Becoming an instructor

Site-Based Courses

These face-to-face workshops or intensive courses take place at a specific location over the course of predetermined dates/times: for example, courses could take place over a weekend, or meet on a specific day of the week for consecutive weeks. If taking place in Washington state, clock hours may also be available through SPU. We require all paperwork be turned in at least 3 weeks in advance of the course start date. We cannot guarantee your course will be set up if it is sent less than 3 weeks in advance, and we cannot set up courses once they have started.

To offer a site-based course, email CPEinfo@spu.edu" for further information with the subject line “Information Request: Site-based Course Set-up.”

Distance Learning Courses  

These are online, self-paced courses that give the student up to one year to complete. These courses allow enrollment at any time and are only available for graduate-level credit. Distance Learning course set-up can take up to six weeks from the time of proposal until the course is available for registrations.

To offer a Distance Learning course email DLinfo@spu.edu for further information with the subject line “Information Request: DL Course Set-up.”

Basic Standards:

• A maximum of 3 credits may be awarded in a seven-day week
• A maximum 8 contact hours may be awarded per day

Approved Minimum Standard: 

• 1 credit: Two days’ instruction
• 2 credits: Three days’ instruction
• 3 credits: Five consecutive days’ instruction
• 3 credits: Four non-consecutive days’ instruction
• 4 credits: Five days of non-consecutive instruction, not within a seven-day week
• 5 credits: Seven days of non-consecutive instruction, not within a seven-day week

Five minutes of break time are included in each instructional hour. Breaks may be taken hourly or accrued up to four hours and taken all at once, but they are not to be included as lunchtime.

Federal laws require 30 minutes is provided for lunch if there are six or more instructional hours in a single day, and that lunchtime must be provided in addition to instructional time. Schedule lunchtime separately from your students’ break time.

If you are hoping to offer academic credit for a course that meets in person for just one day, you will need to add additional academic engagement time into the course syllabus through an activity such as a webinar or an online discussion group.

Courses can be set up in Canvas. Canvas was chosen as SPU’s learning management system (LMS) for many reasons, most notably its out-of-the-box ease, minimalism, simplicity, and ability to work well with other software and platforms. The proficiency necessary to build courses, assignments, rubrics, and manage grades is intuitive on the Canvas platform.

For questions regarding the Canvas platform, visit the SPU Canvas support webpage. If your question is not addressed, send Canvas questions to etmhelp@spu.edu or call 206-281-2170.

Instructors interested in using a non-Canvas method of delivery should contact CPEInfo@spu.edu.