Reinert Center Events
2025 Winter Institute: Teaching, Learning, and Neurodiversity
January 9, 2024, 11:00 - 3:30
This half-day event will begin with a presentation over lunch to ground participants in a shared set of definitions and approaches surrounding neurodiversity and Universal Design for Learning. The lunch presentations will be followed by three mini-workshops 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 afternoon.
Winter Institute Workshop Schedule and Topics
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
Fire Drill Workshop Series:
What鈥檚 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:
- Identify types of disruptions, evaluate the emergency readiness of their courses, and prepare a continuity checklist (February 14).
- Develop plans for different disruption scenarios and consider accessibility during disruptions (February 21).
- Revisit effective practices for using the distance education technologies necessary to maintain instructional continuity during a disruption (February 28).
For additional details check out our flier
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.
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.
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
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 鈥渟tudent鈥 and to experience a fully-online course that has been designed to align with the University鈥檚 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
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
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 鈥渟tudent鈥 and to experience a fully-online course that has been designed to align with the University鈥檚 Online Course Design Rubric while developing a plan for an online course.
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