Teaching Innovation Grants
This internal grants program is offered on an annual basis, typically with a February deadline. The overall goal is to enrich learning experiences for students and foster a climate of teaching innovation by supporting WPI educators to seed new initiatives in undergraduate and graduate education that meet identifiable needs at WPI. In 2022, the Morgan Teaching and Learning Center, the Office of Undergraduate Studies, the Academic Technology Center (ATC), and the Educational Development Council (EDC) provided about $150,000 in funding to three types of grants aimed at supporting innovation in undergraduate and graduate education. A similar level of funding for the same three grant types will be awarded in 2023:
- Professional Learning Community Grants: Previously called Faculty Learning Communities, a Professional Learning Community (PLC) is a group of WPI community members from multiple disciplines engaging in collegial inquiry, action, and collective learning around a central theme in the area of pedagogical development or educational development and innovation.
- Independent Project Grants: This grant mechanism is intended for applicants, either individuals or small groups, whose project is aimed at department or program-level impact rather than campus-wide impact.
- Summer Sandbox Grants: These grants support individual faculty or groups of faculty who design and test new approaches to teaching and advising in an undergraduate summer course or project, using summer as a learning laboratory for the academic year.
This program does not fund routine updating or renewal of courses, curricula, or teaching methods.