AI in Teaching and Learning Grants
Important Information
- All faculty and staff engaged in teaching and learning on the West Lafayette campus are eligible to apply.
- Funding and duration: up to $80,000 for up to 12 months duration
- Grant due date: May 24, 2024
As part of the Transformative Education 2.0 Purdue Move, and with generous financial support from the Lilly Endowment, the Office of the Provost invites applications for an Innovation Hub funding program Hub. The Innovation Hub is an engine and incubator for innovation in teaching and learning, supporting the Provost’s goal of making Purdue the most innovative residential learning program in the US among large research universities. The Innovation Hub focuses on two priorities: scalable innovations in teaching and learning, and transdisciplinary opportunities for students.
Program Description
Program priorities. This funding opportunity supports rapidly-deployed experiments for teaching and learning in an AI-rich environment. Recent developments in generative AI, such as ChatGPT, capture much of the media attention but represent only one dimension of how AI might shape the future of teaching and learning. AI-based agents for office hours, student advising, sentiment analysis, and many other dimensions of learning and the student experience will continue to emerge, and Purdue should be at the forefront of translating research to practice. Proposals are invited in any area of teaching and learning, from any discipline, and from any relevant AI angle, including:
- Applying artificial intelligence and/or machine learning technologies to drive learning innovations at scale by focusing on: content creation, personalized and/or adaptive learning, accelerated grading, enhanced faculty efficiency, student success, or other dimensions of innovation.
- Exploring policy implications of AI in teaching and learning applications, including dimensions of human-AI collaboration, academic integrity issues, or other considerations that can be addressed through academic policies.
- Characterizing key equity, ethical, or trustworthiness considerations of using AI to support/enable teaching and learning at scale.
- Understanding tool-specific considerations, such as appropriate use of ChatGPT within a specific learning environment. Projects that take a tool-based perspective must explore that tool’s alignment with content, assessment, and pedagogy appropriate for the learning environment.
Program parameters and expectations. This program is entirely about the practice of teaching and learning in an AI-rich environment. These development grants support applied exploration of the content, assessment, pedagogy, technology, equity, and policy dimensions of teaching and learning in an AI-rich environment. Project teams are expected to deploy one or more experiments in teaching and learning with actual students, and each project needs an appropriate plan to collect feedback from all stakeholders involved in the project, especially students. Innovation Hub leadership will connect proposers to relevant expertise needed to achieve their goals, for example: IT support, VR/AR expertise, assessment resources, and so forth as appropriate and required for the project. An Innovation Project charter with expanded detail is attached to this RFP. Please pay special attention to the section on eligible expenses; Innovation Hub grants may not be used to support post-docs or PhD students, except in exceptionally narrow circumstances. We urge proposers to discuss their ideas with Innovation Hub leadership by submitting a one-page summary to innovation-hub@purdue.edu.