Provost's Learning Innovation Grants

Generative artificial intelligence has exploded in use and as a topic of discussion and concern since the launch of ChatGPT. While many faculty are currently working with generative AI in their classrooms or research, others are still just beginning to understand how it affects their discipline and the workplace students will graduate into. This focus area invites proposals for incorporating generative AI as one tool students will learn to use to achieve course learning outcomes.

Strong proposals for Generative AI for Teaching Grants will:

• Include student use and practice with generative AI in major activities and projects to build their skill in the use of the technologies currently available and prepare them to use future generations of AI in the workplace.
• Integrate exploration and discussion of ethical issues associated with generative AI, including maintaining integrity in the classroom and in the workplace, use of others’ intellectual property as sources, and clear disclosure and acknowledgement of AI in their work.
   

The intersection of Technology, the Arts, and Design (TAD) is a key element of RIT’s promise to prospective students and the world. RIT defines TAD as the meaningful partnership of diverse ways of thinking, exploring, and making to address complex contemporary problems, advance knowledge, and pursue joy and wonder. This focus area invites faculty to incorporate TAD principles as a primary way of achieving learning outcomes.

Strong proposals for TAD Grants will:

• Incorporate interdisciplinary activities and projects.
• Enable students to learn and use methods and tools that are from outside their program.
   

Active learning is not activity for the sake of activity, but rather is having students engage in some activity that requires them to assess their own degree of understanding and skill at handling ideas or problems in a particular discipline. It is frequently associated with working in groups, in which knowledge is attained by participating or contributing. While these activities vary, common elements are metacognition—students’ thinking about their own learning—and higher order thinking (2016, Vanderbilt University). This PLIG focus area invites proposals for exploring and applying an active learning model to (re)design and deliver all or part of a course (or set of courses).

Strong proposals for Active Learning Grants will:

• Incorporate a plan to measure the effectiveness of the active learning component of the (re)designed course(s). 
• Present models that can be adopted by faculty for online and blended (part online, part face-to-face) course modes.
   

These grants are intended for innovative proposal topics that are outside the scope of Focus Grants, but nevertheless have the potential to positively impact student learning and success at RIT. The exploration grants provide funds for faculty to investigate an innovative mode or model of teaching and learning in terms of its potential to positively impact student outcomes and the student experience at RIT. 

Strong proposals for Exploration Grants will:

• Have potential for application in more than one discipline.
• Demonstrate a new use/application of a model, system, or technology already in use at RIT.
• Supports a component of RIT’s Strategic Plan.