Overview
Rosenkranz Awards support significant teaching interventions that enhance student learning. Awards are designed to promote sustainable, scalable ideas that cultivate effective student engagement in the classroom.
The Poorvu Center is committed to honoring the many forms of excellent teaching, recognizing that teaching effectiveness is not reliant on digital forms. In past years the Rosenkranz Awards funded teaching projects with a digital component to comply with a gift indenture. We have diversified the funding for these projects, and now welcome proposals of all kinds.
Successful proposals envision opportunities for instructors to emphasize or significantly develop learning experiences for students that align with central learning goal(s) for an existing course.
Eligibility
Eligibility for the upcoming 2023 application cycle will be extended to any full-time Yale instructor with a primary instructional appointment who will teach a course during the 2023-2024 academic year. Ladder and instructional faculty may apply for Rosenkranz Awards for Pedagogical Advancement of up to $10,000. These awards invite faculty to experiment with or design and develop new teaching interventions that impact student engagement in the classroom. Successful proposals focus on course design efforts and significantly develop learning experiences for students that align with central learning goal(s) for an existing course.
Application Details
Applications for the Rosenkranz award open mid-October of each year and close in mid-January. Applications for the 2023 award cycle are now closed.
Proposed interventions should be designed to improve learning by encouraging student engagement. Research demonstrates that interactive settings deepen student learning by encouraging them to articulate, evaluate, and create knowledge with the instructor and one another. [1]
Engagement can be defined in a variety of ways, including but not limited to: student–to–student or student–to–faculty interactions, experience in the field, active use of Yale collections, and student research.
Essential components of a successful grant proposal include a vision for improved learning through student engagement, a significant intervention that strives to improve learning, and plans to measure student learning as a result of the intervention. The selection committee seeks applications that do the following:
a) Describe a need, challenge or goal related to student engagement that the intervention is designed to address and how you envision doing so,
b) Provide a realistic plan and timeline for the proposed project (funded work on projects can begin as early as March 2023, and must provide tangible updates to the Rosenkranz Digital Showcase within two years), and
c) Include an approach for determining the extent to which the intervention influenced student learning. The Poorvu Center can provide support for assessing project impact and student learning.
Due to the indenture of the gift that funds this program, Yale can only distribute the funds to faculty with a current appointment at Yale. The funds need to be spent while fulfilling an appointment at Yale.
Applicants are strongly encouraged to attend an information session or schedule a consultation with Poorvu Center staff before applying. Dates for the information session for the 2024 award cycle will be posted during the fall 2024 semester. If you cannot attend one of these sessions, email Rosenkranz@yale.edu to schedule a consultation.
Award Details
Selection of Awards
The selection committee will consist of faculty serving on the Poorvu Center Advisory Board and staff representatives from the Poorvu Center. This group consults with the Center for Language Study and the School of Medicine’s Teaching and Learning Center where collaborating expertise is helpful.
Upon receipt of a Rosenkranz Award, awardees can expect Poorvu Center support as discussed in consultation and application with the Center. Awardees are expected to participate in the Digital Showcase.
Rosenkranz awardees will be asked to respond to a survey sent a year following their award period to help us determine the ongoing impact of awarded projects.
Amount and Duration of Support
Funding may support: labor for undergraduate and graduate students; travel to collect data / resources; software or hardware designated in perpetuity to grant project; external contractors; dissemination activities such as conference presentations. The Poorvu Center may be able to provide professional resources for selected projects, such as assessment expertise and media production.
Funding may not support: continued website or software subscriptions (initial subscriptions are acceptable for no more than 25% of requested support funds - to be used as leverage to secure departmental/external funds); purchase of laptops or other equipment that will be dispersed after project is complete; salary support for instructor(s).
Download the proposal form below.
[1]For research and practice regarding learning and student engagement, applicants can refer to Kimberly Tanner’s 2013 essay “Structure Matters: Twenty-One Teaching Strategies to Promote Student Engagement and Cultivate Classroom Equity” in CBE-Life Sciences Education, and peruse the Poorvu Center’s Faculty Resource webpage.
