Courses in Online Teaching
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.
Our online courses are intensive, spanning one or more weeks with content and activities designed to provide opportunities for participants to learn about areas of online teaching in which they are most interested. The courses are all asynchronous and hosted through the campus LMS, currently Canvas.
Introduction to Distance Teaching is offered in the fall, spring and summer semesters. Typically, two one-week courses will be offered in both fall and spring semesters, with one course being offered in the summer. Below are examples of the courses.
To see what courses are currently being offered, check out our Events page. For questions about any individal course, email the Reinert Center.
The Introduction to Distance Teaching is a fully-online course that provides a pedagogical foundation for Saint Louis University faculty who are new to the online teaching environment. By the end of the course, faculty will have a draft design plan for an online course designed to meet the University’s Online Course Design Rubric.
The two-week course is offered once in the fall, spring, and summer. It 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.
This one-week, fully-online asynchronous course surveys accessibility considerations in distance formats. The course provides instructors an opportunity to understand key accessibility guidelines that are aligned with international accessibility standards and SLU’s new Checklist for Accessible Online Course Materials. Participants will use a plus-one approach to identify how to get started improving the accessibility of their distance courses.
Prerequisite: Introduction to Distance Teaching
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
How can you build inclusive learning environments in asynchronous courses when students and instructors are separated by distance and learning occurs at a self-paced speed? In this one-week course, participants will consider course design strategies and teaching practices that create and facilitate inclusive online learning environments. Through module activities, participants will engage in discussions and draft course planners to better center, situate, and express inclusive pedagogy as a means of promoting student belonging in an online course of their choosing.
Prerequisite: Introduction to Distance Teaching
This one-week, asynchronous course explores the role of online discussions for Distance Learning, and shares suggestions on designing effective asynchronous discussions that boost student engagement, build community, and meet the standards of SLU’s Online Course Design Rubric. The course will guide participants in drafting their own dynamic discussion for use in an online course and offer tips on facilitating student-led discussions.
Prerequisite: Introduction to Distance Teaching
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
The Engaging the Online Learner course is a week-long asynchronous experience that will allow participants to delve into the issue of engagement in online courses, and develop methods of methods of student/instructor and student/student interaction to promote engagement. By the end of the course, participants will have familiarized themselves with the HLC accreditation requirements for interaction in online courses and develop a plan for both instructor to student and student to student engagement in a specific course. Faculty are expected to spend 5-8 hours completing course content, readings, activities, and discussions.
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
The Rubric Construction, It’s a Process course is a week-long asynchronous experience that will allow participants to intentionally apply a specific process for rubric construction. This course is open to any university teaching personnel interested in constructing or revising an assignment rubric including but not limited to rubrics for online discussion. Participants should have an assignment or rubric selected prior to the course. 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 (Arter & Chappuis, 2006). Faculty are expected to spend 5-8 hours completing course content, readings, activities, and discussions.
Prerequisite: Introduction to Distance Teaching
Just as in the traditional classroom, practicalities often require that we end up with more students than we would ideally have enrolled in our online courses. In this one-week course, participants will develop strategies for dealing with interaction, engagement, feedback, and grading in online courses with large enrollments.
Prerequisite: Introduction to Distance Teaching
The Universal Design for Online Teaching and Learning course is a week-long immersive experience focusing on the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework in online formats. Participants will examine, apply, and then reflect on key UDL principles in individual course planners and collaborative discussions. By the end of the course, faculty participants will develop a better understanding of the UDL framework, its associated principles, and strategies or methods for implementing UDL in the online classroom. More importantly, participants will gain practical experience “UDL-izing” course features in an online course of their choosing. Faculty are expected to spend 5-8 hours completing course content, readings, activities, and discussions.
Prerequisite: Introduction to Distance Teaching