Teaching Advancement Grant
The Office of the Provost is pleased to open the application cycle for the 2023-24 Teaching Advancement Grant (TAG). TAG aims to help NYU faculty members undertake projects that will enhance student learning and promote innovative teaching practice.
TAG works to increase classroom impact across NYU, and potentially other universities, by developing measurable, evidence-based, and effective classroom practices capable of improving student learning in a variety of contexts. Proposals that address this question from the influential Boyer 2030 Report on education in research universities are especially encouraged:
How will we ensure that our students—all of them, without exception—are educated using evidence-informed pedagogies in intentionally inclusive and empathy-based educational environments?
Highlights:
- Workshops and consultations before grant application due dates in order to scope and focus proposals.
- Life-of-grant partnerships with the Office of the Provost’s Learning Experience Design team (LED), which includes: the Learning Experience Design team’s instructional designers; referrals to experts on scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL); referrals to learning analytics experts; and support from multimedia creators where applicable.
- Eighteen-month grant cycle to allow for project development, periodically revised implementation, and post-grant dissemination.
- Opportunities for dissemination include NYU website, panels, and presentations (e.g. TeachTalks), partnerships with teaching networks and other external organizations (e.g. the Faculty Resource Network), academic conferences, and publication.
- Varying funding tiers to offer faculty flexibility in scope of projects that allow for wide-ranging benefits to students.
For detailed information about the submission process and proposal criteria, please review the guidelines for the TAG program below. Those interested can also attend our informational session on October 25th at 10am (please register here). Interested faculty may submit their project proposals by Friday, January 19th, 2024 via this Google Form.
To schedule a consultation with an educational designer, or for any other TAG related inquiries, email us at teaching@nyu.edu.
TAG Review and Selection Committee
- Mark Alter (Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development; and T-FSC Representative)
- Jessy Hsieh (Leonard N. Stern School of Business)
- Kristine Kerr (School of Professional Studies)
- Taneli Kukkonen (NYU Abu Dhabi)
- Shawn(ta) Smith Cruz (NYU Division of Libraries)
- Robert Squillace (Liberal Studies)
- Johanna Warshaw (College of Dentistry)
- Ilaf Elard (NYU Shanghai)
- Ethan Youngerman (Office of the Provost)
Frequently Asked Questions
- What sorts of projects are likely to be funded?
A variety of projects have been funded by the Teaching Advancement Grant, synopses of funded projects from previous years are listed below. While TAG welcomes proposals which focus on teaching innovation, the key funding requirement is an intent to demonstrate a pedagogical strategy or implementation which improves student learning.
In addition, during the 2023 cycle, there is a special interest in projects which focus on what the Boyer 2030 Report calls “evidence-informed pedagogies in intentionally inclusive and empathy-based educational environments.” Projects are welcomed which either make inclusive teaching and student success their primary aim, or which are shown to utilize those strategies in the pursuit of additional goals.
- My project will be co-led by a full-time and adjunct faculty member. Is that permissible?
Yes. The lead faculty member should be full-time. Adjunct faculty can be listed as secondary support.
- We hit a snag along our process and will need an extension to submit our proposal. How can we make a request for an extension?
Unfortunately, extension requests cannot be granted. We encourage the applicant to submit a proposal the following year.
- Are there TAG awards for fall and spring semesters?
TAG has one review cycle and awards funds annually. Applications are due in January, awards are announced in April and funds are available on September 1.
- If we are no longer able to complete the project that was approved for funding, what should we do next?
In the event the project is halted or canceled, all unused funds are to be returned to the Office of the Provost.
- How are faculty compensated when a project is successfully executed?
TAG funds are intended for project costs and cannot be used for faculty salary.
- If our proposal to create a new course is accepted and funded, how do we ensure the course is scheduled in time for registration?
New courses follow an internal review process that takes place at the school level. Consult with your academic affairs team to discuss the course scheduling process.
- Is it a requirement that the grant be associated with an existing course?
No. If the project does not involve a specific course, faculty must show the ability to demonstrate a measurable impact on student learning. For those projects which are linked to specific courses, however, that course must already be approved and scheduled before the application is due.
- If a project was submitted seeking $10k but not accepted for that level, would it be considered for a lower funding level?
Yes, in that case a discussion will take place about budget items that might be omitted or reduced.
- Why should I schedule a consultation with an educational designer?
A consultant might serve as a thought partner, assist you in scoping your proposal, or work with you to determine what sustainable support might entail.
