Brandeis Grants to Support Teaching Innovation
The Center for Teaching and Learning and our Partners offer grants to support the teaching development of all members of the Brandeis community of educators.
Opportunities range from annual Provost’s Teaching Innovation Grants and funds to support the use of accessible teaching materials and affordable, open educational resources to short-term funds with rolling deadlines to support experiential learning, community engagement, and attendance at conferences that focus on teaching and learning in higher education.
Grant Opportunities with Fixed Deadlines
Annual application due in February/March; awards on July 1
Grants to support innovation in teaching are funded by the Provost’s Office and administered through the CTL. These grants are intended to promote excellence in teaching through the development of innovative instructional methods, new methods of assessing learning or the redesign or courses using technology. While each year has a particular focus, all proposals that address innovation in teaching, assessment, or course design are considered.
Applications due in April
The information literacy grant program supports faculty who are interested in working with librarians in designing courses which increase student information literacy. Faculty and librarians work together to develop coursework in which students have the opportunity to think critically about how to find, evaluate, and apply information sources.
Applications due in May and December
This cohort meets eight times in a semester to develop teaching/learning materials and approaches for advancing (and assessing) students’ achievement of Brandeis Core learning outcomes. Fellows receive $1000 upon completion,including participation in 8 sessions, and sharing of materials and practices developed.
Applications due in November
Student Accessibility Support, in Academic Services, has received donor funds to award monetary grants to faculty to develop expertise in creating course materials that are accessible to students with disabilities. The FACET grant application is open to all full-time and part-time faculty and is being delivered as a partnership with the Center for Teaching and Learning. Accessible course materials can be read by text-to-speech software and include readings, Latte site, presentation slides, videos, and graphics.
Applications due in December
Faculty who are interested in incorporating open educational resources into their courses can apply for funding to complement their efforts. These grants, funded by the Library with support from the Center for Teaching and Learning, will also allow faculty to engage with librarians, instructional designers, and Faculty Fellows from the Center for Teaching and Learning.
The Connected PhD is an initiative supported by the Mellon Foundation that seeks to enrich professional development opportunities for doctoral students in the humanities and humanistic social sciences at Brandeis. This four-year program will fund professional development grants for students and curricular innovation grants for faculty.
Short-Term Grant Opportunities Without Deadlines
Sometimes short-term financial support is essential to successful teaching innovations. Short Term Grants to Support Teaching Innovation aim to provide members of the Brandeis teaching the flexibility to request short-term funds for precisely what you need to support your teaching innovation or related research.
The CTL and Partners will collaborate to meet those needs as fully as possible. Short-term grants can support a variety of teaching innovation purposes, including any combination of:
- Antiracist pedagogies
- Accessible Teaching/Learning Materials
- Assessment of Learning and Teaching
- Experiential learning opportunities for students to learn through engaging in authentic, real-world applications of an academic discipline followed by structured reflection on their learning.
- Community Engaged Learning that benefits the greater Waltham community.
- Open Education Resources.
- Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) presentations with student co-authors and/or participation in conferences that focus on higher education teaching and learning (such as those organized by the AAC&U, ISSOTL, Lilly, NEFDC, or disciplinary organizations).
- Sustainability Education
Past Awards
- Emilie Diouff’s Suitcase Stories project that reflected the experiences of black immigrant students
- Anita Hill and Dan Kryder’s project to promote education around gender-based violence
- Derron Wallace’s Boston Public Schools project to study black students and the impact of online learning on their families with the goal of reforming policy
Criteria
- significance of the opportunity/need
- feasibility
- applicability to other Brandeis contexts
- significance of the impact
- appropriateness of the budget