Center for Faculty Development
Teaching Enhancement Grant
Teaching Enhancement Grants support faculty who propose to improve their teaching by introducing new methods, ideas or strategies. The intention of these grants is to support all full-time, returning faculty with a stipend during a period when they are not regularly teaching to adapt and apply new pedagogy to their own courses. The grant supports activities such as researching new pedagogies for the purpose of adaptation in courses taught, observing or consulting with other faculty who use an innovative approach to teaching, attending conferences or workshops focused on teaching to learn about new pedagogies you might adapt for your course, developing activities for a previously taught course based on a new pedagogical approach, and developing tools to assess improvement in teaching and learning. Applicants for this grant must demonstrate how the proposed activities will enhance their own professional development as educators. In addition, they must describe how the desired changes in teaching methods will impact student learning.
These grants are not intended to support regular curriculum or course development that is more appropriately the ongoing work of an academic unit.
Applicants may also consider applying for a Partnership-In-Learning Grant if the project involves a collaborative project with a student.
Deadline. By 4 p.m. March 2 for support during summer or other times when applicants are not engaged in full-time teaching. Funds will be available for the following fiscal year (i.e., after July 1).
Award. Teaching Enhancement Grants may be used for stipends and expenses related to the project. An individual faculty member may apply for a Teaching Enhancement Grant of up to $2,000. Faculty teams may apply for grants of up to $4,000, to be split among them as they deem appropriate.
Application Process. The TEG application must be filled out completely, including a narrative that addresses all of the criteria for evaluation of the grant proposal, a timetable for the project, bibliography, and curriculum vitae.
Selection Criteria. Proposals should be written in jargon-free language appropriate for a non-technical reviewer and will be judged on the basis of the quality of the narrative and the applicant’s ability to articulate how their professional development as an educator and student learning in course(s) taught will be affected.
Examples of projects that have been funded include:
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Collaborative Learning Groups in Sociology
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Discussion Groups in Non-Majors Biology Laboratories
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Computer Assignments in the Economics Classroom
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Enhancing the Teaching of Calculus Using a Lab-Based Approach
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Developing Experiential Approaches to Teaching Political Theory
Projects such as the following would probably not be funded:
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Replication, in a new course, of methods previously implemented in another course.
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Work primarily focused on keeping current in one's discipline.
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Developing a new course or changing materials in a course with no significant change in pedagogy.
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Preparing to use “canned” materials (e.g. manuals, software).
