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AI Course Revision Pilot Grant

The Poorvu Center is offering funds to help instructors prepare students for AI.

Apply for an AI Grant Today

Purpose

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming how we teach and learn across different academic disciplines and professional fields. When used uncritically, AI can oversimplify learning and/or generate inaccurate information. However, when approached thoughtfully, AI can expand our teaching and learning capacity such as helping students grasp complex ideas, explore creative possibilities, and analyze information on a scale that was once unimaginable. Even when AI is not directly used or discussed within a course, its presence can affect the way students are preparing for class or completing their assignments.  

Given the realities of AI and its impact on our personal, educational, and professional lives, the Poorvu Center has established the AI Course Revision Grant. The goal of the grant is to support Yale instructors in thoughtfully revising course activities and assessments to account for the presence of artificial intelligence (AI). This program invites faculty across disciplines to experiment with innovative teaching practices that prepare students to learn in the age of AI in ethical, creative, and critical ways.  

Applicants are asked to frame their proposals within one of three pedagogical categories (i.e., project types): AI as a Learning Tool, AI Literacy & Ethics, or Assignments & Assessments Revisions (see definitions & examples below). Through this grant, Yale aims to foster course-level innovations that deepen student understanding, promote responsible engagement, and enhance the future of learning in the age of AI. To support this endeavor, the Poorvu Center is offering 1- to 2-year grants of up to $20,000.  

Program Goals

  • Support instructors’ capacity to modify their courses to support student learning in the age of AI. 
  • Provide opportunities for instructors to share their AI-based changes with one another and the wider Yale community 

Important Dates

  • Accepting applications: Dec. 2, 2025 – March 13, 2026 
  • Applicants will be notified by April 17, 2026 
  • Info Sessions Prior to Application Deadline

Project Types: Overview

Applicants for the AI Course Revision Grant will select one of the following pedagogical categories that most represent the teaching practices in the grant proposal.   

  1. AI as a Learning Tool,  
  2. AI Literacy & Ethics, or  
  3. Assignment & Assessment Revisions  

Choosing a category helps applicants clarify the central purpose of their course revision: whether they aim to enhance student learning with AI tools, foster critical understanding of AI and its ethical and social implications, or redesign assignments and assessments to address the realities of an AI-infused academic environment. Regardless of the chosen category, we understand AI-based teaching practices may be new to some, so we welcome an experimental approach to exploring the possible teaching changes that lead to insights for you and fellow peers.  

Project Types: Definitions & Examples

This category refers to courses where AI technologies are used to enhance the learning process. Instructors integrate AI tools (such as simulations, tutors, and/or other AI tools from the field) to support academic skill development, provide tutoring feedback, facilitate language practice, or simulate real-world scenarios. Students actively learn with AI by using it to brainstorm, problem-solve, and refine their understanding of course content without a significant emphasis on how the AI tool(s) work.  

Examples:  

  • Clinical instructors use AI simulations to give students practice in conversing, diagnosing, and caring for patients. 
  • Language instructors create instructional videos with avatars from culturally diverse backgrounds speaking in various dialects. 
  • Students use a custom AI tool as a tutor that can provide further explanations and develop practice questions with feedback.    

This category refers to courses in which students are taught to understand, critique, and responsibly engage with artificial intelligence. Courses cultivate AI literacy by exploring how AI systems work, their social and historical contexts, and their ethical implications including, but not limited to, bias, privacy, authorship, and equity. The goal is to empower students to make informed, ethical decisions about AI use in academic, professional, and civic life. 

Examples: 

  • Humanities and social science courses examining policy, AI outputs, and/or the ethics of generative AI. 
  • STEM and art courses employing AI for coding, data visualization, or creative prototyping. 
  • Students use AI-based research tools and techniques  to analyze data. 
  • Assignments prompting students to reflect on AI’s output and its influences on creativity or truth. 

This category includes projects that reimagine course design, learning activities, exams, quizzes, and papers in light of AI’s ability to undermine student learning. The goal for this category is to support instructors in developing new models of assessments that can holistically capture student learning to rigorously support and evaluate learning goals while upholding academic integrity. While many are moving to in-person, timed assessments in response to the presence of AI, these more traditional assessment practices can have accessibility issues and often skew towards lower-level learning outcomes, which may not be appropriate for all courses. Alignment between course goals, activities, and assessments is important to effective course design, so instructors are encouraged to propose revisions to their low-stakes, formative course activities along with their high-stakes, summative assignments and assessments. 

Examples: 

  • Writing projects that break down the writing process into low-stake assignments such as problem statements, outlines, literature review, peer feedback and self reflections, multiple drafts, and/or other tasks essential for writing. 
  • Research and design projects that lead to in-person presentations with Q&A.  
  • Courses that incorporate in-class workshops to give students time to work on projects or assignments and provide ample opportunities for collaborative learning and feedback. 

Use of Funds: Opportunities & Limitations

Applicants can request up to $20,000 of funds to support the design or redesign of a course or course components. Below, we list how you can use the grant funds. Please note that proposals of $5,000 or more require a higher level of engagement with course design support (see the grant requirements listed after the list below).  

