Faculty "Dream Projects" Funded Through $100K Grant Program

Initial cohort of 51 faculty receive grants of up to $2,000 to fund class projects tackling food insecurity, racial justice and more by experimenting with digital pedagogies

REDWOOD CITY, Calif., July 19, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Course Hero, the popular learning platform used by a global community of students and educators to contribute and share educational resources, today announced fifty one educators are among the first to access grants designed to fund a wide range of faculty submitted digital pedagogy "dream projects."

"The creativity and aspirations of the hundreds of faculty who submitted were inspiring, and the makeup of the applicant pool truly reflected the breadth and diversity of faculty across disciplines, institutions and passions," said Sean Michael Morris, VP of Academics at Course Hero. "We were especially impressed by the focus on experimentation with new and emergent pedagogies. At the start of the pandemic, digital learning approaches were deemed a short-term solution, but a growing number of faculty now use them as an integral piece of the puzzle."

Selected through a blind review process by a team of Course Hero staff who were, themselves, former educators, awardees were selected from a pool of 378 faculty projects submitted for the Fall 2022 term. Examples of faculty projects include: 

Paul Quinn College adjunct faculty member Jennifer Vidrine will use a $2,000 grant to help students combat food insecurity after the neighborhood in which the HBCU is located lost its only grocery store during the pandemic. Students will design a mobile application that allows residents to order affordable fresh vegetables from the college's football-field-turned-farm. Throughout the project, students will be able to develop entrepreneurial skills while addressing a complex social problem.

CUNY Newmark Graduate School of Journalism professor Jeremy Caplan will use his $1,800 grant to help students build immersive storytelling skills -- like filming, editing, and producing digital content -- and discover under-covered stories in their communities. Using new digital recording devices that capture 360 video and audio, students will spend time creating immersive portraits of their local communities to represent and support their social challenges. This is part of a pilot project within the Engagement Journalism curriculum.

Jennifer Newton at Ohio University's School of Education will utilize $1,300 in funding to provide her students with the resources they need to create and produce a series of public service announcements and podcasts to help students studying to be teachers understand misconceptions about disabilities and the impact of common euphemisms and ableism. While completing their projects, students will study and analyze popular social media profiles by disabled activists and learn how to provide a socially just framing for disability and special education.

Grantees will be recognized at Course Hero's fifth annual educator summit, which will take place virtually, July 28-29, 2022. Over 5,000 educators, researchers, and instructional designers will convene around this year's theme, "Learning Together, Teaching Together,"  to discuss the latest in learning and pedagogy.  Speakers include Paul Quinn College President Michael Sorrell, and award-winning faculty like Dr. Gaye Theresa Johnson --professor of African American Studies and Chicana and Chicano Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles -- and Dr. Michelle Miller, author of Minds Online: Teaching Effectively with Technology (Harvard University Press, 2014).

About Course Hero: Course Hero is on a mission to help students graduate confident and prepared. The online learning platform now offers more than 100 million course-specific study resources created by and for students and educators, as well as 24/7 tutor help. More than 100,000 faculty across the U.S. and Canada use Course Hero to share their resources with the community, collaborate with other faculty, and hone new strategies for instruction. Every day, students, educators and tutors on Course Hero help more than 20 million students make every study hour count.

SOURCE Course Hero