Here in the Reinert Center, we talk a lot about teaching that transforms – that is, teaching that changes people, altering fundamentally the way learners understand themselves and others, the way they engage in and contribute to their larger world.

But transformation is a tall order (especially for those of you moving swiftly through an accelerated summer session, hoping for just a smattering of content “mastery” between now and ten minutes from now!).  The word transformation can sometimes feel like an empty signifier, like one of those clichés people trot out to make the work they do seem larger and more significant than it really is.  Clichés aside, though, we really are committed to teaching that transforms, teaching that changes both the learner and the teacher.  But it isn’t always clear how to get there.  How does one move from aspiring to transformation to achieving it?

For some emerging answers, you might have a look at George M. Slavich and Philip G. Zimbardo’s review article, “Transformational Teaching: Theoretical Underpinnings, Basic Principles, and Core Methods,” if you have any of that elusive “down time” this summer.

Published in Educational Psychology Review, Slavin and Zimbardo’s article considers the relationship between several teaching methodologies used by numerous faculty across the country – specifically, interactive and collaborative learning strategies – and “transformational teaching,” which they define as “the expressed or unexpressed goal to increase students’ mastery of key course concepts while transforming their learning-related attitudes, values, beliefs, and skills” (original emphasis).  Firmly committed to Rosebrough and Leverett’s view that “education should be more about inspiration than information,” Slavich and Zimbardo bring together theory and practice in this article, reviewing various strategies and theories in an effort to help faculty identify what the core methods of “transformational teaching” are.

They begin with a review of what they call “contemporary approaches to classroom learning and instruction” in higher education.  While some of these concepts have been around for a while – active learning, student-centered teaching methods, collaborative, experiential, and problem-based learning – they haven’t always been studied alongside one another, with their similarities and differences in full view.  In bringing them together, Slavich and Zimbardo link the theories that drive these approaches with the concept of transformational teaching.  Though the article is a bit long, the authors provide a succinct overview of the key theories that drive transformational teaching—social cognitive theory, transformative learning theory, intentional change theory, and theories of transformational leadership.  As they make clear, a transformational teacher is one who not only achieves transformation in her students, but who also models a willingness to be transformed by learning herself.

After summarizing these guiding theories, Slavich and Zimbardo explore, in a bit more detail, what they call the six core methods of transformational teaching:

1. Establishing a shared vision for a course.
2. Providing modeling and mastery experiences.
3. Intellectually challenging and encouraging students.
4. Personalizing attention and feedback.
5. Creating experiential lessons.
6. Promoting preflection and reflection.

If you’re someone who tends to chuck out your inspirational teaching moves right around mid-term, when all of the not-yet-covered informational content is bearing down on you, you might enjoy Slavich and Zimbardo’s primer.  I bet you’ll be reminded of some things you already do to move students toward transformation, and you may even be inspired to try a few others.

Of course, if you do read the article, and want to talk about ways to make these methods meaningful for your own teaching context, you can always come see us in the Center.  We’re here all summer!

For the last several weeks, I’ve felt – and many SLU faculty have affirmed this sense – that the end of the semester was both speeding at me like a locomotive and slowing like an unwinding watch.  Some days, it was hard to believe May was actually here; others, it seemed the semester would never end.  And yet, here we are: last days of class and final exams and graduation ceremonies are upon us.  It’s been a long and productive year.  I don’t know about you, but I am ready for a somewhat slower pace.

Whether you’re about to depart St. Louis for the summer or gearing up for summer session courses, I hope you’ll find a spot of quiet this summer, a space and an occasion for renewal.

The verb renew has many layers and meanings, as the OED suggests.  While we most commonly think of renewal as “making something new” or “taking on fresh life,” it also can mean “to restore to the same condition as when new, young, or fresh,” and “to reawaken, to revive.”

As you reflect on your teaching from this year – what your students have said in evaluations, what they’ve shown in their classroom contributions – I hope you’ll remember a bit of what it was like to be a “new, young, fresh” teacher.  None of us wants to stumble as much as we did in those early days of teaching, but we do want to reconnect to the energy we felt then, when all things were possible.

