This grant program is a collaboration between the Instructional Improvement Program, Instructional Computing, and L&S Information Technology. It is intended to assist faculty members in using new technologies to improve courses and curricula.
Faculty Members.
Prepare course content and materials for electronic delivery to students (e.g. through the web) in undergraduate courses.
Consulting: Consulting on both pedagogical and technical aspects of your project by a project coordinator from Instructional Consultation (Rick Johnson, George Michaels, Shirley Ronkowski). Any of these persons can both help you prepare a proposal and coordinate access to resources to carry out the project if funded.
Technical Assistance by Trained Students: A maximum of 80 hours of assistance by students who are selected and trained by the above agencies to have the technical skills necessary for your project.
Applicants are strongly encouraged to contact one of the project coordinators identified above. They can help in articulating pedagogical goals, identifying technical tools and skills needed by student assistants, and setting reasonable timelines.
Successful proposals will require students to engage with the electronic content — having it available as an optional resource is not sufficient for purposes of these grants.
Successful proposals also will describe the overall educational goals to be achieved by students using these electronic materials, and will discuss the pedagogical framework or context within which students will engage the materials. For example, a proposal might declare a pedagogical purpose of increasing students' practice in critical analysis and problem solving, then describe how the web content will engage students in practicing these skills, and also how both students and faculty will assess students' work.
In general, using the web to increase students' access to material, while laudable, is not sufficient without an accompanying description of how students will have to manipulate the material, or analyze it, compare and contrast, evaluate alternative possible solutions, etc. The total instructional context need not be electronic — in fact, it is common for the web simply to provide access to resources — but it is essential that the proposal describe the context so that reviewers understand what students will be asked to achieve and how they will do so.
Traditional Faulty Minigrants continue to support student assistance in situations where the assistant(s) must have expertise in academic content. Faculty Minigrants also support the purchase of necessary supplies and professional services (e.g. Instructional Resources media production expertise). For assistance in defining projects which may have needs addressable by both the Faculty Minigrant program and the Web Minigrant program, please see a Web Minigrant project coordinator.
Submit proposals, including justification for estimates of hours of assistance needed, plus timeline, in one of two ways:
1) send via mail to:
RONALD W. TOBIN, Associate Vice Chancellor
Academic Programs, 2150 Kerr Hall
OR
2) send via email to:
proposal@id.ucsb.edu
(If you electronically submit a proposal and do not receive confirmation within 48 hours, please contact ruth@id.ucsb.edu)
Proposals are reviewed by the Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Programs
At any time. Decisions are usually announced within two weeks of receipt.
For detailed information regarding the grant program and specific application procedures, contact Instructional Consultation at 893-2972, or any of the project coordinators at Instructional Consultation (Rick Johnson, George Michaels, Shirley Ronkowski).