- How do I schedule a consultation?
Contact us using our consultation request form.
- Do proposals have to be for brand new projects?
No, they can be for existing projects. You can specify the background and context and show how the new work will build upon previous work.
- Is cost sharing required?
Cost sharing is not required but is always encouraged. Also, wherever we have free internal NYU resources, the committee will encourage their use before spending on outside vendors.
- Can money be used to offer students vouchers or some small tokens for activities such as participating in a survey?
Generally yes, upon committee approval. Such purchases also need to go through iBuy, so you may want to contact your school finance support for more info.
- Is there a limit on the number of co-investigators?
No
- Can funding be used as honorarium for a co-PI who is not part of NYU?
Yes
Ancient Texts Lab
PI(s): Karen Karbiener
School: Liberal Studies
Amount Awarded: $2,000
Project Summary: In “Ancient Texts Lab,” students will interpret, make, and explore the influence of 5 global literary masterworks for 3 days each: first, learning to ‘read’ them as historical and aesthetic objects and participating in hands-on workshops; next, discussing text content and considering how knowledge of a text’s materiality contributes to its possible meanings; and investigating how these texts as both art and objects resonate through time and across cultures.
Development of Immersive Virtual Reality Modules for Exploring Toxic Sites and High Risk Industries
PI(s): Jack Caravanos
School: School of Global Public Health
Amount Awarded: $4,395
Project Summary: Dr. Caravnos plans to develop three VR modules based on high-risk industries including glass or steel manufacturing, lead-acid battery recycling, and a tour of the Gowanus Canal EPA Superfund Cleanup in Brooklyn. Students will be able to explore these sites in 3D format and practice their identification and assessment skills. Dr. Caravnos hopes to introduce IVR educational content to students and public health practitioners to explore its value in their chosen careers.
Enhancing Student Preparation, Faculty Collaboration, and Curriculum Alignment with the National Board Dental Hygiene Exam (NBDHE) within the NYU Dental Hygiene Program
PI(s): Marija Cahoon, Lillian Moran, and Stefania Willis
School: College of Dentistry
Amount Awarded: $5,000
Project Summary: This project aims to create a complete clinical patient profile library for dental education to improve the transition from the ideal simulation setting to the variable clinical setting. The project will use de-identified existing patient data to create a library that faculty can use to teach real-world decisions in treatment planning. The library will provide a diversity of information that faculty typically do not have access to, ultimately improving knowledge and skill transfer from simulation to clinical settings.
Expanding the Ancient World
PI(s): Alexander Jones and Marc LeBlanc
School: Institute for the Study of the Ancient World
Amount Awarded: $4,000
Project Summary: The Expanding the Ancient World program was launched in response to recent demands for social justice and greater diversity, equity, and inclusion in the field of ancient studies. Dr. Jones proposes to design professional development opportunities for K-12 teachers to enhance their knowledge of the ancient world and teaching strategies. Workshops will be led by graduate students and mentored by faculty members, and will include culturally responsive gallery tours and activities for under-resourced NYC public schools. The program is the only teacher training program dedicated to ancient studies in New York State.
Mind Playing Tricks on Me: Mental Health in Contemporary Music
PI(s): Karthik Gunnia
School: Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development
Amount Awarded: $1,250
Project Summary: Musicians are increasingly writing about experiences with mental health difficulties, such as posttraumatic stress, suicidal ideation, and psychosis. Their vulnerability in song can help listeners to feel less alone and can reduce stigma in discussing mental health issues and accessing treatment. In the course “Mind Playing Tricks on Me: Mental Health in Contemporary Music,” students examine songs from diverse artists and genres to explore how music can provide a unique understanding of mental health issues by emphasizing lived experience and open and honest expression.
Music Theory for Whom? A Comprehensive Reform of Music Theory Curricula Across NYU
PI(s): Clifton Boyd and Sarah Louden
School: College of Arts & Science
Amount Awarded: $6,500
Project Summary: This project aims to address the lack of diversity, equity, and inclusion in music theory curricula at NYU, which has been largely determined by white European men and Western classical music. The project plans to overhaul the music theory curricula at Arts & Science and the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development by convening a working group, inviting experts in the field as guest speakers, and hiring graduate students to assist with curriculum development. The goal is to make the curricula more representative of NYU's diverse and global student population and to contribute to national efforts to redefine who music theory serves and how it can inform one's relationship with the music and world around them.
