2021-22 Digital Fellowship Program for Early Career Workshop Participants
Description
The Wabash Center is committed to developing faculty members who are critically reflective about their teaching. Our Early Career Teaching and Learning workshops are designed to engage the participants in developing the craft of teaching, understanding one’s own teaching vocation, and analyzing how one’s institutional context shapes the work of the classroom.
The Workshop Fellowship Program extends this work by awarding a fellowship of $2,500 to workshop participants for a teaching project that takes place in the academic year following the workshop.
A good teaching project will address questions arising from the faculty member’s classroom experience and teaching. It might focus on learning more about the students being taught and the competences they bring to the classroom; it might involve a specific course that did not go well the first time it was taught; it might seek to understand why a particular concept is challenging for students to learn; why a particular topic is encountering resistance; or it might involve deepening the faculty member’s understanding of how to facilitate difficult conversations in the classroom, such as those around racial privilege, gender and sexuality, or interfaith issues.
The Fellowship is to help the faculty member learn about teaching. Thus the workshop participant should structure the project with reference to a specific course or class, and have a good understanding of his/her students and institutional context. Some questions that might help clarify the teaching project are the following:
- Who are my students? How do they learn?
- What do I want them to learn? Why would they care? How does this subject matter touch their interests or passions?
- What are my departmental or institutional learning goals? How do my classes fit in with the courses that other faculty members are teaching in the school/department?
- What about my teaching poses a challenge for my students? How can I most effectively teach them?
- How do I know that they are learning what I want them to learn?
Applications
Apply online by Wednesday, August 17, 2022.
Complete Fellowship Application Form (log into “MyWabash” top right corner of web page using the same login user name and password as your application for the workshop)
Attach Project Description. This includes:
- The question, dilemma, or issue that you want to address
- The goals you have for your work and what you will have to show that you met these goals
- The particular class in which you will test your work
- The preparatory work and activities this will involve
- Which colleagues will be conversation partners for you in this project
- Ongoing assessment strategies to help you understand what you are learning
Attach Timeline of Project Activities (1 page):
Link the steps involved in your work to specific dates, including preparatory activities, dates of classroom exploration or work involved, and assessment processes.
Attach a Letter of Support from dean, principal, rector, or department chair that addresses the following points:
- The institution’s support for your teaching fellowship project, including the resources the institution will need to provide you during the work
- The project’s contribution toward institutional or departmental goals
- How this work will be regarded in the institution’s advancement and review process
Grant funds can be spent on items and activities such as:
- Child care, elder care to support members attendance to group meetings
- Meals for the convened group (face to face only)
- Travel, meals, lodging should group meet for extended conversation (retreat center, hotel, conference center)
- Stipends for participation in the group
- Equipment, supplies, materials to support group meeting and discussions
- Honorariums for guest speakers with group
Activities and items NOT Funded:
The Wabash Center generally does not fund:
- International travel for research
- Travel for attendance at disciplinary conferences
- The preparation of textbooks
- Research focused primarily on field content and only secondarily on teaching
- Publication of conference papers or books, or production costs of other media
- Food delivered to homes or food to be consumed while meeting on-line
- Stipends for writing the grant proposal or making application
- Fees for WIFI or other home utilities should group convenes online
- Any items designated as gifts, presents, offerings or donations
- Travel, meals, lodging expenses should family or friend accompany participant on an extended conversation
- Put most bluntly, the Wabash Center does not underwrite the ordinary, ongoing work of the professorate, much of which is already supported by the home institution or departments.
Final Report
A final (5-page) report on your work and activities is due by Wednesday, May 17, 2023 at the end of the project. The report should have these elements:
- Description of what you actually did during the project
- Critical Reflection on your experience and what you learned. Revisit your project description and goals: What did you learn about teaching? About your students and how they learn? About your institutional context and its effect on your classroom?
- Projections: What do you need to do next and who/what will be helpful to you in developing this next phase?
- Learning Abstract: In 150 words, describe your central question, the work involved, and what you learned.
Submit the Final Report electronically through email attachment.
Funding Process and Conditions
Once your project is submitted and approved, an agreement letter will be sent outlining the terms between you and the Wabash Center. A check for one-half of the amount ($1,250) will be sent as soon as the paperwork has been completed. The second half of the fellowship ($1,250) will be sent upon receipt of the Final Report. No taxes are withheld from the fellowship awards; the amount will be reflected on the IRS 1099 forms sent to you by Wabash College at the end of the calendar year.
Any significant change in your project must be approved in advance by the Wabash Center. Send a letter or email to Stacie Cordell, Grants & Finance Administrator, that describes and justifies the changes so that we can determine whether the new plan falls within the intent of the approved fellowship. If during the course of the fellowship you are unable to meet the terms of the award, you are obliged to inform the Wabash Center immediately.
The fellowship award is contingent upon full participation in all sessions of the Early Career Digital Workshop.