Reinert Center Events
Canvas Essentials: Thinking Digitally about In-Person Courses
Noon to 1 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 15, via Zoom
This 60-minute workshop reviews key tools within Canvas that support student learning. Please note that this workshop is not technical training in Canvas, but, rather, focuses on pedagogy by showcasing how Canvas can reinforce course communication, organization, and interaction. Participants will gain strategies to incorporate digital practices into their in-person courses.
Distance Learning Workshop Series: Focused Topics in Distance Teaching
Noon to 1 p.m. on select Fridays via Zoom
The Reinert Center’s Distance Learning Workshop Series offers an interactive space to explore, reflect on, and enact new ideas in distance teaching. Each semester features a themed series of workshops, where guest speakers present on key topics and participants are invited to apply new pedagogical ideas in their online teaching context.
Our Fall 2025 theme, Focused Topics in Distance Teaching, explores four key aspects of distance teaching, including creating interactive Panopto lecture videos, facilitating effective online groupwork, promoting RSI in synchronous formats, and supporting student wellbeing in distance courses. Each 60-minute workshop is conducted virtually via Zoom and counts as one-half (½) elective credit in the Online University Teaching Skills Certificate. This workshop series is targeted specifically to SLU faculty teaching in a distance format.
Online Courses: Fall 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
This one-week, asynchronous course considers the role the instructor’s presence plays for learners in distance courses. Participants will identify types of instructor presence (teaching, social, and cognitive), consider the connections between presence and student persistence, and develop strategies for intentionally building their presence into the online learning community of their courses.
Prerequisite: Introduction to Distance Teaching
This one-week, asynchronous course focuses on generative AI in distance learning environments. Participants will interrogate design constraints/opportunities associated with generative AI in online course design, and articulate generative AI use guidelines for assignments and other online coursework. Course activities will serve as a means of enabling participants to think intentionally about the use of generative AI to augment teaching and provide meaningful student learning opportunities from a distance.
Prerequisite: Introduction to Distance Teaching
This one-week, fully-online asynchronous course surveys accessibility in online teaching formats. The course provides instructors an opportunity to understand key accessibility requirements that are aligned with Standard 8 in the University’s Online Course Design Rubric. Instructors will work on an online course of their choosing and are expected to spend 2-4 hours completing course content, activities, and discussions.
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 “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.
Conversation Series: Introduction to SLU's Teaching Effectiveness Framework
Co-facilitated by the Teaching Effectiveness Project Chairs and the Reinert Center
The purpose of this conversation series is to introduce the new, University-wide Teaching
Effectiveness Framework. We will discuss the attributes and language of each area
of the framework and establish a shared vocabulary to describe the teaching and learning
concepts embedded within it. Participants will also identify ways in which their teaching
already embodies the components of the framework.
Registration is requested
Learning-Focused Teaching
- 9 a.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 10, via Zoom
- 4 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 11, in room 222 of Wuller Hall
Mission-Aligned Teaching
- 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 14, via Zoom
- Noon on Friday, Oct. 17, in room 222 of Wuller Hall
Growth-Oriented Teaching
- 9 a.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 12, via Zoom
- 4 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 13, in room 222 of Wuller Hall
Praxis Workshops
Designed specifically with the objectives of the certificate program in mind, the Reinert Center's Praxis Workshops are interactive sessions during which an expert facilitator designs a learning experience around a particular pedagogical topic that creates the opportunity for participants to explore a new idea, or an established idea in a new way, and reflect on its implications for concrete interactions, approaches, and/or projects for their own specific teaching and learning situations (courses, labs, clinics, etc.) at the university level.
- Teaching Large Classes, Elena Bray Speth
1:30 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 11, in room 222 of Wuller Hall - Learning Through Play, Lauren Miller
9 a.m. on Thursday, Sept. 25, in room 222 of Wuller Hall - Developing and Sustaining Belonging in the Classroom, Nicole States
9 a.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 8, via Zoom - Providing a Sense of Safety in the Classroom, Shannon Cooper-Sadlo
9 a.m. on Thursday, Oct. 30, in room 222 of Wuller Hall - Assessment Strategies to Support Learning, Mitch Lorenz
1:30 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 6, in room 222 of Wuller Hall
Teaching Essentials Workshops
Each workshop in this series presents a fundamental teaching strategy or technique that could be in any teacher's toolbox. After a brief introduction about the why's and how's of the teaching strategy, participants will draft a lesson plan, assignment, or project that will put the tool to work immediately. This series is especially beneficial for those who are new to teaching or who want to refresh their teaching essentials.
- Strategies to Promote Instructor Presence in Student Interaction
3 to 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 30, in room 222 of Wuller Hall
This workshop will explore instructor presence, including the power of affect, tone and nonverbals, when situating yourself in the classroom and interacting with students. We will focus on tips to tactfully correct inaccurate info in ways that do not diminish rigor but allow for empathy and understanding. - Practical Considerations when Choosing Digital Learning Tools
12:30 to 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 28, in room 222 of Wuller Hall
Which digital tools are right for my course, and when is the best time to use them? This workshop tackles these questions by providing a framework for evaluating and selecting digital tools. It will focus on aligning choices with specific learning objectives to best support teaching goals.