Schreyer Institute programs are for anyone at Penn State who has an instructional role or is preparing for a future one. Our participants are typically faculty, graduate students, and postdocs. Academic administrators, instructional designers, staff members, and undergraduates in instructional roles are also welcome.
Teaching well doesn’t just mean having strong content - it also means having strong systems. In this workshop, we’ll explore strategies for organizing your teaching to save time, reduce stress, and create a clearer learning experience for your students. Topics include structuring your course in Canvas, streamlining communication and grading, management tools, and adopting simple organizational practices that keep both you and your students on track. Participants will leave with concrete strategies they can implement right away to make their teaching more effective and sustainable.
Penn State encourages persons with disabilities to participate in its programs and activities. If you anticipate needing any type of accommodation or have questions about the access provided, please contact the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence at SITE@psu.edu or call 814-863-2599 at least 2 weeks prior to the start of the program to allow sufficient time to effectively meet your access needs.

The EDGE Spotlight series focuses on emerging scholarship and evidence-based practice by Penn State faculty related to virtual exchange.
In this session, Andjela Kaur and Laura Cruz will present their work on critical perspectives on accessibility in virtual exchange.
A Critical Framework for Research, Practice, and Dialogue on Accessibility in Virtual Exchange
This interactive presentation explores the potential of virtual exchange to address accessibility in the contexts of academic ableism, accessibility friction, Universal Design for Learning, and the practice of virtual colonizing. As we explore these issues, we envision a critical framework for virtual exchange design that increases disability inclusion in virtual exchange and study abroad projects.
Penn State encourages persons with disabilities to participate in its programs and activities. If you anticipate needing any type of accommodation or have questions about the access provided, please contact the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence at SITE@psu.edu or call 814-863-2599 at least 2 weeks prior to the start of the program to allow sufficient time to effectively meet your access needs.

As generative AI tools like ChatGPT become increasingly available, students need not only technical familiarity but also a critical understanding of how these tools shape thinking, creativity, and scholarship. As educators, academic advisers must be prepared to support students' AI literacy. In this workshop we will discuss AI literacy within higher education using Penn State's AI Literacy Framework and discuss strategies for talking about AI concepts in academic advising.
This is a closed event customized for the requesting department. If you are interested in a Custom Workshop for your area, contact us at site@psu.edu.
Penn State encourages persons with disabilities to participate in its programs and activities. If you anticipate needing any type of accommodation or have questions about the access provided, please contact the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence at SITE@psu.edu or call 814-863-2599 at least 2 weeks prior to the start of the program to allow sufficient time to effectively meet your access needs.

In this interactive workshop, participants will explore multiple uses of assessment -- both as a tool to promote learning and a tool to determine how much learning has occurred. This version of the workshop will be especially beneficial for graduate students, postdocs, and other newer instructors, but anyone in or preparing for an instructional role is welcome.
Registration will close 1 hour before the event starts. Registrants will receive a Zoom link at least 45 minutes before the workshop begins.
Penn State encourages persons with disabilities to participate in its programs and activities. If you anticipate needing any type of accommodation or have questions about the access provided, please contact the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence at SITE@psu.edu or call 814-863-2599 at least 2 weeks prior to the start of the program to allow sufficient time to effectively meet your access needs.
In this free, non-credit, self-directed, and entirely asynchronous course, participants explore the rationale and research that supports designing learning experiences with UDL, read scenarios about UDL applications, and reflect on ways to apply UDL to their own instructional practices. This course is open to faculty of any rank or status, teaching assistants, and post-doctoral instructors and members of the learning design community.
Register anytime at the following link: https://psu.catalog.instructure.com/browse/wcfd/courses/ol-360001-universal-design-for-learning-2026 . You will have 90 days to complete the course.
This course is a collaboration between the Schreyer Institute and World Campus Online Faculty Development.
Penn State encourages persons with disabilities to participate in its programs and activities. If you anticipate needing any type of accommodation or have questions about the access provided, please contact the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence at SITE@psu.edu or call 814-863-2599 at least 2 weeks prior to the start of the program to allow sufficient time to effectively meet your access needs.

As generative AI tools like ChatGPT become increasingly available, students need not only technical familiarity but also a critical understanding of how these tools shape thinking, creativity, and scholarship. In this workshop we will discuss strategies to introduce AI concepts in your courses and design activities that help students reflect on appropriate and ethical uses. We will also discuss methods to assess AI literacy. Includes an optional 30-minute design sprint at the end.
Registration will close 1 hour before the event starts. Registrants will receive a Zoom link at least 1 hour before the event.
Penn State encourages persons with disabilities to participate in its programs and activities. If you anticipate needing any type of accommodation or have questions about the access provided, please contact the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence at SITE@psu.edu or call 814-863-2599 at least 2 weeks prior to the start of the program to allow sufficient time to effectively meet your access needs.

