Sections
Introduction
The advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and especially generative AI tools (such as ChatGPT and others) present challenges and opportunities. Georgetown is broadly supporting faculty in adapting and integrating AI tools, as mentioned in the recent email from CNDLS and their growing set of resources. At the same time, we recognize that many of our faculty and students are exploring creative ways to use AI tools to advance the kind of education that we value.
In order to accelerate and support these explorations, the Provost announced the creation of an Initiative on Pedagogy and Artificial Intelligence. We are sharing here the first of several Calls for Proposals as well as Expressions of Interest in different funding opportunities. Additional CFPs will be announced in the late fall and early spring.
The goals of the Initiative on Pedagogy and AI (IPAI):
- Improve student learning and engagement through creative and responsible integration of AI-supported tools for research, writing, problem-solving, analysis, and customized feedback.
- Improve the overall experience for students, faculty, and academic staff through the integration of AI tools in navigating paths to a degree, mentoring, discernment, and enhancing community and belonging.
- Foster interdisciplinary and inter-campus collaborations to develop ethical and human-centered AI applications for education and to reimagine curricula and pedagogical approaches in response to the shifting AI environment.
- Help shape the broader dialogue about the impact of AI in education and an institutional knowledge base of practices and findings that can enhance Georgetown and its many partners.
Below, we share funding opportunities for the first of several Calls for Proposals for the Initiative. The Initiative on Pedagogy and AI is funded by the Baker Trust for Transformative Learning and the Sonneborn Innovation Fund. If you have any questions or want more information about ideas, please contact Eddie Maloney (ejm@georgetown.edu) and Randy Bass (bassr@georgetown.edu), Co-chairs, IPAI Task Force.
Funding Categories Overview
| Exploration Grants Supporting early engagement with generative AI tools to help share ideas and approaches across the university. Priority deadline: September 29, 2023 | |
| Faculty Early Adopter Mini-grants, “IPAI Fellows” Supporting faculty teaching practice by recognizing individual faculty who have been working with AI tools, or have interest in exploring and documenting particular strategies that can be shared with others. | $1,000 |
| Community Cohort mini-grants for academic units, cross-cutting faculty groups Supporting cohort conversations among colleagues who share field interests–within or across academic units–to explore the impact of AI on teaching and research in their fields, and how those changes might have an impact on curriculum and pedagogy. | $500-1,500 |
| Innovation Grants Encouraging experimentation with generative AI tools, both at the course and curricular level, as well as at the research level. Expressions of Interest due by September 29, 2023 | |
| Curriculum Development Grants Supporting curricular innovation through projects that seek to integrate practical and conceptual approaches to AI. Examples include projects that advance personalized instruction through AI-enhanced feedback, support self-guided learning, and critically explore the societal implications of AI on human value and justice. | Up to $10,000 |
| Research Seed Grants Supporting research on AI and learning, including such areas as the development of novel AI/ML models and techniques to study their application in education, and the study of algorithmic biases and harms in AI applications in education. | Up to $10,000 |
| X-grants for Student Innovation Supporting student innovation with AI that can enhance learning, the student educational experience, or apply AI to student-generated projects advancing the common good. | Up to $5,000 |
Exploration Grants
The following funding opportunities are meant to support the exploration of generative AI tools in teaching and learning. They’re intended to support broad conversations on campus and to help spread ideas about pedagogical and curricular approaches.
Faculty Early Adopter Mini-grants, “IPAI Fellows”
Faculty who have been working with AI tools or have interest in testing and documenting particular strategies that can be shared with others are encouraged to apply to be an IPAI Fellow. An IPAI Fellow will receive $1,000 and agree to do one or more of the following:
- Lead a workshop for colleagues (with CNDLS support)
- Test pedagogical approaches to integrating AI tools into teaching
- Write up a mini-case study for the IPAI website
Anyone interested in nominating (including self-nominating) someone for an IPAI Fellowship should apply by September 29 (priority funding deadline).
Community Cohort Conversation mini-grants
CNDLS has coordinated an open faculty cohort conversation on AI. If you are an individual who would like to join one of these conversations, please let us know.