At our spring Certificate Ceremony last week, Dr. Paul Lynch reminded us that, even when we are exhausted and frustrated by the semester that is, there is always next semester, when we’ll be fresh, get it all right, inspire our students to greatness.  For those of us who teach as a labor of love, as a calling, it is essential that we take time out between semesters to search for a little renewal, to rekindle and reawaken our early passion for teaching.

As you close out the 2012-2013 academic year, we wish you renewal, and maybe even a little rest.  If you find yourself in need of new insights or perspectives on your teaching, stop by and see us.  We’re here all summer – and all united in a single location now, in Pius Library, 2^nd floor – and we’d love to help you reignite your passion for teaching.  And keep an eye on this blog: we’ll be posting short reviews and summaries of research on the art and science of learning throughout the summer.

PS: for those in need of a more concrete jolt, there’s still time to apply for one of our Try It! Summer Mini-Grants.

Mid-semester is a good time to take to take a few quiet moments to reflect on how your courses are going and to set some intentions for the second half of the term.  At this point, you’ve probably figured out that many of your intentions to be more interesting, more innovative, more attentive to student engagement and learning have, sadly, fallen prey to the Almighty To Do List.

At the Reinert Center, we challenge you to find 5 quiet minutes to reflect on how things are going in your classes and to set some priorities for the remaining weeks of the semester.  Here are a few questions to get you started:

Engagement: When have you been most engaged this semester in your class?  When have your students seemed most engaged?  What did you do to create this environment of engagement?  Are there specific choices you made that yielded this engagement?  If so, what were they?

Learning: If you look back at your course objectives, how many of them have students achieved at this point?  Are they progressing in the ways you expected?  If not, what might you do in the second half of the semester to facilitate deeper learning?

Action: As you reflect on the first half of the semester, what do you want to do more of in your class going forward?  What do you want to do less of?  Identify one specific thing you will do differently in the second half of the semester.

Thanks to St. Ignatius, the Spiritual Exercises offer an excellent model for reflection that translates into action.  At this critical moment in the semester, you have many choices yet to make about where your students are headed.  Hopefully, the reflection questions above will spur your thinking and re-energize you for the home stretch.  If dialogue with others can help, please don’t hesitate to come see us.

by Debra Rudder Lohe, PhD, CTTL Director

On Sunday, I received the news that Dr. Cheryl Cavallo – faculty emerita in the Program for Physical Therapy here at SLU – had lost her long, difficult battle with cancer.  This news is sad for all who had the great pleasure of knowing Cheryl, and for us here in the Center, it is especially so.  Cheryl was a part of the Center even before there was a Center; she was a member of the planning committee that first proposed the creation of a teaching center.  Along with a small handful of other SLU faculty, she worked tirelessly to launch the Center and to ensure that it had a strong foundation for success.  Cheryl served on our Advisory Board until her retirement in 2011.  Given all that she has done for and meant to the Center, we offer this small tribute as a way to keep her light burning.

Cheryl’s humor and humility are well-known to friends and colleagues.  Whip-smart, warmer than sunlight, she was passionately committed to the Jesuit charism of cura personalis; she cared for all of us as “whole persons” and did not separate heart from head like so many academics do.  But then, Cheryl wasn’t first and foremost an academic; she was a practitioner.  In fact, she would want me to tell you that she was a reflective practitioner.  The difference, for Cheryl, made all the difference.

Reflection was a defining feature of who Cheryl was.  In May 2010, we invited her to share her reflections on teaching at our spring Certificate Ceremony.  Although she was sure we’d invited the wrong person (see comment above re: “humility”), Cheryl told the story of how she came to teach, and she focused her comments on the importance of being what she called “a reflective practitioner of the art and science of teaching.”  Reflection, Cheryl explained, was not only a “basic tenet of all Jesuit philosophy,” it was an essential element of good teaching.  To be a reflective practitioner, good teachers must be willing to undertake “an honest appraisal,” of both strengths and weaknesses, and to do this regularly, with “a commitment to address ways to effect positive change.”  Ultimately, Cheryl explained, “Reflective teachers are the ones who have the courage to challenge themselves, to venture outside their comfort zones, and to try innovative teaching techniques which may or may not be successful.”

