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.
Visit CTEI’s Teaching Remotely site for resources and best practices on teaching and learning continuity during the COVID-19 response.
This webpage is a companion to the Blackboard resource called RUTR: Teaching Remotely. Access RUTR through Blackboard; it will be listed under courses that you are taking as all faculty members are students in this resource.
For additional information or assistance please reach out to CTEI@Rush.edu.
To reduce disruption to your teaching spring break was chosen for the transitioning. Therefore, Blackboard will be unavailable for much of spring break. We understand that some of you already planned some activities on Blackboard for the students during that time. Unfortunately, Blackboard is in control of the days to make the transition and we are unable to change that. We apologize for the inconvenience and hope that you have enough time to make the necessary modifications to your courses. CTEI is always available to provide the support you need to make these changes.
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.
If you would like to be enrolled in the next session of OTCD or if you have any questions about OTCD, please contact Angela_Solic@Rush.edu.
Angela Velez-Solic, Ph.D.
Lynette Washington, M.S.
Branka Manojlovic, B.S.
Margaret (Peg) Checchi, M.Ed.
Brandon Taylor, M.S., M.O.T.
Matt West, M.S., M.A.
Laura Smith