Grant Programs

Instructional Improvement Grants | Undergraduate Student Learning Initiative Grants

 

Instructional Improvement Grants provide funds (up to $3,000) for small-scale projects to improve existing courses, develop new courses, evaluate instruction, and assess curricular needs. The grant funds also support larger innovative projects that will directly and significantly affect teaching and learning, such as developing materials for new and existing courses and developing new modes of instruction.

The Committee especially welcomes multi-disciplinary or team-taught projects, projects that involve large lecture classes, particularly at the lower division level, classes that have multiple sections, and/or classes that are heavily subscribed.

In addition, the Committee on Teaching encourages projects that respond to changes in education: for instance, projects that involve service learning and civic engagement, that enhance diversity, that encourage study groups, that promote active learning and engagement, that focus on speaking or writing skills, or that seek to improve classroom assessment.

NOTE that the Instructional Minigrant Program, which targeted smaller projects, has been folded into the Instructional Improvement Grants for the 2011-2012 academic year.

Deadline: Applications will be considered on a rolling basis beginning September 1, 2011 until Friday, May 11, 2012 or until all funds are expended, whichever comes first

The 2011-2012 Instructional Improvement Grant Application form is available here

Please submit the completed application (in the body of an email or as an attachment) to the Office of Educational Development at teaching@berkeley.edu. Please note "intructional improvement grant" in the subject line.

Information in planning and developing a grant proposal are available from staff in the Office of Educational Development. For preliminary readings of your applications or help in developing your proposal, contact teaching@berkeley.edu. Please note "intructional improvement grant" in the subject line.

Undergraduate Student Learning Initiative Grants provide funds (up to $10,000) for departments wishing to take next steps in developing and evaluating goals for their department or program.

Funds are intended to support departmental assessment plans involving the evaluation of "direct evidence" of student learning. The kinds of student "products" that can be used to assess whether or not they have met learning goals include term papers, case studies, presentations, performances, capstone-like experiences, lab experiments, theses, community projects, portfolios, research reports, exam questions, problem sets, essays, and so on. We also encourage the use of "embedded assessment"—regular course assignments that contribute to part of students' grades in the course, but that can also be used for the larger assessment—in part or all of your evaluation plan.

Every department or program will have a different focus and plan for its assessment. The purpose of this grant program is to make available modest funds to pilot small-scale assessment efforts that are achievable and sustainable. These funds should be considered one-time"start-up" funds that will initiate a process to be continued by the department or program, and will lead to an examination of genuine questions about curriculum. In order to seed the broadest number of sustainable efforts, we will provide no more than one grant per department.

Download the Undergraduate Student Learning Initiative Grant 2011-2012 guidelines and application form (Word)

Apply via email: download the above file inword format and send back completed application (in the body of an email or as an attachment), with “USLI Grant” in the subject line,  to
 teaching@berkeley.edu, the Office of Educational Development (120 Wheeler Hall), phone: 642-2360.

Information in planning and developing a grant proposal are available from staff in the Office of Educational Development. Contact teaching@berkeley.edu, for assistance.

Resources:

We encourage applicants to examine the materials on Assessing Student Learning from the Office of Educational Development, with particular attention to program-level assessment, as well as Undergraduate Student Learning Initiative materials. In particular, if you are going to ask students for materials, we strongly recommend consulting the letter from the French Department to Students and using a similar approach in your own department.