Accelerating Creative Teaching Grants for JMU Faculty
Posted September 2, 2019 in Instructional Design News, JMU Libraries News
JMU faculty are invited to apply for an Accelerating Creative Teaching (ACT) Grant by September 20, 2019. ACT Grants, sponsored by JMU Libraries, award up to $500 to $2000 to empower faculty developing scholarship in innovative teaching and learning. The goal is to support instructional projects that are designed to develop deep, meaningful, and reflective learning through pedagogy-informed use of technologies. An upcoming open house with lunch will offer a chance for faculty to learn more.
The ACT Grants initiative provides scaffolding for faculty members’ teaching innovations through conceptual, pedagogical, and technological support. The creative teaching efforts supported by ACT Grants engage student learning in meaningful, critical, and reflective ways. Successful recipients of ACT Grants receive support to design new learning activities. ACT grant recipients are encouraged to apply for Institutional Review Board (IRB) protocol approval as part of their scholarship development.
Stories of successful grant recipients
ACT Grants have attracted university and national levels of scholarship visibility for award-winning JMU faculty members. For instance, Dr. Yeonsoo Kim, a faculty member in Communication Studies, received 3rd place for the best poster award for her students’ collaborative poster at the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) International Conference. Dr. Xuebin Wei (ISAT) was recognized as Faculty Ambassador for the AWS (Amazon Web Services) Educate Cloud Ambassador Program. Dr. Emily York and Dr. Shannon Conley (ISAT) presented their ACT Grant project, “Teaching Responsible Innovation through Scenario Analysis and Design Fiction,” at the Conference on Higher Education Pedagogy (CHEP) in February 2019, received a CISE Faculty Development Grant Award of $4,000 for further development, and received a JMU Teaching and Learning with Technology Award. The Libraries Faculty Associate working on this project, Daisy Breneman (faculty member from the Justice Studies Department), collaborated with other faculty involved in ACT Grants to present at the Teaching and Learning with Technology conference and the JMU Diversity Conference. More information about previous successful ACT Grant projects can be viewed at https://jmucreativeteachingcases.pressbooks.com/.
Learn more and apply
Now in its third year, the ACT Grants program is calling for applications at: https://easychair.org/cfp/ACTGrant2019. An Open House on Wednesday, September 4, 2019, from 12:15pm to 2:00pm in Rose Library 5211 will provide a forum for potential applicants and current and past ACT Grant recipients to exchange innovative ideas and learn from each other. Featured speakers at this Open House are Dr. Diana Galarreta-Aima (Foreign Languages), Dr. Jennifer Lang-Rigal (Foreign Languages), and Dr. Xuebin Wei (ISAT). Register for the Open House at: https://events.lib.jmu.edu/event/5644223