As we remember Cheryl Cavallo, let us also remember that the word reflection has another, equally relevant meaning here: the ability of one thing to reflect light or heat or image onto another.  Cheryl’s light and warmth and wisdom were her own – but they were also a reflection of what she saw in each of us.  Without her searching and fearless gaze, the light surrounding us all is a bit dimmer today.

Click the podcast below to hear Cheryl’s Reflections on Teaching, from May 2010.

Full Transcript of Cheryl’s Reflections on Teaching, from May 2010.

As we head into a new year (and a new semester), I have been contemplating resolutions, like many of you.  Most years, I enter the early days of January with a resolution or twelve, for all the changes I’ll make, all the walks I’ll take, all the books I’ll read.  By Valentine’s Day, most of us will have long forgotten those resolutions: they don’t have “sticking” power because most of us don’t set specific, measurable, scaffolded goals for those resolutions.

Specific, measurable, scaffolded goals……this reminds me of something…..

Over the break, as I listened to numerous “experts” on numerous “news” shows explain why so many of us fail to achieve our New Year’s resolutions, it became clear that the same rules apply to this as to teaching and learning.  Which makes sense to me, because I typically resolve all sorts of things at the beginning of a new semester, or a new course, not just a new calendar year.  All of this got me thinking: what is a resolution, anyway?  And what do they have to do with teaching?

To begin my quest, I started where I often do: the OED.  (For those who have not heard me extol the virtues of the Oxford English Dictionary, stop into the library and ask me about it sometime.  Better yet, go look up a favorite word in the OED Online, which you can do through SLU’s databases, and consider the wonders of all the various usages of the word, its origins and history.  You will learn subtleties and obsolete meanings, and you will have a new appreciation for the word when you sign off.)  Now, back to my quest….

The OED cites definitions and usages of “resolution” from a variety of disciplinary perspectives: meanings come from medicine, astronomy, math, logic, poetics, and music.  A few highlights (some of them rare or obsolete today):

• Reduction or separation of a material object into its component parts or elements
• Softening of a hardened mass in the body
• Death or bodily dissolution or decay
• The process or capability of rendering distinguishable the component parts of an object or image
• The process of reducing a non-material thing into a simpler form or forms, or of converting it into some other thing or form
• The process of defining something according to its distinguishing features
• The alteration of a discord, or relatively dissonant harmony, so as to form a concord, or relatively more consonant harmony
• The reconciliation of conflicting views or parties in regard to a matter
• The examination of the truth or falsehood of a proposition by working backwards from a particular conclusion which it entails
• The removal of doubt in regard to a particular matter
• The act of finding the answer to a question, the solution to a problem
• The act of resolving or determining; a fixed or positive intention.

I’ll bet you didn’t know some of those.  And I’ll bet you’re wondering what this has to do with teaching?

For me (setting aside the definition that involves death), all of these definitions have a bearing on my “determination” and “positive intention” to be a more mindful teacher this semester and year.  This spring, I resolve to:

• Separate course materials and learning goals into their component parts or elements, for easier understanding
• Be open to learning from my students, thereby softening any hardened assumptions I may hold from previous courses
• Render distinguishable the component parts of readings and theories and pedagogical strategies
• Convert theoretical learning to practical, previous experience to new learning, learning to future action
• Define the varied and various distinguishing features of excellent teaching
• Alter discord and dissonant harmony so as to form concord and more consonant harmony in intellectual debates and discussions in class
• Reconcile conflicting views wherever possible
• Work backwards from learning goals, examining the truth or falsehood of beliefs about what “must” be “covered” during class
• Remove doubt about self-efficacy and learning potential
• Find (and help my students find) answers to questions, solutions to problems (and to ask and pursue them in the first place)
• Undertake teaching mindfully, with positive intentions for what my students can teach one another

Of course, these aren’t the only things I am resolving to do as I return to the classroom this spring.  After being away from formal teaching for a while, I find myself committing to all sorts of interesting things, and I am energized and excited about all the possibilities before me.  Hopefully, if I am mindful about teaching, I won’t have lost all that energy by Valentine’s Day!

by Debie Lohe, Director for the Reinert CTTL

As the fall semester winds down, I want to take a moment to reflect on the semester we’ve had and to wish everyone speedy grading, safe travels, and peaceful holidays.

