CBMG Faculty Awarded Two 2024 Teaching Innovation Grants

Twenty-four Teaching Innovation Grants were awarded to instructors to help boost teaching practices. Part of the University of Maryland’s strategic plan to reimagine learning, the program is awarding $1.3 million in grants in 2024 to emphasize the intersection of education and technology, including AI, virtual reality and gamification.

“The ultimate goal is for faculty to experiment, integrate technology into their courses, increase engagement and expand collaboration,” said Marcio A. Oliveira, assistant vice president of academic innovation and technology.

Three multi-year projects are focused on prototyping or testing the adoption of educational technology. The program will also fund 21 one-year projects that explore evidence-based digital teaching approaches. The one-year projects also incorporate a wide range of educational tech, whether that’s adding computer simulations to biology courses, training students in AI-assisted journalism, or using gamified scenarios for language learning.

In all, the grants are projected to bolster 73 courses with over 32,000 student seats across 10 academic units.

Faculty from the Department of Cell Biology & Molecular Genetics are involved in two of the one-year grants:

• Terrapin BioTools: Bioinformatics Education at UMD Through Evidence-Based Curricular Enhancements (Charles Delwiche and Adena Collens, Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics)

• Supporting a Diverse Student Population With Adaptive Learning Powered by Data Analytics (Kimberly Paczolt, Biology and David Straney, Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics)