Guidelines

Collaborative Inquiry:

Improving Teaching and Learning at the University

of St. Thomas

Bush Foundation Program Grant 2002-05

Summary of the Bush Grant

The central idea of the Bush Foundation’s grant to UST for undergraduate faculty development is to improve students’ higher-order thinking skills by employing more inquiry-based instruction and increasing the levels of faculty/student collaboration.

Higher-order thinking skills go beyond memorization and recall to apply knowledge to new situations, make inferences, evaluate evidence, analyze data, and express results. Inquiry-based instruction is a family of pedagogies that incorporate the investigative processes actually used in the disciplines. Among the methods used in this kind of teaching are case studies, action research, community-based problem solving, field investigation, and research-based or discovery-oriented instruction. These teaching methods model the “real-world” work of the academic disciplines.

It is not the more traditional model of learning in which students “learn” lecture and reading material in a passive way and are evaluated using one-dimensional forms of assessment such as multiple-choice exams. It is not the use of exercises that have a “right answer” that can be found using only a single process of inquiry. It is not learning based solely or primarily on recall. We wish to move away from such pedagogies, creating active instruction that requires students to discover knowledge. We want our students to learn that they can ask a well-formed question and figure out what leads to plausible answers; that they need to think and re-think what they’re doing, as they will have to do beyond the university.

Thus, the broad goals and specific objectives of the grant are to:

1. Goal: enhance student learning by improving higher-order thinking skills.

Objectives: To increase students’ level of conceptual understanding and their ability to apply knowledge to new situations, think independently, and evaluate and communicate their inquiry process.

2. Goal: encourage inquiry-based methods of instruction across the curriculum.

Objectives: To provide models that successfully apply inquiry-based methods in areas such as: writing to learn, interdisciplinary learning, theme-based learning, community-based projects, and service-learning; and to increase faculty/student collaboration across the curriculum.

3. Goal: infuse collaborative inquiry into the culture of the University of St. Thomas.

Objective: To publicize the effect of inquiry-based methods on student learning and classroom instruction.

Together with UST matching funds, the Bush Foundation’s grant award is for $2,000,000 over three years, renewable for three more years. Many of those funds will be regranted through two sets of programs:

1) grants to faculty:

· Project Grants: to implement inquiry-based teaching methods in undergraduate courses

· Core and Core Area Grants: to enhance inquiry-based teaching of core and core area courses

· Seed Grants: to support implementation of inquiry-based projects with external funding

· Dissemination Grants: to disseminate Collaborative Inquiry results at conferences

2) grants to students and their faculty mentors for student/faculty collaboration:

These grants are administered through the Young Scholars program. The Young Scholars program awards $3,000 to a student and $500 to their faculty mentor for collaborative scholarship. Students submit a proposal in April and are funded for 12 weeks of work during the summer. (More information about the Young Scholars program is available at the Bush Grant website below).

Faculty applying for any Collaborative Inquiry funding are encouraged to read the full 20-page grant proposal, available at www.stthomas.edu/bushgrant. Pages 6-9 provide examples of Collaborative Inquiry projects.

Guidelines for Grants to Faculty

Proposal Review Criteria Reviewers must determine from the proposal narrative whether the project can make an appropriate and effective contribution to the goals of the Bush grant for Collaborative Inquiry. Reviewers will be looking at the following criteria:

· Is the proposal clear, concise, and written for a general audience?
· What evidence is there of the need for the project?

· How, exactly, will students’ higher-order thinking skills be improved?

· How will the project director know that students’ thinking skills are improved (i.e. is there a good evaluation plan)?

· Is the project sustainable or will it end at the end of the grant period?
· Will the project director adequately disseminate results?

Required Forms for all four of these grants are given on the following pages and consist of:

1) Cover Sheet,

2) Budget Format page

3) Grant Application Checklist.

1) Cover Sheet

Select one:

___ Project Grant

___ Core and Core Area Grant

___ Seed Grant

___ Dissemination Grant

Name:_____________________________ Dept./Program: _____________________

Mail # ______________Phone # _________ E-mail:___________________________

The date of my initial full-time employment at UST was: _______________________ and the status of my present employment (tenured, tenure-track, limited term, adjunct) at UST is: _________________________.

1. Title of proposed project:

2. Description of project suitable for use in publicity and reporting to a general audience (not to exceed 50 words; avoid use of jargon):

3. Intended start date: _______________

Project duration (in months): ________

4. Total amount requested: ___________

5. Have you previously received 2002-05 Bush Grant funds? ___ Yes ___ No

If yes, please describe:

2) Budget Format page for:

Project Grants (maximum: $1,500) for curriculum development, faculty partnerships

Core and Core Area Grants (maximum amount in the case of conference attendance is $14,400 per team; maximum for retreats and meetings is $6,150 per team).

Seed Grants (maximum: $250 for <$10,000 external request; $500 for >$10,000 request)

Dissemination Grants (maximum: $1,000/individual, to a maximum of $3,000/team; $5,000 total available for departmental requests)

· Applicants are expected to provide reasonably detailed estimates of all expenses.

· Capital equipment (>$500) may not be purchased with these funds.

· The Proposal Narrative should give reviewers adequate justification for general categories of expenses. Detailed expenses and other calculations must be provided in a Budget Explanation.

· Other sources of funding should be detailed in a Budget Explanation, as applicable:

· Indicate whether or not you have applied for internal or external funding of this project in addition to UST’s Bush Foundation grant. As appropriate, list names of funding programs, both internal and external, and specify which expenses those programs are expected to cover. This should also be reflected on the Budget form and in supporting documentation (such as a letter of commitment).

· If currently funded by any UST Bush Foundation grants, list the grant type, year of award, and project title of each grant received.

BUDGET ITEM Grant Request Other Funding Total

1. Personnel / Director Stipend __________ ___________ ___________

2. Travel expenses ___________ ___________ ___________

a. Lodging ___________

b. Transportation ___________

c. Meals ___________

d. Conference Fee ___________

e. Other (give detail) ___________

3. Supplies, e.g. books

and refreshments ___________ ___________ ___________

4. Duplicating, postage, telephone __________

5. Other (provide detail) ___________ ___________ ___________

TOTAL REQUESTED: ___________ ___________ ___________

3) Grant Application Checklist

Please complete this checklist and submit with your application, which is due by 5:00 p.m. on the following dates:

For work beginning in: Due Notification Date

Summer April 1 June 1

Fall July 15 August 1

J Term October 1 November 1

Spring November 1 December 1

Submit the application to: Bush Grant, Mail # JRC 432.

Check that your application package contains eight complete, collated copies of the following:

___ A. Cover Sheet

___ B. Proposal Narrative

___ C. Budget Format page and Budget Explanation (not required for Seed Grants)

___ D. Copies of supporting documentation, if applicable

___ E. Two-page vitae (not required for Core and Core Area Grants)

___ F. Grant Application Checklist (this sheet, signed and dated)

Other items to acknowledge:

___ G. Final reports

I do not have any final reports due for previous UST Bush grants.

___ H. Protection of Human Subjects of Research

I understand that if my research will involve human subjects, I must seek approval from UST's Institutional Review Board for the Protection of Human Subjects of Research (IRB) before beginning the project. See the IRB website for information: http://www.stthomas.edu/irb

___ I. Final Report

Within three months of my project’s completion date, I agree to submit to Program Coordinator Vanca Shrunk (c/o Bush Grant Mail # JRC 432, idschrunk@stthomas.edu, 2-5740) the following: 1) a project evaluation report, 2) an accounting of funds spent, and 3) assessment results. I understand that submission of this final report is a prerequisite for any future funding from UST’s Bush grant for Collaborative Inquiry.