Earlier this month, we held our Fall Certificate Ceremony in the Pere Marquette Gallery, which celebrated the accomplishments of the 18 graduate students and faculty who completed Certificate requirements this semester.  Alden Bass, Birton Cowden, Whitney Kline, Aaron Overby, Kyle Schenkewitz, and Diane Reinhold all completed the Certificate in University Teaching Skills this fall.  Twelve others were awarded the Participation Certificate: Katie Heiden Rootes, Steven Jenkins, Kelly Maxwell, Michael Milster, Vicky Moran, Satish Munigala, Jessica Murray, Kitty Newsham, Geoffrey Reddick, Alisha Rorer, Audrey Shelton, and Lina Sun.

As is tradition in the Center, we invited a SLU faculty member to offer some brief reflections on teaching.  We were delighted to have Dr. Stephanie Mooshegian (assistant professor and chair of Organizational Studies in the School for Professional Studies, and one of the Center’s inaugural Innovative Teaching Fellows) share a bit of her own teaching journey and her thoughts on the significance of the Certificate programs.  If you weren’t able to join us, you can find Dr. Mooshegian’s Reflections on Teaching here.

The Fall Certificate Ceremony is one of our favorite events of the year.  It gives us an opportunity to acknowledge the contributions of all those who support the work we do.  We are especially grateful to our Faculty Fellows, to the members of our Advisory Board, and to all of the faculty presenters who facilitated workshops for us this semester.  Most of all, we’re grateful for the commitment of those who pursue the Certificate in the first place; we learn as much from them as they do from us, and we are always energized by their passion for teaching and their commitment to learning.

This Ceremony is the last major event of the fall, and this year, it caps off a very busy semester.  CTTL staff have conducted workshops (both on campus and off), consulted with faculty and other instructors, facilitated pedagogical conversations on a variety of topics, hosted an internationally-acclaimed presenter, and completed their strategic planning work for the next three years.  They’ve done all of this with their usual good humor and deep commitment to the core values that shape all of the work we do in the Center.  As so many of you often stop and tell me: this staff is outstanding, and it is my great pleasure and privilege to work with such a fine and talented team.

As we wrap up the semester that was and head into the holiday season, find a few moments of quiet and reflect on how the semester went and what you might carry with you into the spring:

What moments from your teaching this semester are you grateful for?

What moved you as a teacher and scholar?

When were your students most engaged?

What didn’t go as planned?  Were there surprising lessons in that?

What did you learn this semester about your area of study? about teaching? about yourself?

What one small thing will you do differently next semester?

I hope you found joy in your teaching this semester.  I hope you head into the holidays ready for rest and that you return recharged.  And I hope you’ll join us on Thursday, January 10, for our annual Winter Institute.  This year’s theme is Engaging All Learners in the 21^st Century.  To find out more, click here.  To register for the event, click on this registration form.

From all of us here in the CTTL, warmest wishes for a restful winter break.  We look forward to seeing you in January!

If you’re new to the context of a Jesuit institution, you are probably wondering, What’s a Jesuit? And how does a Jesuit university differ from other kinds of schools? And perhaps even more important, for many, is the question, What do the religious traditions of the institution have to do with how I will do my work as a faculty member (or a graduate student)? As you make your transition, I encourage you to learn all you can about your new context, particularly as it is related to education.  Whatever your personal beliefs or views about religion and spirituality, the Jesuit educational mission can shape your interactions with students in deep and meaningful ways.  Below, I offer a few brief reflections on three key Jesuit concepts and how they can inform one’s teaching.

