Marion Horstmann Grant

The Marion Horstmann Online Teaching Innovation Grant funds the development of outstanding online teaching and learning strategies.

School of Continuing & Professional Studies (CAPS) students are:

  • racially and ethnically diverse;
  • living off campus;
  • juggling multiple adult responsibilities (jobs, families, aging parents); and
  • a range of ages and identities.

Modern students need an education that is connected to their life, future work, or civic duty; leverages their prior experience; develops their network; develops their skillset with scaffolded assignments; and is flexible and affordable.

Successful proposals will innovate to meet the needs of the modern student and be adaptable across multiple disciplines.

Proposals will be judged on:

  • anticipated impact on student learning, engagement, and retention;
  • potential for wide-spread adoption across or within disciplines;
  • potential for scalability; and
  • instructor record of outstanding teaching.

View a list of previous grant recipients and proposals.

Award amount

$5,000

Timeline

  • Applications open: April 1
  • Proposal deadline: June 1
  • Award announced: July 1

The recipient is expected to teach in the following academic year and present their project at the Spring CAPS Show and Share.

Eligibility Requirements

Recipients of the award must have taught two semesters at Washington University in St. Louis.

Proposal Guidelines

Proposals should be limited to three pages and should address the following:

  • Description of the proposed teaching and learning strategy. Where relevant, include links or examples that illustrate the strategy.
  • Purpose: How will the strategy impact student learning, engagement, and retention?
  • Feasibility: Can the strategy be carried out with current Washington University technological resources? Are additional resources required? