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Reinert Center Events

Teaching, Learning, and Neurodiversity

Winter Institute Wednesdays 

Multiple Dates, 12:00 - 1:00 p.m., Zoom

This workshop series, a pivot from the cancelled Winter Institute, will highlight a shared set of definitions and approaches surrounding neurodiversity and Universal Design for Learning. Each workshop will focus on specific elements of the updated guidelines for UDL as they apply to teaching neurodiverse students. Participants are encouraged to bring their own course materials (e.g., syllabi, assignments, exams) to apply strategies and lessons learned throughout the series.  We encourage you to attend all three, but each workshop can also stand on its own. 

  • January 22: Making Course Material Accessible with the UDL Framework
    In this interactive workshop you will identify various design options and considerations for the Access element of the UDL 3.0 framework and review your assignments to apply design options and considerations in keeping with the UDL 3.0 framework.
  • January 29: Designing Transparent Assignments: UDL Strategies to Support Student Success
    This workshop focuses on incorporating principles of the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT) to design assignments with a clear purpose, instructions, and criteria for success.
  • February 12: Designing for Emotion: Goal Setting and Knowledge Building
    In this workshop we will focus on the relationship between learning environments and executive function.  You will apply UDL to support students’ development of effective strategies for goal setting, connecting new learning with existing knowledge, and recognizing the impact of emotions on learning.

Registration is Requested
Zoom link

Distance Learning Workshop Series: Technology for Teaching

Multiple dates, 12:00 - 1:00 p.m., Zoom

The Reinert Center’s Distance Learning Workshop Series is dedicated to exploring innovative, research-based strategies for distance learning. Each semester, the workshop series explores a theme related to distance learning, with guest speakers addressing a topic and participants having space to reflect on a pedagogical strategy, approach, or technique in their distance teaching context. 

Our Spring 2025 theme, Technology for Teaching, focuses on four University-supported instructional tools. Each 60-minute virtual (via Zoom) workshop is dedicated to one teaching tool focusing on how it can be harnessed intentionally to enhance student learning. Sessions include an overview of the tool, discussions on its pedagogical uses, and opportunities for participants to explore how it can fit into their own distance teaching practices.

  • January 24: Zoom
    This workshop will provide an opportunity to show how Zoom's capabilities can effectively support both asynchronous and synchronous remote learning environments. This session will provide several practical tips and techniques to enhance digital pedagogy, encourage student interaction, and help achieve meaningful educational outcomes.
  • February 21: Panopto
    This workshop focuses on the pedagogical uses of Panopto, focusing on how instructional video content created in the tool can be used to enhance student learning.  Participants will have space to (re)consider how Panopto might be used as part of their digital teaching toolbox.
  • March 21: Advanced Canvas tools (Peer review/groups)
    Getting students to communicate with each other and work together is not only essential in distance education, but also a requirement of “Routine and Substantive Interaction (RSI)". Canvas provides several built-in tools that aid in the promotion of student-student interaction. This workshop will consider Advanced Canvas Tools such as Groups, Collaborations, and Peer Review, and discuss their uses in distance teaching and learning.
  • April 25: Ally
    This workshop explores Ally as an instructional tool to make course learning materials more accessible. Participants will have space to (re)consider how Ally might be incorporated into the design of a distance course.

Registration is requested

Ignatian Pedagogy and the Creation of a Hope-Filled Future

Wednesday, February 5, 2025, 9:30-12:30, Pere Marquette Gallery

Through interactive sessions on difference and connection, participants will engage in strategies focused on ways in which our courses can fulfill the Universal Apostolic Preference, “To accompany young people in the creation of a hope-filled future.” The strategies and approaches offered will be those that may be adapted to a variety of disciplines and pedagogical purposes.
Please note: This is a new session; content is not repeated from our other Ignatian Pedagogy Institutes.
Registration is required

Universal Design and the ADA

February 11 - 25, Online Course

Universal Design and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a joint, two-week asynchronous course offered in Canvas by the Reinert Center and Center for Accessibility and Disability Resources (CADR). The course begins by surveying key components of the ADA and the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act (ADAAA), with a particular focus understanding the role of accommodations in higher education classrooms. The course then examines Universal Design and the Universal Design for Learning framework as pedagogical approaches to removing barriers to student learning.

Participants will work independently on four modules at their own pace. There are weekly deadlines for submissions in order to keep participants on track and engaged in conversations with other participants. Registration consideration is given to any faculty or graduate student instructors currently teaching at SLU

Registration is required

Fire Drill Workshop Series:

What’s Your Teaching Plan in Case of an Academic Disruption?