1)  Cura Personalis: Translated as “care for the whole person,” this Latin phrase reminds us to treat with dignity and respect all individuals we encounter. In the context of the classroom, it can be especially helpful in reminding us that our students are whole persons, experiencing a variety of life events, and are developing not just intellectually during their time with us, but also spiritually, physically, and emotionally. As members of a Jesuit educational community, we commit ourselves to understanding the sometimes-divergent processes of whole person development and to guiding students to appropriate resources, should we discover in our work with them, a need for assistance and support along the way.

2) Magis: Latin for “the more” and derived from the phrase Ad majorem Dei gloriam (meaning “for the greater glory of God”), this term represents for Jesuits, as it did for their founder, St. Ignatius of Loyola, a commitment to constantly seeking to do more and be more on behalf of God.  For the purposes of education, it can be thought of as a commitment to continuous improvement and quality, as well as a way to strive for learning that moves us outside of ourselves, into a connection with the larger community beyond the classroom.  With this lens in mind, the purpose of an education becomes more than simply a way to inform ourselves, and more than just a way to make ourselves marketable for employment.  For students, then, magis may perhaps best be thought of as a deepening – a deepening of experience, of learning, of commitment to service and social justice.  For educators, it reminds us continuously to seek new ways of challenging students to engage in meaningful inquiry, to see how what they’re learning in class can enhance their connections outside of class, and to avoid complacency in our own teaching practice.

3) The Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm: The elements of Ignatian pedagogy are derived from the Spiritual Exercises, a set of reflections and scriptural contemplations meant to guide a spiritual retreat.  As with the Exercises, the crux of Ignatian pedagogy is the constant interplay between one’s experience, reflection on that experience, and action that follows from one’s reflections.  Within the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm, effective teaching is rooted in a deep understanding of context – where individual learners are on their journey, what their previous experiences have been, and what they are prepared to learn.  With close attention to context, a teacher (or, in the case of the Exercises, a spiritual director) creates learning experiences, facilitates students’ reflections on what they’ve learned, and helps students put what they’ve learned into action.  Ultimately, the process culminates in evaluation – and in the best cases, self-evaluation – as the student considers what has worked well and what hasn’t.  Drawing on the results of this evaluation, the student engages in new learning experiences, and the process begins again.  (Fortunately, whether you call them “Ignatian” or not, the elements of Ignatian pedagogy are also the same ones supported by the research on what constitutes effective learning.)

While there is much more to a Jesuit education than this, these concepts can get you started.  For a fuller understanding of these and other key concepts for Jesuits, see Xavier University’s glossary, Do You Speak Ignatian? For more on Ignatian pedagogy, have a look at these resources.  And to find out more about SLU’s Jesuit mission, read In Perspective: An Overview of the Intellectual, Ethical and Religious Foundations of Saint Louis University.  To talk with someone in the Reinert Center for Transformative Teaching & Learning about how you can use the framework of Ignatian pedagogy more intentionally in your own classes, contact us by phone (314-977-3944) or by email (cttl@slu.edu).

Greetings from the newly-christened Paul C. Reinert, S.J. Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning.  Officially, this year marks the 15^th anniversary for the Center (formerly, the Reinert Center for Teaching Excellence), but the fact is, we’ve been transforming teaching at Saint Louis University even longer than that.

Twenty years ago, in 1992, the then-Graduate School created the Graduate School Teaching Resource Room, in an effort to better prepare graduate students for their future academic careers.  The idea for the Resource Room – like so many good ideas that have taken root at SLU over the years – came from the late Don Brennan, who was Dean of the Graduate School at the time and who was deeply committed to the formation of excellent university teachers.

