Amid rapid changes to the national landscape of higher education, instructors and academic departments continue to provide dynamic educational experiences. This vital work requires ongoing support to enhance the classroom experience and deploy next-generation academic technologies.
The UCLA Teaching and Learning Center (TLC) highlights the significance of investing meaningfully in these initiatives through its revamped Educational Innovation Grants Program. By funding new projects with the potential for large-scale impacts on students, instructors, and departments, the program aims to elevate excellent teaching, which is outlined as Goal 4 of the University’s Strategic Plan, as well as Chancellor Julio Frenk’s UCLA for Life flagship initiative as part of the One UCLA campaign.
Through the program, the TLC aids UCLA instructors in facilitating learning in an increasingly complex and evolving world.
“The Education Innovation Grants are a fantastic resource to support instructors who are pushing teaching practices into new dimensions,” said Kem Saichaie, Inaugural Director for the TLC and chair of the program’s Tier 3 Catalyst Grant Review Committee. “These projects span AI, medical simulations, accessibility, and curricular mapping across disciplines. We are funding projects that truly align with strategic initiatives to elevate teaching at UCLA.”
The TLC awarded approximately $1 million for 275 projects across four tiers during the 2024-2025 academic year. This included Tier 1 Seed Grants, or small-scale projects initiated by instructors to augment teaching through activities like guest speakers and field trips. Other modest projects received Tier 2 Sandbox Grants to improve instructional practices, some of which included developing an AI clinical reasoning tutor for a course in medicine or experiential learning opportunities with drone technology for an urban planning course.
Educational Innovation Grants also provided funding to instructors taking on more substantial teaching projects. Tier 3 Catalyst Grants support efforts advancing practices, curricula, and pedagogical research that inspire new forms of student engagement. These funds provide instructors with the resources to implement and assess innovative approaches with the potential for large-scale impact.
One of the Catalyst Grants was awarded to Michelle Rensel, an associate teaching professor in the Institute for Society and Genetics and Vice Chair of Undergraduate Education, who will assess the learning outcomes of a historical role-playing exercise about GMOs during a general education course. Working with graduate student researcher Michelle Velasco, she will gather course survey data to examine how taking on the role of real-life figures impacts first-years’ development of critical thinking and public-speaking skills.
Rensel highlighted the importance of the Catalyst Grant in bringing their educational research and analysis forward.
“The grant allows me to employ an undergraduate student research assistant and purchase specialized software to assist with qualitative coding of a large, multi-year data corpus,” she noted. “We are also excited to receive dedicated consultation support from TLC that will assist us in ultimately publishing our findings.”
New Grants Transform Departmental Innovations
To promote broader curricular experimentation, the TLC introduced a new grant tier for 2024-2025 designed for instructor teams making improvements to students’ academic experiences. Tier 4 Transformation Grants offer funding to pursue strategies that bolster student success across sequenced or integrated courses and programs of study. The new grant tier includes two tracks: Planning Grants for developing data-informed strategies for programmatic action, and Implementation Grants for carrying out integrated reforms to address particular learning challenges.
Tobias Higbie, professor of history and labor studies and the director of the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, will serve as the primary investigator on an Implementation Grant for the Department of Labor Studies. The project aims to transform the field’s diverse teaching modes, which span a variety of methods across the social sciences and humanities.
“We’re excited to work with the experts in the Teaching and Learning Center to understand more about how our students experience the curriculum, and how we can grow in ways that meet students’ needs as well as those of our community partners,” Higbie shared.
A Tier 4 Implementation Grant was awarded in full, funding $100,000 to a project aimed at redesigning the School of Education and Information Studies’ Ph.D. program. Ananda Marin, Vice Chair of Graduate Education and an associate professor in education, will be the grant’s primary investigator as the department transforms its curriculum for eight core courses to provide graduate students with training and research opportunities that prepare them for leadership in the evolving educational field.
Other projects supported by Implementation Grants include the Project SPARK (Students & Partners Advancing Real-world Knowledge) Learning Community at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and the Artificial Intelligence and Math Skills (AIMS) program across introductory STEM courses.
The TLC is currently accepting proposals for Tier 1 and Tier 2 Educational Innovation grants through November 30, 2025. Review the grants webpage for requirements and deadline information.