Applicant

Signature:_____________________________________________

Date:____________

Project Grants

The purpose of Project Grants is to help faculty implement courses that use inquiry-based teaching methods. For example, instead of lectures describing five ways for a retail business to estimate its trade area (where most customers come from), the instructor crafts curriculum that leads students to think through data provided by a real “client” and implement various methods of trade area estimation. The five methods are still taught, but they are applied in a real situation with all of the messy problems that accompany actual applications. This process makes students (and professors) think instead of memorize. It

encourages higher-order thinking (such as applying knowledge to new situations, thinking independently, and communicating results). It models the discipline as it is actually applied. Pages 6-9 of the grant proposal give several other examples of inquiry-based pedagogies. The proposal is available at: www.stthomas.edu/bushgrant.

Project Grants are designed to support faculty who are making substantial changes in pedagogy; such changes would often affect a whole course. Activities involved might include further learning about the pedagogy in some way (readings, attending a conference or workshop, observing faculty who use the technique or strategy), preparing the materials needed to implement the pedagogy in the course and to evaluate the results, etc.

Project Grants could be used to develop introductory courses, interdisciplinary or international courses, first-year courses, or an extension of the university’s existing “paired courses,” in which students enroll in two courses as a cohort and faculty may coordinate readings, projects, etc. Course development may also include expansion of the paired-course model to upper-division courses.

Project Grants can also be used for faculty partnerships, where a faculty member who is experienced with inquiry-based pedagogies mentors a colleague who wants use those methods.

Project Grants are primarily intended as summer stipends for faculty, as well as funding the purchase of books, materials, consultants, or transportation costs, to a maximum of $1,500 per faculty member or faculty partnership. Funds available in 2002-03 are $19,000.

Expectations:

Products that are expected from these grants will include revised syllabi and exercises, a report describing how the pedagogies are to be implemented in the course, and agreement on the part of the faculty member to measure the effects on student

learning. Assessment tools for this purpose are described on pages 9-14 of the original proposal to the Bush Foundation, available at www.stthomas.edu/bushgrant. Additional assessment tools will be posted on that website as they become available.

Project Grant Application Instructions

Application deadline: Submit eight copies of a complete Project Grant application according to the dates given on the Grant Application Checklist.

A complete Project Grant Application consists of:

A. Cover Sheet (required)

B. Proposal Narrative not exceeding four double-spaced pages of 12-point type (see Guidelines below)

C. Budget Format page and Budget Explanation (required)

D. Two-page vitae (required)

E. Supporting documentation (as appropriate)

F. Grant Application Checklist (required)

Guidelines for Project Grant Narrative

The proposal narrative is expected to describe or explain the items listed below. Remember that the review committee is an interdisciplinary group of faculty. Do not assume knowledge of the jargon or techniques of your discipline.

1. Brief Abstract (~200 words)

2. Rationale / Need for the project: Describe the teaching methodology you currently use in the course(s) affected by your project. Why are you proposing to change? What aspects of teaching/learning in those course(s) could be enhanced? What aspects of students' learning will be affected? What higher-order thinking skills will be affected? How?

3. Goals and Objectives: This section will state broad project goals, but must also include specific, measurable objectives. When your project is completed, reasonable people should be able to agree on whether or not the objectives have been met. Your goals and objectives must support those of the Bush grant, stated above in the “Summary of the Bush Grant.”

4. Project activities: What do you propose to do? How will you raise students’ higher-order thinking skills? Describe how you plan to achieve your project's goals and objectives. Indicate what specific products (assignments, cases, etc.) may result from your work. Include a clear timetable for project activities.

5. Preparation for the project: What previous work have you done that relates to the project? For example, you might have attended a conference on a particular pedagogical technique, read books or articles about this approach, analyzed student outcomes, observed classes that employ the methodology you wish to implement, etc. Please be specific.

6. Evaluation: What means will you use to evaluate your project? How will you assess whether you have met your objectives? How will you assess the impact of this change on your students' learning? (NOTE: Refer to pp. 9-14 of the Bush grant proposal at www.stthomas.edu/bushgrant. Additional assessment tools will be posted on that website as they become available.

