Money available for faculty to enhance courses this summer

The Center for Instructional Innovation and Assessment at Western Washington University has a limited number of summer grants for Western faculty members who wish to enhance their courses. Six awards of $4,000 are available for work to be done during summer quarter. Examples of enhancements are interactive online elements, creative textbook replacements and redesigns of course materials.

This year, two tracks are available:

• Course Transformation (focus on significant changes to course delivery and strategy)
• Alternative Textbooks (focus on adopting free or licensed digital materials)

Both tracks will acquaint faculty with instructional design processes, available technologies, open-source resources and ideas for web-based course enhancements. Faculty must be available to attend a five-day, on-campus workshop in mid-June; they'll then work independently to implement their improvements, supported by CIIA and ATUS staff.

Instructors who have participated in the past have found the “summer camp” and follow-up support useful in many ways:

• “The course provided a framework and toolkit to rethink [my course] from beginning to end. Thank you for a fabulous workshop. You have clearly helped me to be a thoughtful instructor and your insights and guidance will improve my course for Western's students.”
• “I just want to say that this workshop was very informative, engaging, and fun. I came out of there feeling incredibly motivated to improve my teaching, and with a number of ideas on how to do it. I also really valued the opportunity to connect with others across campus and learn about all of the innovative teaching methods and tools available to us.”
• “Thank you for a fruitful and inspiring week of skills building and conversation. I'm grateful I had the opportunity, and I really enjoyed the cohort experience.”
• “I ended the workshop feeling more prepared for my project, both because of what I learned there and for the concentrated time to focus on how to implement my proposals.”

The application due date is March 25. Applications will be reviewed by the CIIA Advisory Board, and awardees will be notified via email by the end of April.  Please contact Justina Brown at 360-650-7210 with any questions.