VPTL Teaching Advancement Grants

VPTL offers quarterly teaching advancement grants up to $2500 to Stanford faculty, lecturers, instructional teams, graduate students involved in TA training, and departments. These one-time grants advance teaching practice by supporting the exploration, design, and implementation of new or improved pedagogical approaches in current courses and educational programs for Stanford undergraduate and graduate students.

How Funds Can Be Used

Graduate teaching development, up to $2500: Enhancing teaching development for graduate students including funds for graduate students to co-plan courses  (e.g., graduate stipend for a quarter prior to the class), TA Training (departments develop resources for TA training and support), the development of graduate pedagogy courses, and supporting research-focused teaching practices. 

Teaching and course support, up to $2500: Opportunities for faculty, lecturers and departments to enhance their teaching and their courses, including development of new methods or approaches for a specific class (e.g., case writing, experiential learning) or curriculum, supporting research-focused teaching practices, student learning assessment, and integration of instructional technologies. Modest requests for equipment, teaching materials, and/or software will be considered, but should be accompanied by cost-sharing with a department and plan for long-term maintenance.

Conferences and speakers, up to $1000: inviting speakers focused on pedagogy, teaching practice and student learning to campus and funding graduate students, post-docs, faculty, and lecturers to present at teaching and learning-focused conferences on a pedagogy topic. Funds for conference participation and/or campus speakers cannot exceed $1000.

Who Can Apply

Faculty Teams, Individual Faculty and Lecturers,  Departments, Graduate Students

Tips for successful proposals

• Proposals must have the endorsement of the department/program chair.
• Responses to all questions below should total no more than 500 words.

Deliverables

Upon completion of the project, please let us know how you and your department benefited from the grant, or what insights might be relevant to the wider teaching community at Stanford.