Current Professional Development Opportunities
Fall 2026 Programs
University-wide Trainings and Initiatives
Quality Online Initiative Training
Advance your online teaching practices by participating in the Quality Online Training certificate. This professional development opportunity is designed to:
- Strengthen your online teaching effectiveness,
- Support student success and belonging,
- align with federal instructional standards, and
- Integrate equity-minded, evidence-based practices.
This training is asynchronous faculty can enroll at any time during the academic year. To learn more about this program, visit the Quality Online Training page.
Mulimodal/Hyflex Course Design
The CETL Multi-modal Teaching Certificate is a focused professional development program that equips faculty with the skills, strategies, and tools needed to design and deliver high-quality courses across in-person and synchronous online modalities. Participants will learn how to create equivalent learning experiences, integrate active and accessible teaching practices, and build community across modalities.
To learn more about this program, visit the Multimodal Teaching Certificate page.
Teaching and Learning Programs
Inclusive Online Teaching for College Faculty
This four-week course helps college faculty design, facilitate, and assess inclusive online learning experiences. Participants will examine evidence-based practices that support belonging, accessibility, equity, and engagement while developing an implementation plan for their own courses. The course emphasizes practical application, peer collaboration, and continuous improvement.
Discipline to Profession: Practical Tools for Authentic Student Engagement
Join faculty from Integrated Engineering for a four-session professional development program that helps educators connect course content to real-world applications and career pathways within their disciplines. Using the proven 3Cs Framework: Curiosity, Connections, and Creating Value, participants will explore evidence-based teaching strategies and digital resources that increase student motivation, deepen learning, and strengthen professional identity development. Faculty will gain practical tools for creating more relevant and engaging learning experiences, develop classroom-ready activities, and leave with an implementation plan to help students recognize the value of their learning and successfully apply their knowledge beyond the classroom.
AI Literacy Certificate
This certification is to improve AI and information literacy teaching and learning on campus and within the community, through interdisciplinary learning opportunities centered around the exploration of artificial intelligence (AI) literacy. This certificate explores concepts related to functional, ethical, rhetorical, and pedagogical AI literacy.
Discipline to Profession: Practical Tools for Authentic Student Engagement
Join faculty from Integrated Engineering for a four-session professional development program that helps educators connect course content to real-world applications and career pathways within their disciplines. Using the proven 3Cs Framework: Curiosity, Connections, and Creating Value, participants will explore evidence-based teaching strategies and digital resources that increase student motivation, deepen learning, and strengthen professional identity development. Faculty will gain practical tools for creating more relevant and engaging learning experiences, develop classroom-ready activities, and leave with an implementation plan to help students recognize the value of their learning and successfully apply their knowledge beyond the classroom.
New Faculty Onboarding Academy
Over the course of the academic year, new faculty will attend seven one-hour workshops to engage in professional development that enhances their teaching and learning practices and advances racial equity and social justice in teaching and learning spaces.
Online Teaching Programs
Regular and Substantive Interaction
This three-module asynchronous faculty professional development opportunity is designed to help raise instructor awareness about the importance and implications of having meaningful instructor interaction in online courses and to consider best practices in their own courses.
Advanced Course Quality
Advanced Online Course Quality is designed for faculty who want to move beyond basic online course setup and strengthen selected aspects of their own online courses. Participants will complete at least two of the first seven content modules based on their teaching context, course needs, and professional goals. These modules address evidence-based practices related to online presence, course organization, alignment, interaction, feedback, assessment, accessibility, learner support, and responsible use of AI. All participants will then complete the required course review module, where they use feedback to revise selected elements of their course and explain how those changes support student learning, engagement, navigation, accessibility, and overall course quality.
Meet the UEC/CETL Instructional Designer/What is Instructional Design?
Meet Chris Daniel, UEC/CETL’s instructional designer, and learn how instructional design can support your teaching. This session introduces the role of instructional design, the types of assistance available to faculty, and practical ways an instructional designer can help strengthen course organization, alignment, accessibility, engagement, assessment, and the effective use of instructional technology.
Options and Alternatives to Discussion Boards
Explore alternatives to the traditional “post once, reply twice” discussion format. This training introduces more purposeful, engaging approaches to online discussion that promote meaningful interaction, critical thinking, collaboration, and authentic application of course concepts.