  • Financial Support for Individual Course Design or Redesign: This could be hourly compensation for a graduate student or partial summer pay (up to $12,000) for instructional faculty with a 9-month appointment to do course development work that goes beyond typical course redesign efforts.  

    • We recommend that graduate students be paid about $25-30 per hour, depending on the level of expertise needed. Please note that graduate students cannot work more than 10 hours per week on average without DGS approval. We recommend that undergraduate students be paid about $18-20 per hour, depending on the level of expertise needed. 

  • Assessment Support: Graduate students or other hourly workers can be hired to assess the impact of course changes. The Poorvu Center can consult and provide feedback on assessment design and implementation. 
  • Course Technical Support: Undergraduate or graduate students who have some expertise using AI can be hired to provide technical support or guidance to help accomplish course learning goals. This could include support to develop AI programs (e.g., creating chatbots, real-world simulations, etc.), support of in-class activities requiring AI technical expertise, or consultative support for assessment and assignment designs that require an understanding of AI (either assignments and assessments that require the use of AI or ones that hope to avoid the pitfalls of AI use). 

    • If you need help identifying a student worker, you can work with Poorvu’s Student AI Liaisons to request a student worker. 

  • External Consultants/Practitioners or Guest Speakers: You can invite expert colleagues or consultants from other institutions or industry to be a guest speaker in your course or provide discipline-specific guidance on your AI-based goals and activities. Applicants should explicitly discuss how they will carry forward the knowledge or skills that they learn from the consultant or guest speaker.  

    • Important Note: Funds can be used to pay a Yale faculty as a guest speaker 

  • Additional Teaching Support: With the approval from GSAS and your department, the Poorvu Center can provide funds to support temporary additional ULA and/or TF hires for courses that have undergone a significant overhaul of its curriculum. This additional staff can help the courses be flexible and more responsive to student needs. Please note that to hire someone as a TF, they must be within the designated roles of the TF Levels & Types STEM and professional students can work at a TF10 level, but Humanities and Social Science PhD students can only work at a TF20 level. If you haven’t yet identified a TF, you can post the position to the Graduate Student Teaching Opportunities. 

  • Access to Specific AI Tools: Yale has developed and curated some AI tools, which are available to faculty, students, and staff at no charge. However, AI technology evolves rapidly, which means that there may be AI tools that meet your pedagogical needs, but have not yet been approved by Yale. Before purchasing such tools, please be aware of privacy and accessibility concerns and be prepared to provide alternatives for students who need or want to opt of using the tool(s). 
    • If you are planning to ask for funds to experiment with an AI tool that is not already available at Yale, before submitting your application, we ask that you meet with Yale’s Educational Technology staff to get approval to move forward with your use case. We would like to ensure that you can maintain student privacy ahead of funding a new tool. 

Grant Requirements 

Applicants may request up to $20,000 to support course innovations and the funds must be used within two years (by the end of the 2027-28 academic year). Grant requests over $5,000 should support a significant revision of your course design or approach; therefore, we provide some opportunities to better ensure proposed teaching practices are successfully implemented.   

If the budget exceeds $5,000, then grant recipients are expected to do the following:  

  • Attend three (3) development sessions facilitated by Poorvu staff. These sessions are designed to help instructors plan, execute, and assess their AI-based teaching changes. The sessions will involve engagement with Poorvu staff and peers going through similar teaching changes.   
  • Participate in either Poorvu’s Pedagogical Partners Program or Course (Re)Design 
  • Write and submit a summary (500-1000 words) of the implementation, assessment, and lessons learned regarding the AI-based teaching practices supported by this AI grant. 
  • Present at a Poorvu Center event showcasing the work funded by the AI grant.    

If the budget is under $5,000, then grant recipients are expected to do the following:  

  • Attend three (3) development sessions facilitated by Poorvu staff. These sessions are designed to help instructors plan, execute, and assess their AI-based teaching changes.
  • Write and submit a summary (500-750 words) of the implementation, assessment, and lessons learned regarding the AI-based teaching practices supported by this AI grant.  

Selection Criteria

The grant committee will consider the following criteria:

  • Goals: What learning goals are you able to enact through this grant?  Why is this a priority for students to learn in the context of AI in your field or the world?
  • Implementation: How will you implement your learning goals? Are they aligned with scholarly research on effective teaching practices? 
  • Student Impact: What is the expected depth (deepness of learning) and breadth (number of students in a course/program) of impact that your course revision will have on student AI learning?
  • Assessment: How will you assess the extent to which the course revisions influenced student learning? What outcomes will be observed during the project and/or at the end of the academic year?
  • Longevity: What are the way(s) that the course revision will continue beyond the funding period?
  • Timeline/Budget: What is your timeline and budget for the proposed project?

Submission Instructions

Please submit your completed application form by March 13, 2026 to the Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning, along with any supplementary documents or materials you would like to include. Since your department will be administering the grant, please be sure to talk with your finance administrator as soon as possible to let them know that you will be applying for the grant and that you will need their help managing the funds for your proposed project. On the application, we will be asking for their name and contact information to loop them into the process if your proposal is accepted. 

For questions or additional information, please contact faculty.teaching@yale.edu

AI Support & Resources Topics

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