Rosenkranz Awards for Pedagogical Advancement

Overview

The Poorvu Center is committed to supporting the many forms of excellent teaching at Yale by funding selected faculty with the Rosenkranz Award for Pedagogical Advancement. This award provides up to $10,000 to each awardee to implement significant teaching interventions and/or curricular innovations that are designed to improve learning by encouraging student engagement. Engaging students 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, student research, or promoting student belonging. Effective applications focus on course design by developing equitable learning experiences for students that align with the central learning goal(s) for an existing course. Research demonstrates that interactive and engaging settings deepen student learning (Tanner 2013).

Before submitting an application, Yale faculty are strongly encouraged to attend one of our information sessions on zoom. Click on the date of your choice below to register.

Eligibility

Eligibility is extended to full-time Yale ladder and instructional faculty with a primary instructional appointment who will teach a course during the following academic year in which they are applying (e.g. if submitting an application in January 2024, then the course for which the applicant is applying should be taught during the 2024-2025 academic year). The Poorvu Center can distribute the funds only to faculty with a current appointment at Yale, and the funding must be spent while fulfilling an appointment at Yale.

Application Timeline and Process

On October 15, applications for the Rosenkranz Award open and then close January 15 of each academic year. The application is available for download at the end of this webpage.
In October through December, applicants are strongly encouraged to attend one of the Poorvu Center’s information sessions about the award. During the information session, the Poorvu Center will review the application criteria, share excerpts of successful applications from past awardees, and answer any questions. Information session details and registration will be posted on this website page each year in early fall.
During December, if applicants have components of their application that require support from the Poorvu Center (e.g. Yale Broadcast for a video component, CanvasPress, guidance on the assessment for their teaching intervention or curricular innovation, etc.), then they are also encouraged to sign up for a one-on-one consultation by emailing rosenkranz@yale.edu.
By January 15, faculty submit their applications by emailing their completed Rosenkranz Award application as a PDF to rosenkranz@yale.edu.
By the end of March, applicants are notified of their award status.
Awardees have two years to spend their Rosenkranz Award funding and will be expected to check in via email every six months and participate in an in-person Rosenkranz Award Showcase in early May at the end of their two-year award cycle. Awardees will present on their implementation of their teaching intervention and/or curricular innovation and its impact on student learning in their course.
If faculty need an additional year to spend their funding, they can request a one-year extension prior to the showcase and then will be expected to participate in the following academic year’s showcase.

Application Criteria

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.

The selection committee will consider the following criteria:

Goals: What is a learning goal that has been a challenge to meet related to student engagement? What is your proposed teaching intervention and/or curricular innovation to address this challenge and achieve this learning goal?
Implementation: How will you implement your teaching intervention and/or curricular innovation?
Student Impact: What is the expected depth (deepness of learning) and breadth (number of students in a course/program) of impact that your teaching intervention and/or curricular innovation will have on student learning?
Assessment: How will you assess the extent to which the teaching intervention and/or curricular innovation influenced student learning? Suggest measurable outcomes to collect during the project and/or at the end of the academic year.
Longevity: What are the way(s) that the teaching intervention and/or curricular innovation will continue beyond the two years of the Rosenkranz Award funding?
Timeline/Budget: What is your timeline and budget for the proposed project over two years beginning with May of the year the award is funded and ending in May two years later when awardees will participate in the Rosenkranz Award Showcase?

Funding Guidelines

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
costs associated with content creation such as the production of videos, podcasts or other media

Funding may not support:

continued website or software subscriptions (initial subscriptions for the two years of the award timeline are acceptable for no more than 25% of requested support funds–may be used as leverage to secure departmental/external funds)
purchase of laptops, ipads or other equipment that will be repurposed after project is complete
gift cards
salary support for instructor(s)

Research Citations

Tanner, KD. Structure matters: twenty-one teaching strategies to promote student engagement and cultivate classroom equity. CBE Life Sci Educ. 2013 Fall;12(3):322-31. doi: 10.1187/cbe.13-06-0115. PMID: 24006379; PMCID: PMC3762997.