Developing AI literacy is essential for faculty who want to engage responsibly with generative AI in higher education. In this workshop, we will explore the core components of AI literacy and consider how AI literacy applies to their own teaching, research, and professional practices. Through discussion and hands-on activities, faculty will leave with a clearer understanding of their own AI literacy and practical ways to include it in their workflows and model it in the classroom. Includes an optional 30-minute design sprint at the end.
Registration will close 1 hour before the event starts. Registrants will receive a Zoom link at least 1 hour before the event.
Penn State encourages persons with disabilities to participate in its programs and activities. If you anticipate needing any type of accommodation or have questions about the access provided, please contact the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence at SITE@psu.edu or call 814-863-2599 at least 2 weeks prior to the start of the program to allow sufficient time to effectively meet your access needs.
Metacognition - thinking about one’s own thinking - is a powerful lever for student success, yet students rarely develop it on their own. In this interactive workshop, we’ll explore simple, research-based strategies that help learners plan, monitor, and reflect on their learning. Participants will leave with practical techniques they can immediately integrate into their teaching to deepen student learning and independence.
Penn State encourages persons with disabilities to participate in its programs and activities. If you anticipate needing any type of accommodation or have questions about the access provided, please contact the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence at SITE@psu.edu or call 814-863-2599 at least 2 weeks prior to the start of the program to allow sufficient time to effectively meet your access needs.


In this session of the Talking about Teaching series, faculty and graduate student panelists will share lived experiences that illuminate the complexities of navigating graduate education across cultures. To strengthen our collective capacity to support international graduate students as integral members of our research and teaching community, we will identify concrete strategies to build classroom climates that honor diverse forms of knowledge, promote belonging, and sustain student well-being in rigorous academic settings. Please bring your questions about ways to support international students for our panelists!
Registration will close 1 hour before the event starts. Registrants will receive a Zoom link at least 45 minutes before the workshop begins.
Penn State encourages persons with disabilities to participate in its programs and activities. If you anticipate needing any type of accommodation or have questions about the access provided, please contact the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence at SITE@psu.edu or call 814-863-2599 at least 2 weeks prior to the start of the program to allow sufficient time to effectively meet your access needs.

Paulo Freire challenged educators to move beyond the "banking" model of teaching, in which instructors "deposit" knowledge into passive students. Yet, despite our best intentions, we still find ourselves immersed in these practices. In this interactive workshop, we will reflect on our own educational experiences and co-create strategies to adopt Freire's dialogic pedagogy. Together, we will reimagine teaching as a collaborative, liberatory practice.
Registration will close 1 hour before the event starts. Registrants will receive a Zoom link at least 45 minutes before the workshop begins.
Penn State encourages persons with disabilities to participate in its programs and activities. If you anticipate needing any type of accommodation or have questions about the access provided, please contact the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence at SITE@psu.edu or call 814-863-2599 at least 2 weeks prior to the start of the program to allow sufficient time to effectively meet your access needs.
The 2026 Schreyer Conference will focus on alternative grading, or ways in which instructors are re-imagining their approach to grading. These approaches go by many different names—ungrading, specifications (spec) grading, contract grading, standards-based grading, labor-based grading and more---but they share a common focus on changing how and why we grade our students.
Penn State encourages persons with disabilities to participate in its programs and activities. If you anticipate needing any type of accommodation or have questions about the access provided, please contact the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence at SITE@psu.edu or call 814-863-2599 at least 2 weeks prior to the start of the program to allow sufficient time to effectively meet your access needs.

This short course is an introductory overview of ethical pedagogical practices that support student learning for all students. The course includes research-based lessons, workshops, interactive coffee hours, reflective journal activities, and opportunities for developing materials like lesson plans and teaching philosophy statements. The course is intended to support advanced graduate students and post-docs who seek to diversify and deepen their pedagogy and teaching materials. Upon successful completion of the course, participants earn a certificate of completion.
The course will take place over a 5-week period and is expected to entail about 25 hours of work (total). It involves:
a) Zoom workshops on Thursdays: March 26, April 2, 9, and 16 from 11:00–12:30pm EST
b) Coffee hour chats: Hybrid format; time/day are based on your availability. Location and Zoom link will be announced the first week of class.
Detailed information about the course can be found at: http://schreyerinstitute.psu.edu/cep
Space is limited. The application deadline is March 4, 2026.
To apply: https://tinyurl.com/site-cep
Penn State encourages persons with disabilities to participate in its programs and activities. If you anticipate needing any type of accommodation or have questions about the access provided, please contact the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence at SITE@psu.edu or call 814-863-2599 at least 2 weeks prior to the start of the program to allow sufficient time to effectively meet your access needs.


AI-aware Faculty Leaders is a group of colleagues in a SITE grant program who will meet in-person two times during the 2025-26 academic year to share resources, insights, and to identify additional needs to address current and future needs of the discipline.
This is a closed event customized for the requesting department. If you are interested in a Custom Workshop for your area, contact us at site@psu.edu.
Penn State encourages persons with disabilities to participate in its programs and activities. If you anticipate needing any type of accommodation or have questions about the access provided, please contact the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence at SITE@psu.edu or call 814-863-2599 at least 2 weeks prior to the start of the program to allow sufficient time to effectively meet your access needs.

In this interactive webinar, you will gain access to a research toolkit (including an IRB) that has been developed especially for EDGE (virtual exchange) projects. Using this toolkit, you will be able to take the first steps towards designing and implementing a publishable/presentable teaching and learning scholarship project—starting as soon as this semester.
Penn State encourages persons with disabilities to participate in its programs and activities. If you anticipate needing any type of accommodation or have questions about the access provided, please contact the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence at SITE@psu.edu or call 814-863-2599 at least 2 weeks prior to the start of the program to allow sufficient time to effectively meet your access needs.