The story goes that Dean Brennan, along with the late J.J. O’Brien (professor emeritus of education), put a small library of teaching resources and a handful graduate assistants in a corner room in the Graduate School, and the first formal resource for instructional development at SLU was born.  In an interview several years ago, Dr. Jim Korn, professor emeritus of psychology, explained that, informally, graduate students and faculty alike had been consulting with Dr. O’Brien – whom Korn called “the saint of teaching” at SLU – about pedagogy for years, hanging around in hallways and chatting with him while he smoked.  (To hear more of the interview with Dr. Korn about the Center’s history, listen to the podcasts found on the following page)

By early 1997, the Resource Room had made such an impression on campus that Dr. Korn, in his new role as associate graduate dean for teaching, headed a faculty committee that petitioned University administration to establish a formal teaching center, which would serve both graduate students and faculty across the campus.  The committee was successful, and in the fall of 1997, the Center for Teaching Excellence officially began its work.  Just a few years later, in 2001, it would be christened the Paul C. Reinert, S.J. Center for Teaching Excellence, in honor of the long-time SLU president whose commitment to innovation and excellence are unrivaled.

First located in O’Brien House (named for that aforementioned “saint”), the Center officially began by offering a small number of services for faculty, in addition to consulting with graduate teaching assistants and offering the Certificate in University Teaching Skills.  The Certificate – originally designed for graduate students – is still alive and well.  Recently, we’ve even seen an increase in the number of faculty participants, which is a strong indication of the quality of the program. (In May, we celebrated our largest group of recipients to date: 50 total Certificates were awarded to SLU graduate students and faculty, which brought our total for the academic year to about 60.)

The Center has continued to grow since those early days.  Thanks in large part to the reflective, thoughtful leadership of Dr. Mary Stephen, who led the Center for almost a decade (until her retirement in January 2011), and to a robust, dedicated faculty Advisory Board, we have continued to deepen our roots in the SLU community and to set a high bar for the quality of programs and services we offer.

Today, a mere 15 years after our founding as a formal Center, we now enjoy a rich diversity of faculty and graduate students attending our programs and seeking our services, and we increasingly are invited by departments and colleges to hold unit-level workshops on teaching and assessment of learning.  Additionally, we often are called upon to share our expertise on effective teaching practices with other educators on campus—others from whom students learn (such as academic advisors, Learning Communities residence hall coordinators, and the like), in this holistic, Jesuit effort to care for and educate the “whole person” (cura personalis).

Ultimately, strong leadership, faculty commitment, and ongoing administrative support have made the Center’s first 15 years (or is it 20?) successful ones.  As we look ahead to the next 15, we can only hope that our presence and sustained growth continue to serve as evidence that “teaching is valued and has a high priority at Saint Louis University,” as Dean Brennan hoped (correspondence with the founding Advisory Board members).

All year long, this blog will explore the rich history of the Center – and the faculty who have contributed to its formative years – as well as offering 15-year themed suggestions, tips, and reflections.  So, join us as we celebrate this important milestone!

Paul C. Reinert, S.J. Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning

Welcome to the Center’s new website – and our new blog-format version of The Notebook (formerly, our quarterly newsletter)!  As you look around, those of you who have been involved with the Center for a while will notice something else is new: our name.  Beginning on Sunday, July 1, 2012, the Paul C. Reinert, S.J. Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) will be known as the Paul C. Reinert, S.J. Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning (CTTL).

We’ve come a long way since our founding in 1997.  That was the year a small group of faculty petitioned the University administration to convert the Graduate School Teaching Resource Room into a formal teaching center, serving both faculty and graduate students at SLU.  (Click on this link for more on the Center’s history.)  Today, 15 years later, the Center is enjoying its strongest period of growth to date; we officially have moved out of our period of formation and into a period of transformation.  In the last year, we’ve seen our staff size double and the demand for our services sky-rocket.  Perhaps most importantly, we’ve begun to realize the dreams of all those faculty who first imagined the Center into being: increasingly, educators across our campus look to us as leaders and agents of change (particularly as they seek to find new ways of creating engaging and relevant learning experiences), not merely as a resource for good information.

