The Faculty Center for Teaching will once again distribute summer grants to encourage the development of innovative pedagogy.  These “Pedagogical Development” grants will range from $1250-$2500, and will be awarded to full-time faculty at Muhlenberg to support reflection, development and/or revision of pedagogy. Projects can include changing the way you approach a course to incorporate different pedagogies, integrating new assessment techniques into your course, team teaching, service learning, or travel expenses for teaching-related conferences.  The Faculty Center for Teaching's “Pedagogical Development” grants will not, however, provide time to research new course content material; that is the purview of the Faculty Development and Scholarship Committee.  Some projects that have received money in the past are the development of case studies for a first year seminar; an incorporation of experiential learning and assessment measures in a first year seminar; an investigation of learning commonalities in introductory courses in accounting, foreign language, and music; attendance at a workshop on digital story-telling; and creation of interdisciplinary scenarios to teach modeling and inquiry problems in a mathematics course.

Applications are due on February 9, 2009, and should not exceed 750 words or approximately 3 pages.  Please send your application electronically to Lisa Perfetti: perfetti@muhlenberg.edu.

Application should include

(1) a brief and detailed description of the project.  In addition to the description, please include a section that explains how the project will change the way you teach your course(s) and a brief summary of the project's pedagogical approach; e.g., if you are requesting funds to attend a conference or create technology-related materials, you must specify how what you plan to do will transform student learning in the classroom;

(2)  amount of money requested and how money will be spent (for example, money can be spent on conference fees, texts, transportation, computer programs, time developing course ($1250.00 for 4-weeks; $1500.00 for 8-weeks, etc.).  Please specify the time commitment for project.  In addition, if you have received a grant from the Faculty Center for Teaching in the past, list the amount and date of the grant and briefly discuss how the grant money was spent;

(3)  an outline of summer professional commitments.  Receiving a Faculty Development and Scholarship summer grant does not preclude receiving a FCT grant, but you must account for the time commitment to both grants (if you apply for an 8 week grant, we expect that you will spend 8 full weeks of work on your FCT project).  Please specify if you are requesting additional funding from another source for this same project or for another project;

(4) a statement explaining what assessment methods you plan to use to determine the impact of your project on student learning (see Classroom Assessment Techniques by Angelo and Cross in the library).

If awarded a Pedagogical Revision summer grant, a report of your project is due on September 15, 2009.

For a model of a successful grant proposal, click here.