Multiple dates, 2:00 - 3:30 p.m., Wuller Hall 222

The March 2020 pivot to online instruction might be a distant memory, but disruptions are increasingly becoming part of academic life. These disruptions might be brief, or they might last for days, weeks, or even months. How prepared are you if you needed to quickly pivot your in-person course to an online format? What would you need to do and how would you do it? Building on the lessons learned from 2020 and the new expectations and regulations for distance teaching, this 3-part workshop series* revisits some of key points, requirements, and actions necessary to maintain a continuous, quality learning experience for students. 

During the series, participants will:

  • February 14: Identify types of disruptions, evaluate the emergency readiness of their courses, and prepare a continuity checklist.
  • February 21: Develop plans for different disruption scenarios and consider accessibility during disruptions.
  • February 28: Revisit effective practices for using the distance education technologies necessary to maintain instructional continuity during a disruption.    

For additional details check out our flier
Registration is required

Annual Academic Portfolio Retreat

Friday, February 21, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Each year, the Office of the Provost and the Reinert Center co-sponsor an Academic Portfolio Retreat for faculty who are preparing for promotion and/or tenure. This full-day, in-person retreat will feature short presentations on key aspects of academic dossiers, generative writing activities to help participants shape their dossier content, and peer feedback opportunities to build community and see how others frame their professional experiences.

Full-time SLU faculty members who are tenure-track, non-tenure track, or already tenured are welcome to participate. Faculty who are preparing for third-year review, tenure review, and promotion review may find the retreat helpful in developing or refining their dossiers. Newer faculty may find the retreat helpful in establishing a foundation for later review processes.

For additional details on the Academic Portfolio Retreat, please visit the webpage.
Registration is required

Online Courses: Spring 2025

The Reinert Center supports instructors for the full continuum of teaching online including: preparing to teach online for the first time, online course design, assessment of online courses, as well as strategies and techniques for effective online teaching. Below is our current list of full, online course offerings. These courses can be used for credit in our Online University Teaching Skills Certificate or they may be taken by individuals not enrolled in the certificate. To see additional descriptions and details for all our online courses, please visit our Online Courses page

Registration is Required

January 28 - February 4: Assessing the Online Student

Assessing the Online Student is a week-long asynchronous course that surveys strategies and practices for assessing student learners in online/distance formats. By the end of the course, participants will distinguish between different types of online assessments, consider practices for creating inclusive assessments, and explore strategies for providing online feedback to students. Participants are encouraged to think about course topics and strategies in an online/distance course of their choosing by drafting or re-drafting a course assessment plan.

Prerequisite: Introduction to Distance Teaching

February 11 - 25: Introduction to Distance Teaching

The Introduction to Online Teaching is a fully-online asynchronous course that provides a pedagogical foundation for Saint Louis University faculty who are new to the online teaching environment. The course provides faculty an opportunity to gain the experience of an online “student” and to experience a fully-online course that has been designed to align with the University’s Online Course Design Rubric while developing a plan for an online course.

If you are an A&S faculty member who needs to complete this course in time to meet your college deadlines, this is the session you should register for

March 18 - 25: Engaging the Online Learner

This one-week course examines productive faculty-student and student-student interaction in online courses.  Participants will develop facilitation practices that align with standards outlined in the SLU Online Course Design Rubric, and the federal requirements for "regular and substantive interaction."

Prerequisite: Introduction to Distance Teaching

March 18 - April 1: Introduction to Distance Teaching

The Introduction to Online Teaching is a fully-online asynchronous course that provides a pedagogical foundation for Saint Louis University faculty who are new to the online teaching environment. The course provides faculty an opportunity to gain the experience of an online “student” and to experience a fully-online course that has been designed to align with the University’s Online Course Design Rubric while developing a plan for an online course.

April 8 - 15: Rubric Construction: It’s a Process

This course is a week-long asynchronous experience that will allow participants to intentionally apply a specific process for rubric construction for online courses. This course is open to any university instructor interested in constructing or revising an assignment rubric including but not limited to rubrics for online discussion. By the end of the course, participants will be able to distinguish the differences among analytical, holistic and single point rubrics; discern which rubric type would best suit the intention of their assignments; construct a rubric to apply to the assignment for which it was designed and assess their rubrics with the rubric for rubrics.

Prerequisites: Introduction to Distance Teaching AND Assessing the Online Student