements such as staff training, etc). Please log a request for an ad-hoc page via this form and one of the Loop Support Team will be in touch.

Student partnership in assessment is a collaborative approach in which students can actively participate in the design, implementation, and/or evaluation of assessment processes. It goes beyond traditional student assessment and involves students as co-creators and decision-makers in shaping their own learning experiences.

It offers many benefits for both students and lecturers, such as increased student ownership, greater student engagement and inclusivity, strengthened academic integrity, improved outcomes, and enhanced lecturer-student, and student-student dynamics. DCU students and staff have also reported similar benefits!

Examples of student partnership in assessment could include provision of choice, self and peer assessment, co-design of assessment tasks or criteria, collaborative grading, and more.

If you are interested in exploring some of these assessment practices with your students this semester (or if you already are doing so!), the TEU would love to hear from you, and support you in this activity. Please leave your details on this form and we’ll be in touch!

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 follow this link and 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.