$2.7M in new grants will support experiential learning.
Thousands of University of Maryland students will have new and enhanced learning experiences this year, thanks to a program designed to spur creativity in classroom instruction.
Nearly 300 courses across 86 academic programs have received support for the 2022-23 academic year from the new $2.7 million Teaching and Learning Innovation Grant initiative, an outgrowth of the university’s strategic plan. It calls for reimagining learning, and the initiative will encourage that in “inclusive, experiential, publicly engaged, creative, integrative, holistic and empowering” ways, according to Senior Vice President and Provost Jennifer King Rice.
The grants are designed to “increase opportunities for students to do experiential learning—internships, field trips, a more high-engaged classroom environment,” said Marcio A. Oliveira, assistant vice president for academic innovation and technology and executive director of UMD’s Teaching and Learning Transformation Center.
Four of the grants were awarded for mathematics and statistics courses:
- Lecturers Jonathan Francis Fernandes and Mestiyage Gunatilleka received a grant for “Bringing Computing, Simulations, and Data Analysis to STAT 400”
- Professor Yanir Rubinstein received a grant for “Experiential Learning: Mathematics of Geometry and Data” (MATH 386)
- Senior Lecturer Hatice Sahinoglu received a grant for “A friendly introduction to Data Science with R”
- Assistant Professor Rodrigo Trevino received a grant for “Experimental Mathematics”
