Reflective Teaching Grant

How can instructors learn from past and present teaching experiences to shape their future classrooms? This grant is designed to promote and structure reflection and the careful analysis of feedback/outcomes as a foundational part of pedagogical development. Awards include support from Poorvu Center staff members to assess the impact of an instructional strategy or intervention on student learning. That strategy or intervention may be newly designed as part of the grant, or it may already be in use. Since the grant is intended as a short-term project, the intervention may take place within a single class session or unit, or it might be a discrete strategy/activity implemented at various junctures within the course (e.g. introducing regular polling as a class activity).  

Grant applications for 2026-27 are due April 6, 2026. Apply now!

This handout summarizes a variety of methods you might use to assess your teaching intervention, in addition to methods with which you may already be familiar. 

Multimodal Program Assessment Techniques

On This Page

This page will address the following information:

Grant Description

Questions Answers
Who is eligible?

Faculty with graduate/postdoctoral partners; graduate students and postdoctoral scholars assessing their own course or section within a larger course (with permission from the lead instructor).

Graduate and postdoctoral applicants (whether or not the project takes place within their own class) must have completed at least six hours of formal pedagogical training. That training may take place through the Certificate of College Teaching Program, CIRTL Network programming or equivalents (e.g. departmental pedagogical practicum or college-level teaching certification programs at other institutions).

The grant funds will be transferred in a lump sum, which will be distributed by departmental business office administrators, including graduate student/postdoctoral stipend/compensation, faculty professional development funding, and the purchase of teaching materials. Please confirm with your departmental business office administrators that they are willing to manage the distribution of these funds and confirm that you are eligible for this kind of compensation.  

Because participation in this project involves providing a service or work in exchange for compensation through the teaching grant, it is subject to F-1 on-campus employment limits. International students may only participate if their total employment does not exceed 20 hours per week during the academic term.
What is the scope of the project?

Applicants will identify a pedagogical strategy to analyze. It may take place within a single unit or class session, or it may be a discrete strategy/activity implemented at various junctures within a course.  

While you will propose the scope and assessment approach in your application, you will have the opportunity to further refine your plan in consultation with Poorvu Center staff should you be awarded a grant.  
What is the timeline of the project?
  1. Submission (April 6th)
  2. Selection (end of April)
  3. Individual project consultations with Poorvu Center staff (full grant team, including faculty partners if applicable, required to attend). The first of these, focusing on assessment design, will take place over the summer. The second of these, focusing on analysis of results, will take place during the semester). 
  4. Cohort Meetings: one meeting for all grant winners in June, with two additional meetings at the start and end of the semester in which the project will be completed.
  5. Final Reflection: participants will submit a 250-word statement sharing their takeaways from the project by August 1st, 2027. Data visualizations can be used in these final reports, and Poorvu Center staff can provide resources on how to create them as needed. These materials will be shared publicly on our website.  

The proposed project should be completed within a year of the grant being awarded (during the 2026-2027 academic year).  

Graduate and postdoctoral participants should spend no more than 30 hours on this project.

Note: Participants hoping to publish or disseminate their results may need to undertake the IRB process and should discuss with the Poorvu Center as soon as possible to ensure timely approval, which can take several months.
What is the amount of the award?

$500 for the graduate student or postdoc (distributed as one-time award)

$500 for the faculty member, if applicable (distributed to research or professional development accounts)

In addition, up to $500 for materials may be requested in the application. 

Expectations

  • By the end of the grant period, the participant(s) will implement their intervention or resource in a classroom setting. 
  • Participant(s) will have the opportunity to participate in a yearlong series of cohort and 1:1 meetings to reflect on their progress and student outcomes (see Grant Program Meetings). 
  • Participants will also gather feedback and perform reflection on the intervention, and they will submit a short reflection on their experience the summer after the intervention.
  • Participants should create a plan to apply and share what has been learned, whether in their own classrooms (present or future) or through broader dissemination. 
  • For Certificate of College Teaching Preparation (CCTP) participants, their project should be represented in their teaching portfolio (this might be included as part of the annotated sample material, but it could also be integrated with the teaching statement and/or sample syllabi, as appropriate). If the portfolio has already been submitted at the time of grant completion, participants must submit a revised version including the new material.   

For graduate students and postdoctoral scholars pursuing the CCTP, the completion of the grant projects and associated cohort meetings will earn them the rank of CIRTL Practitioner. After completion, those participants can pursue presentations and/or publications that will earn them the rank of CIRTL Scholar. As a reminder, to earn these designations, participants must complete the requirements of the CCTP before graduation (or the end of their postdoctoral appointment).  

Grant Application Form

Applications are due by April 6, 2026 11:59pm EST. 

Apply Now

Application Components

This should include details about the design and the delivery (which may be predetermined or still in development) and the scope of your analysis (what you want to know about student learning in your course). 

Since this grant is relatively short-term, the intervention should take place within a single class session or unit, or it might be a discrete strategy/activity implemented throughout a course. 