We also encourage departments, programs, or other groups of like-interested faculty to form and organize their own cohorts to explore the ways that AI might reshape academic fields and be integrated into curricula. For these conversations, IPAI is offering small AI Cohort Conversation grants. Mini-grants range from $500 to support food and materials for gatherings up to $1,500 to bring speakers or workshop leaders to campus to facilitate field-based conversations (provided some part of the visit is open to the campus).
Anyone interested in applying to be an IPAI Fellow or to propose a Community Cohort Conversation should use the following form to apply by September 29 (priority funding deadline).
Innovation Grants
IPAI Innovation grants are meant to further experimentation with generative AI tools, both at the course and curricular level, as well as at the research level. Funding is meant to help grantees explore new practices, develop inventive ways of rethinking curricula, or design and develop new tools that employ generative AI.
Anyone interested in applying for an IPAI Innovation Grant should send an expression of interest through the forms below.
Expressions of Interest should include a project description, including a statement of the problem or goal, project design, and prospective impact. After submitting an expression of interest, applicants will be contacted by the IPAI Task Force to discuss the proposal.
Curriculum Development Grants
IPAI invites proposals for curriculum redesign and development that support academic units in rethinking ways to incorporate AI into the curriculum as a subject of study and/or ways to enhance student learning by integrating AI tools. Curriculum development grants may include:
- Focus on practical integration of AI into educational materials, course modules, and teaching practices/pedagogical approaches
- Significantly revising courses or curricula that explore the impact of AI on different fields, academic disciplines, and applied areas of work, as well as critical approaches to AI, such as the study of algorithmic justice
- Reimagining courses or course sequences using generative AI tools to:
- Support more personalized learning through AI-enhanced feedback
- Support new approaches to mentored, problem-based and project-based learning
- Advance equitable and inclusive pedagogies
- Enhance self-regulated learning, self-reflection, and discernment
- Enable students to explore the boundaries of AI and human intelligence and the value of human work and creativity in AI-shaped environments
- Create new flexibilities in the pace and shape of the degree (bachelor’s and master’s)
- Expand access to Georgetown educational opportunities
- The timeframe may be a single semester to one year to develop and test the curriculum
- Assess outcomes based on student learning, engagement, and feedback
- Emphasize eventual use at scale over novelty of techniques
Funding for curriculum development grants is up to $10,000 per project.
Research Seed Grants
IPAI invites proposals for research seed grants that focus on applications of AI in teaching and learning. Research grants are considered “seed grants” that will test concept or gather preliminary data that will enable applications for external grant funding. Research seed grants may focus on:
- Developing novel AI/ML models, techniques, and experiments to study their application in education.
- Algorithmic biases and harms in AI applications in education
- Applications of AI in learning contexts that fall outside the traditional curriculum. Although findings might have applications in classrooms or educational contexts, the research might focus more basically on the use of AI on dimensions of learning
- Outcomes are typically further research grants, publications, conference presentations, new algorithms
- Involve faculty and students in pushing scientific boundaries, bringing together AI/ML theory and methods with learning theory
- The timeframe may be one year for preliminary data and proof of concept
Funding for research seed grants is up to $10,000 per project.
X-grants for Student Innovation
IPAI invites applications from student teams (two or more) for AI-integrated applications that support the student learning experience in the curriculum or co-curriculum. Projects could include applying AI tools in external-facing projects for social good.
Funding for student innovation grants is up to $5,000 per project.
Eligibility
All full-time and part-time faculty are welcome to submit expressions of interest and/or apply for current funding opportunities. In general, priority for innovation grants will be given to faculty teams that include at least one full-time faculty member. Wherever possible, we will work with submitted expressions of interest to create collaborations that connect part-time faculty with full-time faculty.
As part of the application process, adjunct faculty will be asked to submit a letter of support from their department chair.
All undergraduate and graduate students can apply for X-grants for Student Innovation.
Faculty, staff, and students are encouraged to partner on applications for innovation grants.
