HILT Spark Grant Fall 2014 awards announced

HILT awarded six Spark Grants of $5-$15K to projects intended to “spark” promising teaching and learning projects this year:

A crash course in Harvard College undergraduates. Michael Zachau Walker and Sophia Watkins (College) will design a workshop equipping teaching fellows with increased understanding of teaching Harvard undergraduates in order to foster meaningful and productive relationships.

Evaluating the impact of multimedia enhancements of case materials. Maria Flanagan, Carolyn Wood, Dan Levy, Christopher Robichaud, Mae Klinger and Laura Winig (HKS) will conduct a comparison study to identify the impact of multimedia enhancements of case materials on student preparation and engagement.

An introduction to numerical computing for undergraduates. Adam Cohen and Christopher Stubbs (FAS) will develop a two-week module on basic computational methods in MATLAB, lowering the barrier to use for students in courses from biology to economics.

New models for evaluating learning outcomes in digital humanities teaching. Jeffrey Schnapp, Jessica Yurkofsky, and Kyle Parry (FAS-metaLAB) will host a workshop around opportunities and challenges in digital humanities teaching, applying lessons learned to the assessment of metaLAB platforms.

Online resource for speaking and communication. Sarah Jessop and Marlon Kuzmick (FAS-Bok Center) will film a series of interviews (inspired by “Harvard Writes”) to convene a campus-wide conversation on the role of spoken communication in teaching, scholarship, and collaboration.

A tool to facilitate peer review and assessment. Dan Coffey and David J. Malan (SEAS) will provide a low-cost tool that automatically captures video of instructors, facilitating more robust peer review and frequent opportunity for pedagogical assessment.