Please describe the value and broader impact of your project, answering the following questions:

  1. What problem or unfilled need are you exploring? 
  2. What do you hope to learn about the impact of your intervention/strategy? 
  3. What course-level goals are students attempting to achieve? 
  4. What higher-level disciplinary or interdisciplinary skill are students developing?   

The applicant(s) should provide an initial plan to assess the instructional intervention or strategy. For inspiration about the many kinds of evidence/feedback you might collect, please consult the guide to building an effective assessment, as well as the multimodal assessment handout prepared by our Educational Program Assessment team (note that this resource was developed for program assessment, but will contain techniques practicable for the kind of assessment implemented through this grant). Note that, if selected, you will have the opportunity to refine your plan with Poorvu Center staff members. Please answer the following questions: 

  1. What kind of evidence/feedback do you intend to collect to demonstrate the impact of your intervention? 
  2. How will you collect these data? 
  3. When will you collect the evidence/feedback? 
  4. How do you plan to analyze the evidence/feedback?   

Participants should share their plan to apply and share what has been learned, whether in their own classrooms (present or future) or through broader dissemination.  

Note: Participants hoping to publish or disseminate their results may need to undertake the IRB process and should discuss with the Poorvu Center as soon as possible to ensure timely approval, which can take several months. If working as part of a team, both participants should agree upon what kinds of information may be shared, being mindful of student privacy.  

Please share the name and email of your departmental administrator and/or business office administrator, so that we can organize the distribution of funds. You should confirm that your departmental business office administrators are willing to administer these funds before applying, because the Poorvu Center will transfer a lump sum to the departmental COA.    

Note that purchases are limited to those outlined in the application and approved by the Poorvu Center in your award letter. Any materials and supplies purchased with these funds are owned by Yale University and as such also must remain at the University should the recipient leave their position. These funds are not intended to purchase standard equipment that departments provide to faculty and staff (specifically, desktop computers. or laptops or tablets). We appreciate your cooperation in supporting the integrity of these funds.

Graduate and postdoctoral applicants (whether or not the project takes place within their own class) must have completed at least six hours of formal pedagogical training. 

That training may take place through the Certificate of College Teaching Program, CIRTL Network programming or equivalents (e.g. departmental pedagogical practicum, pedagogical development at other institutions). 

Collaboration can be a challenging part of these programs, and so we will consider how realistic and detailed your agreed-upon plan is. Please share in detail how you plan to communicate, how often you plan to meet, and how you will work together to address moments when changing the scope or nature of your project may become necessary.

Please share how you intend to divide up work around key project points.

  1. The workload for the graduate student/postdoctoral scholar should not exceed 30 hours total.
  2. Designing and Delivering the Intervention/Strategy: It is up to applicants to determine their level of collaboration around the design and delivery of the intervention itself. For example, a faculty member might choose to apply with an intervention that is already in use. However, applicants are welcome to work together to design interventions and carry them out. In total, the graduate student/postdoctoral scholar should spend no more than 15 hours on design and delivery.  
  3. Planning, Collecting, and Analyzing Evidence: The scope and focus of the analysis should be determined collaboratively. The actual analysis itself will largely be carried out by the graduate student/postdoc. In total, the graduate student/postdoctoral scholar should spend at least 15 hours on planning, collecting, and analyzing the evidence. 

If your project requires materials, please include a detailed budget here. Where possible, we will point you toward existing resources on campus, but where none exist, we will fund necessary purchases on a case-by-case basis. Please note that our ability to fund outside technologies (hardware or software) is limited and should be discussed with us before submitting your application. 

Check out the rubric we use to evaluate the Reflective Teaching Grant applications.

Reflective Teaching Grant Application Rubric

If you would like a Word file version of the application components for easier reference, please download the file below.

Application Components

Grant Program Meetings

Once selected, participants will have the opportunity to:

  1. Participate in an individual project design meeting, ideally over the summer, with a Poorvu Center staff member (full grant team, including faculty partners if applicable, required to attend).
  2. Participate in cohort meetings (3 per annum, required only for graduate student and postdoctoral partners, faculty partners optional).  
    1. The first meeting will convene all grant winners over the summer to share their projects and introduce basic assessment methods (defining scope and methods).  
    2. Participants will attend meetings with Poorvu Center staff members toward the beginning and end of the semester during which they are completing their project in order to receive more guided feedback on process and results. The first of these will be office hours, and the second will be a workshop on analyzing and visualizing results.
    3. Graduate student and postdoctoral participants who would like a more intensive experience may also apply to join the CIRTL Teaching-As-Research (TAR) Course, which will be offered in the summer (dates TBD).  
      1. On an occasional basis, the Poorvu Center may offer a local version of this course.
  3. Participate in an individual meeting toward the end of the semester to analyze results with a Poorvu Center staff member (full grant team, including faculty partners if applicable, required to attend).