JMU faculty are invited to apply
for an Accelerating Creative Teaching (ACT) Grant by September 20, 2019. ACT Grants, sponsored by JMU
Libraries, award up to $500 to
$2000 to empower faculty
developing scholarship
in innovative teaching
and learning. The goal is to support instructional projects that are designed
to develop deep, meaningful, and reflective learning through pedagogy-informed
use of technologies. An upcoming
open house with lunch will
offer a chance for faculty to learn more.
The ACT Grants initiative
provides scaffolding for faculty members’ teaching innovations through
conceptual, pedagogical, and technological support. The creative teaching
efforts supported by ACT Grants engage student learning in meaningful,
critical, and reflective ways. Successful recipients of ACT Grants receive
support to design new learning activities. ACT grant recipients are encouraged to apply
for Institutional Review Board (IRB) protocol approval as part of their scholarship
development.
Stories of successful
grant recipients
ACT Grants have attracted
university and national levels of scholarship visibility for award-winning JMU
faculty members. For instance, Dr.
Yeonsoo Kim, a faculty member
in Communication Studies, received 3rd place for the best poster award for her
students’ collaborative poster at the Public Relations Society of America
(PRSA) International Conference. Dr.
Xuebin Wei (ISAT) was
recognized as Faculty Ambassador for the AWS (Amazon Web Services) Educate
Cloud Ambassador Program. Dr.
Emily York and Dr. Shannon Conley (ISAT) presented their ACT Grant
project, “Teaching Responsible Innovation through Scenario Analysis and Design
Fiction,” at the Conference on Higher Education Pedagogy (CHEP) in February
2019, received a CISE Faculty Development Grant Award of $4,000 for further
development, and received a JMU Teaching and Learning with Technology Award.
The Libraries Faculty Associate working on this project, Daisy Breneman (faculty member from the Justice
Studies Department), collaborated
with other faculty involved in ACT Grants to present at the Teaching and Learning with
Technology conference and the JMU Diversity Conference. More
information about previous successful ACT Grant projects can be viewed at https://jmucreativeteachingcases.pressbooks.com/.
Learn more and apply
Now in its third year, the
ACT Grants program is calling for applications at: https://easychair.org/cfp/ACTGrant2019.
An Open House on Wednesday,
September 4, 2019, from 12:15pm to 2:00pm in Rose Library 5211 will provide a forum for potential
applicants and current and past ACT Grant recipients to exchange
innovative ideas and learn from each other. Featured speakers at this Open
House are Dr. Diana Galarreta-Aima (Foreign Languages), Dr. Jennifer Lang-Rigal (Foreign Languages), and Dr.
Xuebin Wei (ISAT). Register
for the Open House at: https://events.lib.jmu.edu/event/5644223