We are located on the 9th floor of the Armour Academic Center, in what was previously METC space. You can contact us any time by emailing CTEI@rush.edu.
The Center for Teaching Excellence and Innovation, under the division of Academic Affairs, supports and enhances teaching at Rush University by promoting teaching excellence and innovation, and student engagement throughout all learning experiences at the university. This is accomplished through faculty education and consultation, program consultation on curricular and programmatic enhancement, and support of the university’s mission regarding strategic teaching initiatives.
The center provides workshops on various subjects that provide new skills or enhance current skills related to teaching, and one-on-one support for faculty to improve their face-to-face, blended, or online courses. Additionally, the center offers regular training for online teaching through the Online Teaching & Course Design class (OTCD) at least 3 times per year in Fall, Spring, and Summer.
Center staff members provide services for colleges and/or programs that are considering changes to their curriculum or pedagogical practices. Those services can include support for new teaching modalities or assistance with curriculum development, mapping and alignment of content with objectives and assessments. The center assists colleges and/or programs with student learning outcomes and assessments by using student performance data to make decisions on curricular or pedagogical change to improve outcomes and assessment performance.
CTEI is a department focused on the use of technologies to enhance teaching and course experiences. The staff members provide primary faculty support of the university’s learning management system (LMS), as well as initiate and support educational technologies used in courses and programs. CTEI staff members regularly explore new and more innovative ways of teaching and remain current on the most up-to-date advancements in the educational technology landscape.
The center works with faculty members to ensure their online courses meet or exceed Rush University standards for online course design and online teaching. Center staff members work with colleges to provide support as requested, by college administrators and work in partnership with the units to ensure online courses are of the highest quality possible. The center is also involved in Quality Matters reviews of certain courses.
Are you Rush University Faculty? If so, find out how our faculty is involved in what we do and how you might be able to get involved as well.
NOTICE: Rush University faculty have read-only access to Blackboard beginning October 1, 2022. Students no longer have access to Blackboard as of October 1, 2022. September 30 was the last day students had access. Faculty will have read-only access until September 30, 2023.
As of Fall 2022, all Rush University College of Health Sciences, College of Nursing and Graduate College courses are utilizing Canvas for course management.
Please let your students know the following Canvas resources are available to them:
Students will need to log into O365 with their Rush email address and password to view the resources.
ExamSoft will update our Examplify license to Examplify version 3.3 for Windows and macOS on June 6, 2023. Information on how updates affect lab devices is available here. Additional information on Examplify 3.3 release notes is available on their website.
As part of ExamSoft’s effort to continue to deliver Next Generation NCLEX® question types to our nursing clients, Examplify 3.3 supports the following question types:
• Drag and Drop
• Matching*
• Ordering*
• Matrix*
• Bowtie*
*To enable these question types or for additional information, please reach out to our Instructional Technologist Daniel Martin or reach out to CTEI@rush.edu.
Beginning December 21, Rush will implement a retention policy for Panopto recordings. Any recording that has not been viewed by either students or faculty in more than three years will be removed automatically. Once removed, the recordings will no longer be accessible by either faculty or students and will not be recoverable.
This archiving will be a continuous process that is automatic by Panopto, so faculty members will need to be aware of the age of their videos, and they should download them when they are getting close to the three-year mark if they wish to keep a copy. Recordings that are more than three years old but are still in active use in courses will not be removed.
If you would like to keep any recordings that have not been viewed in more than three years from the dates of creation, please use these instructions to download them as MP4 files. For assistance, questions or concerns, please email CTEI@Rush.edu.
OTCD 1.0 Summer 2023 Session:
June 6 to July 9 - Open for registration until May 30.
Fall 2023: TBD
OTCD 1.0 will be taught in Canvas, so anyone taking the course will get the learner’s experience of Canvas. The course will NOT cover how to use Canvas, but it covers the most effective practices of designing and teaching online courses.
OTCD 1.0 teaches you a lot about online and blended teaching. Many participants have also said it has helped them become a better face to face teacher, too. The course does not have any set meeting times online or in person. It is a 5 week course and is completely online. The course does have required assignments, interactions and due dates.
Taking OTCD 1.0 is a requirement for anyone who teaches a course that is 50% or more online. Email Angela Solic with any questions about the class.
CTEI Offering FIRST OTCD 2.0 Course from July 10 to Aug. 20
OTCD 2.0 will be offered to graduates of OTCD 1.0 as well as those who have an exemption from OTCD 1.0.
The course will be asynchronous and 6 weeks long, but will have 2 weeks “off” for time to work on the projects that are assigned in the class. Optional synchronous sessions will be offered.
Content will cover more advanced skills in online teaching and course design, notably creating interactive learning objects, creating instructor videos, artificial intelligence, differentiating instruction, infographics and more. Email Angela Solic with any questions about the class. To save your spot in the inaugural CTEI 2.0 course, please register by June 30.
Angela Velez-Solic, Ph.D.
Lynette Washington, M.S.
Branka Manojlovic, M.A.T, B.S.B.A.
Margaret (Peg) Checchi, M.Ed.
Laura Smith
Emily Rush, Ph.D.