7. Dissemination: How will you share the results of this work with others (1) at St. Thomas? (2) more broadly? Be specific. Some ideas: a departmental seminar, article for Synergia, poster or paper presented at a disciplinary meeting, journal articles, presentation at conferences of The Collaboration for the Advancement of College Teaching & Learning, etc.

Core and Core Area Grants

The purpose of Core and Core Area Grants is to support groups of faculty to plan strategies to implement inquiry-based teaching methods in core and core-area courses. (Core and Core Area courses are listed in the Undergraduate Catalog 2000-02 on pages 21-26). If an individual faculty member wants to revise a single core or core-area course on an experimental basis, they should apply for a Project Grant. Core and Core Area Grants are appropriate for groups of faculty, e.g. departments or groups of faculty who teach a core or core area course and wish to revise that course in a coordinated way, or if they want to examine their curriculum in the light of inquiry-based teaching.

Core and Core Area grants will fund groups of faculty to attend conferences or hold meetings or retreats to learn about and plan inquiry-based pedagogies. Such conferences and meetings might be held in any U.S. or Canadian city, here on campus, or at the Gainey Center. These grants support travel, meeting costs and supporting materials, e.g. books or a speaker.

Expectations:

Products that are expected from these grants will include concrete plans of how to revise a course or curriculum with the kinds of pedagogies supported by this grant. There should also be a plan to measure the effects on student learning. Assessment tools for this purpose are described on pages 9-14 of the original proposal to the Bush Foundation, available at www.stthomas.edu/bushgrant. Additional assessment tools will be posted on that website as they become available.

The maximum amount for Core and Core Area Grants in the case of conference attendance is $14,400 (calculated at $1,200 x 12 faculty). The maximum for retreats and meetings is $6,150 per team (calculated at Gainey rates of $205/day x 30). Available funds for both sorts of activities in 2002-03 are $27,300.

Core and Core Area Grant Application Instructions

Application deadline: Submit eight copies of a complete Core and Core Area Grant application according to the dates given on the Grant Application Checklist.

A complete Core and Core Area Grant application consists of:

A. Cover Sheet (required)

B. Proposal Narrative not exceeding four double-spaced pages of 12-point type (see Guidelines below)

C. Budget Format page and Budget Explanation (required)

D. Supporting documentation (as appropriate)

E. Grant Application Checklist (required)

Guidelines for Core and Core Area Grant Narrative

1. Brief Abstract (~200 words)

2. Rationale / Need for the project: Describe the teaching methodology currently used in the course(s) affected by your project. Why are you proposing to change? What aspects of teaching/learning in those course(s) could be enhanced? What aspects of students' learning will be affected? How?

4. Project activities: What do you propose to do? Describe how you plan to achieve your project's goals and objectives. Indicate what specific products (syllabi, curricular structure, etc.) may result from your work. Include a clear timetable for project activities.

5. Preparation for the project: What previous work has been done that relates to the project? For example, team members might have attended a conference on a particular pedagogical technique, read books or articles about this approach, analyzed student outcomes, observed classes that employ the methodology you wish to implement, etc. Please be specific.

7. Dissemination: How will you share the results of this work with others (1) at St. Thomas? (2) more broadly? Be specific. Some ideas: an article for Synergia, poster or paper presented at a disciplinary meeting, journal articles, presentation at conferences of The Collaboration for the Advancement of College Teaching & Learning, etc.

Seed Grants

The purpose of Seed Grants is to provide stipends for faculty who write proposals for external funding to support implementation of pedagogies that are part of the Bush

Foundation grant. Seed Grant funds are disbursed only upon submission of a proposal.

Seed Grants provide a) $250 as a faculty stipend to prepare and submit a proposal that requests less than $10,000 or b) $500 for a proposal greater than $10,000. Seed Grants are awarded for preparation of a proposal, whether or not the proposal is funded. External funding may come from federal, state, or local public agencies, professional organizations, corporations, and foundations. Proposals must evolve in consultation with the Faculty Grants Office (FGO) or the Office of Corporate & Foundation Relations (CFR), with proposal authors responding to review comments from the FGO or CFR Director to enhance the proposal’s competitiveness. Available funds in 2002-03 are $7,500.