This shift – from information to what we might call transformation – mirrors a shift in higher education more broadly, even as it embodies the pedagogical aims the Jesuits have been meeting for almost 500 years.  Transformative education has long been the commitment of Jesuit institutions generally and of Saint Louis University specifically.  And in a historical moment where all of us are asking, What does a Catholic, Jesuit education in the 21^st Century look like?, it’s more important than ever to consider the question, What does effective teaching look like at a Jesuit institution in the 21^st Century? To my mind, it looks like creating engaging, learner-centered educational experiences rooted in both innovation (21^st Century) and reflection (Jesuit).

So, when we were asked to consider a name change for the Center (a request that appealed to me, given the emptiness the word “excellence” can have these days), my first commitment was that we would add “learning” to the name.  (After all, as the old saying goes, “you aren’t teaching if no one is learning.”)  But in the spirit of magis, I knew there was more to it than that.  Ultimately, we wanted a name that captured both our Jesuit values and heritage and the innovations demanded of a 21^st Century university.  And I believe we captured that balance nicely.

As befits my English Literature background, I’d like just to “unpack” a few of the layers implicit in the new name, which might not be obvious to everyone:

• Reflection: This hallmark of Jesuit education and Ignatian spirituality is essential to an act transformation; without reflecting carefully on previous experiences, one cannot see the higher purpose or greater good to which those experiences, ideally, contribute.
• Innovation: Transformation is predicated upon some new way of looking at an old problem, a creative insight that opens up some formerly-closed system; in its oldest usage, “to innovate” means simply, “to renew, to alter, to make new.”  Given Fr. Reinert’s willingness to innovate – to admit women and students of color in the early half of the 20^th Century – the Center that bears his name should embrace innovation.
• Transformative Learning Theories: The Jesuit commitment to care for and educate the “whole person” (cura personalis) is echoed by theories of learning that foreground the transformative potential of deep, meaningful educational experiences.
• Reciprocity: Ultimately, in moving from a noun (“excellence”) to an adjective, we’re pointing at an underlying reciprocity that exists in truly transformative teaching: when teaching is transformed, learning is transformed, and both the teacher and the learner come away changed.

As Saint Louis University seeks to increase the transformative potential of the education it offers (for both its students and the world they will create upon leaving) and to transform its modes of delivering education to more people, in more places (a social justice commitment, among other things)—in light of all this, it seems only fitting that the Center would seek to transform the teaching and the learning that happens here.  And as we look ahead at the coming years, we anticipate a surge in new Center programs, services, and audiences across the institution, as well as a surge in national and international recognition as a top-tier teaching center, all of which will (we hope) position us to be a transformative presence, both on campus and off.

That’s an ambitious set of goals.  And they can’t be met with a simple name change.  But the work has already begun, our transformation is already underway.  And so, officially, and for the first time ever, I offer you greetings from the Paul C. Reinert, S.J. Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning.  We look forward to seeing you soon.

Katie Beres

In June, the CTTL welcomed its newest staff member, Katie Beres, who serves as Instructional Liaison for Faculty and Graduate Student Development.  Under the direction of Dr. Gina Merys, Katie works closely with graduate students and faculty enrolled in our Certificate Programs, and she assists with the creation, implementation, and assessment of programs focused on teaching enhancement, assessment of student learning, and many other topics.

Katie comes to us from the University of Missouri-St. Louis, where she served as an instructional designer, providing course and instructional development for distance learning.  Before that, she worked in the Division of Student Development here at SLU, as an academic advisor and as a coordinator in the Learning Communities program.  While in Student Development, Katie worked closely with the Center to develop resources and programs for faculty teaching in First-Year Interest Groups (FIGs) and developed her knowledge of Ignatian pedagogy.

Katie has taught both first-year and upper-level students, at SLU and at The Ohio State University, where she received her Master’s in Higher Education Administration and Student Affairs.  With an undergraduate degree in Psychology and Gender Studies from Notre Dame, Katie brings a multidisciplinary perspective to her work in the Center.  She has a deep commitment to Ignatian pedagogy and to understanding how people learn and how student development theory can inform the ways in which we structure learning experiences.  To read more about Katie, check out her page in the staff directory.

The next time you’re in Pius Library, stop in to the Center and meet Katie – we are happy to have her on our team!