The Initiative
PITA grants enable recipients to design, implement, and assess instructional and pedagogical innovation that has a high probability of enhancing education at Illinois. The projects most likely to be funded are those that clearly align with campus educational goals, and where PITA award resources might be leveraged to increase external support. Activities that may be supported by PITA grants include, but are not limited to:
- Projects that strengthen excellence in instruction by way of teacher-to-teacher mentoring and evaluation. Proposals that involve one or more of the college Teaching Academies are especially encouraged.
- Projects that improve existing courses. Viable improvements include the incorporation of innovative educational technologies, or the development of community-engagement opportunities.
- Development of new courses and pilot classes that are intended to become part of the core curriculum of a department or program.
- Instructional research or assessment that examines the effectiveness of some aspect of instructional practice or that develops methods to measure instructional effectiveness.
- Projects aimed to better assess and improve degree programs. Viable improvements include the design and implementation of assessment strategies such as rubrics, capstone courses or projects, or ePortfolio adoption.
PITA funding is not available to support the redesign of highly specialized courses.
In addition, the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning may provide PITA award recipients limited support.
Objectives
The objectives of PITA are:
- To support the continuous improvement of instructors on campus, including specialized faculty and TAs.
- To support the implementation of teaching innovations and enhancements (not including equipment).
- To encourage the development of multiple, discipline-appropriate assessment alternatives (e.g., teaching portfolios, peer evaluation, and mentoring programs), and the dissemination of successful models to other units for use in support of teaching improvement.
- To seek broad participation from the many disciplines across campus.
- To increase visibility of teaching excellence, enhancement, innovation, and assessment across and beyond the campus community.
Terms
Any college, school, department, instructional unit, or working group representing more than one academic unit may apply, as may any individual instructional staff member. Each proposal must be endorsed by the appropriate unit executive officer(s). Multi-unit proposals should designate a lead administrative unit (see below).
Grants are for a one-year period. Grants of $7,500 will be awarded.
Budgeted items may include a mixture of resources needed to complete the project, including graduate assistant support, materials and supplies, travel support, and discretionary funds.
In addition to a mid-year summary, grant recipients are to provide a written final report that:
- Summarizes the activities and results as they relate to the proposed objectives.
- Discuss strengths and weaknesses of the results.
- Suggest ways that the results might be replicated or improved.
- Summarize the activities and results as they relate to opportunities for securing external funding or resources.
Grant recipients are expected to participate in the Annual Faculty Retreat in the Spring as well as campus-wide workshops on teaching advancement and/or assessment workshops. In addition, all final reports will be shared with the campus community.
Revised criteria and timelines will be available after November 18, 2024.
Previous Recipients
Award Recipient | Additional Partners | Department | Award Year |
---|---|---|---|
Shelly Schdmit | Saad Sheab, Amy Leman | FSHN | 2023 |
Vishal Sachdev | Unnati Narang | Bus Admin | 2023 |
Shandra Jamison | Carlos E. Brown, Jr., Althena Ryals, Mae Vogel | CICOM | 2023 |
Wenhao David Huang | Eunjung Grace Oh | EPOL | 2023 |
Ben Schapp | Maria Bonn, Sharon Comstock | iSchool | 2023 |
Annie Abbott | Saad Shehab | Spanish & Portuguese | 2022 |
Catherine Corr | Lynn Burdick | Special Education | 2022 |
James Dalling | Plant Biology | 2022 | |
Barbara Hug | Christina Krist | Curriculum & Instruction | 2022 |
Kevin Tan | Social Work | 2022 | |
Angel Garcia | English | 2021 | |
Ewa Maslowska | Advertising | 2021 | |
Karin Jensen | Holly Golecki | Bioengineering | 2021 |
Chi-Fang Wu | Social Work | 2021 | |
Karin Jensen | Bioengineering | 2021 | |
Teresa Ostler | Social Work | 2020 | |
Elise McCarren | Chemistry | 2020 | |
Christian Ray | Chemistry | 2020 | |
Cynthia Kocher | Theater | 2020 | |
Craig Lundstrom | Geology | 2019 | |
Robert Wallon | 2019 | ||
Rachel Switzky | Siebel Center for Design | 2019 | |
Dawn Bohn | FSHN | 2019 | |
Ann Reisner | Media & Cinema Studies | 2018 | |
Cory Pettijohn | Earth, Society & Environment | 2018 | |
Aimy Wissa | MSE | 2017 | |
Marianne Alleyne | Entomology | 2017 | |
Tracy Parish | Business | 2017 | |
Nicole Cooke | iSchool | 2017 | |
Ellen Fireman | Statistics | 2017 | |
Blake Johnson | MSE | 2017 | |
Goeffrey Herman | Computer Science | 2017 | |
Ann-Perry Witmer | Engineering | 2015 | |
Grace Giorgio | Communication | 2015 | |
Eunjung Grace Oh | EPOL | 2015 | |
Mark Steinberg | History | 2015 | |
Annette McCoy | Vet Clinical Med | 2015 |
Note: Due to budgetary constraints the PITA awards were temporarily paused in 2016.