Expectations:

The expected product is a grant proposal that is completed in cooperation with FGO and/or CFR and then submitted for external funding.

Seed Grant Application Instructions

Application deadline: Submit eight copies of a complete Seed Grant application according to the dates given on the Grant Application Checklist.

A complete Seed Grant Application consists of:

A. Cover Sheet (required)

B. Proposal Narrative not exceeding two double-spaced pages of 12-point type (see Guidelines below)

C. Two-page vitae (required)

D. Supporting documentation (as appropriate)

E. Grant Application Checklist (required)

Guidelines for Seed Grant Narrative

1) How are the goals and objectives of your planned proposal related to pedagogies of the Bush Foundation Program Grant?

2) Describe the activities that will reach those goals. What will you do with the grant funds?

3) What agencies or programs are you aware of that might be interested in your proposal?

4) How much money do you plan to seek?

Dissemination Grants

Dissemination Grants will be awarded in three categories:

A) Grants to disseminate results of faculty/student collaborative work, when that work contributes to the professional development of a discipline. Dissemination Grants fund travel and conference registration when faculty and students participate together. For example, faculty and their students could have carried out a summer research project or been funded through a UST Young Scholars grant. The faculty member and student(s) may apply for a Dissemination Grant to present the results of their collaborative work at professional meetings.

B) Support for departmental sponsorship of a statewide annual research meeting in a particular discipline. These conferences must clearly advance the goals of the Collaborative Inquiry project. Allowable costs in this case could include keynote speaker fees, conference mailings and advertising, or food and reception expenses.

C) Grants to disseminate successful inquiry-based pedagogies. Faculty members who become skilled in particular inquiry-based teaching methods or faculty/student collaborations, and want to present results about these pedagogies, may apply

for funding of conference registration and travel.

Expectations:

The Bush Program Grant Coordinator will expect to receive a file copy or summary of materials presented at the conference.

The maximum request is $1,000/person, with a maximum award of $3,000 for one project group. In the case of departmental sponsorship of a statewide annual research meeting, a total of $5,000 is allocated for this purpose in 2002-03. Available funds for all Dissemination Grants in 2002-03 are $15,000.

Dissemination Grant Application Instructions

Application deadline: Submit eight copies of a complete Dissemination Grant application according to the dates given on the Grant Application Checklist.

A complete Dissemination Grant application consists of:

A. Cover Sheet (required)

B. Proposal Narrative not exceeding four double-spaced pages of 12-point type, or two pages for category A (see Guidelines below)

C. Budget Format page and Budget Explanation (required)

D. Two-page vitae (not required for category B)

E. Supporting documentation (as appropriate)

F. Grant Application Checklist (required)

Guidelines for Dissemination Grant Narrative

The proposal narrative must specify the category for which funds are requested.

A) Grants to disseminate results of faculty/student collaborative work

B) Support for departmental sponsorship of a statewide annual research meeting

C) Grants to disseminate successful inquiry-based pedagogies

The narrative should also provide the following information:

· thumbnail description of the work that will be presented

· conference sponsors, title, dates, and location

· explanation of the nature and significance of the conference

· for category A, names of faculty and students involved in the collaboration who will be traveling to the conference

Budget Items

1. Dissemination of findings of faculty/student collaborations or inquiry-based pedagogies may include the following Travel expenses:

Lodging

Transportation

Meals

Conference registration

Other (describe)

2. For a department seeking funds to host a research conference, budget items may include:

Conference mailings and advertising (list as Duplicating, postage, telephone on the Budget Format page)

Food and reception expenses (list as Supplies on the Budget Format page and provide budget detail and justification in Proposal Narrative)

Keynote speaker fees (list as Other and provide budget detail and justification in Proposal Narrative)

Other costs (consult with Bush grant staff on allowability of Other expenses in the Budget Format page, then provide budget detail and justification in the Proposal Narrative).