Natural Materials Studio
PI(s): Marcela Godoy and Monika Lin
School: NYU Shanghai
Amount Awarded: $5,000
Project Summary: The Natural Materials Studio will serve as a research and educational space for students and faculty at NYU Shanghai. It aims to promote sustainable design practices by exploring the use of natural, found, and recycled materials and to develop biomaterials that result from the cultivation of organisms, making their own, and cooking recipes. The Studio will be committed to offering research assistantships for students and faculty and will serve as a non-hierarchical and inclusive site for discourse, course development, research, and invention.
Simulated Endoscopic Evaluation of Voice and Swallowing Function: Learning a Complex Medical Task in an Education Setting
PI(s): Sonja Molfenter and Celia Stewart
School: Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development
Amount Awarded: $4,990
Project Summary: Dr. Molfenter's project proposes to provide hands-on simulated classroom activities in voice and swallowing disorder courses with the use of disposable endoscopes and an anatomical head manikin. The goal is to provide a safe environment for students to build skill and confidence in a medically complex skill.
Sophia's Team: A Collaboration of Media and Medical Students
PI(s): Evelyn McVeigh
School: Tisch School of the Arts
Amount Awarded: $7,100
Project Summary: This Workshop project brings together Tisch School of the Arts, Grossman School of Medicine, and media and medical experts to develop Sophia’s Team - a web series about Sophia, a ten-year old girl who has a rare genetic disease, SCN2A. The workshop’s purpose is 1) to serve as a model for a future cross disciplinary course with Tisch School of the Arts and Grossman School of Medicine; 2) to develop videos on other rare diseases which will become a reference for professionals and families alike; and 3) to disseminate the series and sponsor events each year using a new technology: the DAYTool, to update Sophia’s life and progress, to raise awareness of the challenges Sophia, as well as her family, will encounter in dealing with SCN2A over time.
The COVID-19 Impact Project
PI(s): Marianne Petit, John Henry Thompson, and Shindy Johnson
School: Tisch School of the Arts
Amount Awarded: $5,000
Project Summary: The Covid-19 Impact Project was created in spring 2020 to investigate the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on communities of color, assess the significance of systemic inequity, and promote repair and resilience. The project examines the role of mourning, ritual, and memorialization in repairing the social fabric of communities after mass death events. The project has been housed at NYU’s ITP program and has engaged students and faculty through coursework, project development, events, and mentoring. Moreover, the project has developed a graduate course, a data visualization dashboard, an ongoing digital memorial, produced a public panel discussion and screening of a documentary, and mentored students in developing an interactive NYC zip code map.
Using Videos in Achieving Communicative Competence
PI(s): Rosalie Kamelhar, Ilona Ben-Moshe, and Ganit Mayer
School: College of Arts & Science
Amount Awarded: $4,750
Project Summary: The use of video material in the second language/foreign language classroom is essential for developing communicative skills and competence. This video project would produce a series of 15–20 short videos that would be presented in incremental levels of difficulty from novice to mid-intermediate levels. The ultimate goal of this project will be to create an e-book which will be comprised of all the videos and exercises offering an amalgam of authentic videos in a high-challenge, high-support environment as well as these more carefully curated videos which will reinforce classroom teaching and inspire students to create.
TAG 2021–2022 Awardees
Congratulations to the 2021–2022 Teaching Advancement Grant (TAG) winners and much thanks to all who applied. We believe these projects will impact teaching and learning at NYU, and will also establish models for others hoping to improve their students’ learning experiences. You can learn more about each below.
Project Titles & Descriptions
Using Virtual Reality to Teach Clinical Skills to 21st Century Dental Students
PI(s): Marci Levine and Robert Glickman
School: NYU College of Dentistry
Amount Awarded: $10,000
Project Summary: NYU Dentistry, in collaboration with NYU IT and other partners, previously designed and developed a VR training simulator for teaching and assessing the delivery of local anesthesia without patient contact. This proposal aims to transform that prototype into a full scale simulation system for students to use throughout their dental education.
Democratic Technologies and Team Science: Course Enhancement for Research Methods in Movement Science/Sensors Lab
PI(s): Elizabeth Coker
School: Tisch School of the Arts
Amount Awarded: $9,713
Project Summary: This project will transform a survey course called “Research Topics in Movement Science: Sensors Lab” into a hands-on learning experience incorporating portable, affordable movement measurement technologies. During the class, students will be able to gather real-world data, collaborate on an entire research project, and participate in a public-facing movement science conference.
