Curriculum-Unit Grants

Starting in January 2006, the Kuyers Institute for Christian Teaching and Learning will award up to three Curriculum-Unit Grants annually. Each grant will enable the applicant to work together with a mentor to develop a curriculum unit in any area of the curriculum that will contribute to the development of creative approaches to Christian teaching and learning. The resulting units will be made available to teachers via the Kuyers Institute website.

Purpose
The purposes of these grants are:

  1. To capture creative pedagogical ideas developed by students and provide a structure within which they can be further developed into quality teaching units that can be more widely shared
  2. To encourage active and collaborative involvement in curriculum development by beginning Christian teachers
  3. To support the development of fresh approaches to Christian teaching and learning by providing innovative teaching units online

Eligibility
Application is open to any person who either is currently enrolled as a student in an initial teacher education program at Calvin College or is a beginning teacher who graduated from Calvin College within 5 years prior to the date of application. Joint applications, if accepted, will receive the award split equally between the two applicants. Applications are welcomed from teachers and future teachers of any grade level in K–12 education and any area of the curriculum.

Criteria
Applicants should submit a proposal for a teaching unit within their area of teaching expertise. It is expected that the proposed unit will already have undergone some initial development and exist in clear outline (goals, some key tasks and resources, assessment strategies) but have potential for further development. A "teaching unit" for the purposes of this grant opportunity refers to a planned sequence of teaching and learning activities covering between one and two weeks of instruction, including teacher's notes, a clear rationale, and all necessary supporting materials. The proposal should outline the goals of the unit, describe one or two key learning tasks, and indicate how the unit needs to be further developed and how it will contribute to Christian teaching and learning.

Strong applications will show clear potential in the areas of pedagogical effectiveness, creative approach, and contribution to integrally Christian approaches to teaching and learning. They may include units that directly teach Christian concepts, but they could also include work that contributes to students' spiritual and moral growth through other areas of learning or that frames learning in other areas in identifiably Christian ways. Units may be designed for the particular needs of either Christian or public school contexts.

Process
The Institute will award up to three grants annually to projects selected by a committee from those submitted. The Institute reserves the right not to make awards in any given year if no applications are judged to sufficiently further the purposes of the grant program. Each award recipient will receive a stipend of $800 for 80 hours of further work on the unit, and will be assigned to a teacher mentor, who will receive a stipend of $300. The teacher mentor will meet periodically with the award recipient to discus the development of the unit and will also trial the unit in his or her classroom when it is in the final stages of development. The final unit will be published online at this website for use at no cost by other teachers. If development of the unit directly entails particular costs (e.g., travel to obtain interview or visual material), applicants may request discretionary assistance of up to $300 towards these costs, which should be detailed in the initial application. This additional funding may not be applied to the purchase of equipment.

Timeline

  • Initial applications should be submitted by January 15, 2007.
  • Selection of award recipients and notification of applicants will take place by February 15, 2007.
  • Successful applicants will develop their unit into near-final form between March and September 2007. Payment of the stipend will be made in increments as work on the unit progresses.
  • Classroom trials of the unit and final revision will take place in October 2007.
  • The unit will be prepared for publication and posted online in December 2007.

Download the application here (MS Word form).