Interactive Objects for Student/Technology Engagement
Discover how H5P can make online courses more engaging through interactive videos, knowledge checks, presentations, branching scenarios, and other activities. This training introduces practical ways to use H5P to support learning, provide immediate feedback, and encourage students to interact more actively with course content.
Course Maps for Alignment, Clarity, and Student Retention
Learn how to create a course map that connects learning objectives, materials, activities, and assessments. This workshop explores how course maps can strengthen alignment, clarify the student learning experience, identify gaps or redundancies, and support student persistence and retention.
Practical and Ethical Use of AI for Instructional Support
Explore practical and ethical ways to use generative AI to support instructional work. This training introduces strategies for developing course materials, generating ideas, improving feedback, and streamlining routine tasks while maintaining accuracy, transparency, privacy, accessibility, and appropriate instructor oversight.
Getting Started in Online Teaching
Build a strong foundation for teaching online with practical guidance on course organization, communication, engagement, accessibility, and student support. This training introduces essential strategies and campus resources to help instructors create a clear, welcoming, and effective online learning experience.
Creating Visually Engaging Content
Learn techniques to create better organized, and visually engaging pages in Brightspace. This training introduces practical techniques for formatting text, adding links, structuring content, and making simple page edits without requiring advanced coding experience. Ready-to-use templates will be provided so participants can quickly adapt and apply what they learn in their own courses.
Branching Scenarios with Microsoft PowerPoint
Learn how to create interactive branching scenarios using Microsoft PowerPoint. This training introduces a practical, accessible approach to designing decision-based activities that allow learners to explore choices, receive feedback, and experience the consequences of their decisions.
Promoting Academic Integrity in the Age of AI
Explore practical approaches to academic integrity in the age of generative AI. This training examines why students may misuse AI, how clear policies and thoughtful assessment design can reduce academic integrity concerns, and how instructors can guide students toward transparent, responsible, and learning-focused uses of AI.
Collaborative Programs
Student Success Advising Academy
The Student Success Advising Academy- Basic Level is a training program consisting of three sessions that introduce faculty and staff to advising at Minnesota State University, Mankato, student development theory, holistic student support, and the relationship between advising and student success. Upon completing all three sessions, participants will be awarded the Student Advising Academy - Basic Level Badge from Credly, and will be enrolled to continue on to the asynchronous Advanced Level.
This program is designed for:
- Faculty and staff entering their second year at MNSU
- Faculty and staff who want to revamp their advising practices
Non-Instructional Faculty Development
New Department Chairs Cohort
This program is designed specifically for those who are incoming new chairs. During this training, we enhance your leadership skills, provide an overview of responsibilities connected to the IFO contract description, and guide your development of strategies related to budgeting, student advising, public relations, program planning, and report development in ways to advance Equity 2030 goals.
Second Year Faculty Cohort
This year-long cohort supports fixed-term and probationary faculty in their second year at the University. The group will meet monthly to discuss the increasing responsibilities of academic advising, scholarship, and research, and reflect upon challenges and lessons learned during their first year at the University. 2-3 per semester
Third-Fifth Year Faculty Cohort
This self-led cohort offers continuous professional development support for fixed-term and probationary faculty in their third through fifth year at the university. The group will meet monthly throughout the academic year to discuss the growing responsibilities of academic advising, research and scholarly activity, and service, as well as the challenges faculty face during this stage of their careers while working toward tenure and promotion. CETL will organize a mentor if the group requests.
Build Your Watermark Faculty Success Portfolio
Faculty will be introduced to the Faculty Success module of the Watermark series. Learn how this program can help faculty organize their successes and activities to support the PDP/PDR process. By the end of this series, faculty will build their professional portfolios and retrieve "Activities" to better capture and tell the stories of faculty members' successes and accomplishments.
Score Big: A Playbook for SoTL Publications
This interactive, 1-hour CETL-sponsored professional development workshop is designed to help participants discover and apply strategies for publishing in Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) journals.
Submitting Program Proposals
Do you have an idea for a CETL program? To submit a proposal, you will need to provide the title of the program, description of the program, learning objectives for the program, tentative schedule, and any materials your program might need.