SPS Intersectionality Lab
PI(s): Karen Krahulik
School: School of Professional Studies
Amount Awarded: $5,000
Project Summary: The NYU-SPS Intersectionality Lab (I-Lab) examines how inclusion, diversity, belonging, equity, and access intersect with teaching and research to enhance the liberal arts and industry-specific disciplines. It is a virtual resource designed by and for NYU faculty that includes modules specifically on inclusive teaching practices and strategies. It also sponsors in-person and hybrid events, curricular conversations, and cross-school collaborations that analyze how inquiries regarding Intersectionality influence how faculty think, teach, and conduct research.
Reducing Perceived Barriers to Achieving Competency in Clinical Endodontics
PI(s): Lorel Burns, Matthew Malek, and Franky Min-Wen Fu
School: NYU College of Dentistry
Amount Awarded: $5,000
Project Summary: This project will respond to the findings of several research studies which explored dental students' use of YouTube to learn about clinical dental procedures by developing a series of instructional videos essential to achieving competency in clinical Endodontics. Leveraging the use of clinical operating microscopes for video creation, it will address the problem of limited visibility into the root canal system while performing endodontic procedures. The resources should increase student confidence and preparedness prior to treating live patients.
Making The Invisible Visible: Developing a Bank of Visualizations to Support Learning of Acoustics
PI(s): Susannah Levi
School: Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development
Amount Awarded: $5,000
Project Summary: This project aims to add to a critical set of animated visualizations used by educators of acoustics - the physics of sound. These resources created with this grant will be useful for students across many disciplines, and will have wide ranging applications at NYU and beyond for the tens of thousands of students taking courses on the scientific study of sound.
Lambda Calculator: An Educational Software Application for Formal Semantics
PI(s): Lucas Champollion
School: Graduate School of Arts and Science
Amount Awarded: $4,965.53
Project Summary: This project will expand and enhance the functionality and usability of the lambda calculator, an existing software program supporting the standard semantics curriculum in semantics. The already widely used lambda calculator will be updated for modern operating systems; to increase reliability and flexibility; to integrate with pedagogical materials under parallel development; and to incorporate features and bug fixes that users have requested over time.
Learning Emirati Arabic Online
PI(s): Corinne Stokes, Muhammad Umair Bilal, and Maryam Khalifa AlShehhi
School: NYU Abu Dhabi
Amount Awarded: $3,000
Project Summary: Due to the emphasis on traditional, non-conversational Arabic literacy, would-be dialect learners currently lack guidance for how to begin using Arabic in social, professional, and daily life interactions. This project will build a set of resources for formal or independent study, including instructional videos hosted on an accessible website, which will bridge the Arabic-English divide at NYU Abu Dhabi and provide the entire community with access to learning conversational Emirati Arabic.
Animated Learning: Video Mini-Lessons for ELL Writers
PI(s): Natalia Andrievskikh, Chris Edling, and Liz Melleby Welch
School: College of Arts and Sciences Expository Writing Program
Amount Awarded: $2,070
Project Summary: "Animated Learning: Video Mini-Lessons for ELL Writers," aims to create instructional materials to be used in the International Writing Workshop course sequence offered by the NYU Expository Writing Program. The project will generate a set of short video lessons–also available for faculty outside EWP–targeting specific challenges faced by international student writers.
Medicinal Medicine: Nursing Pharmacology and Hip-Hop Pedagogy
PI(s): Kelseanne Breder
School: NYU College of Nursing
Amount Awarded: $2,000
Project Summary: This project will leverage students’ cultural backgrounds and voices to generate a robust educational experience and improve learning outcomes. Students will produce creative media around difficult pharmacology concepts–including poems, songs, cartoons, and memes–to reinforce material and help them master concepts. The project will lay the groundwork for future student learning, as well as provide a test case for this pedagogical model.
First Year Scholars Academy (FYSA)
PI(s): Noelle Molé Liston and Joseph Califf
School: College of Arts and Sciences Expository Writing Program
Amount Awarded: $600
Project Summary: Aimed at first-generation, low-income, and BIPOC students, the First Year Scholars Academy (FYSA) will combine a 2-credit course, “Thinking Across the University” with special events and a symposium series. The program goals include helping students understand how and why scholars create knowledge, serving as a factory tour serving as a factory tour of the university and its disciplinary divisions, creating group cohesion, and breaking down perceived barriers between students and faculty.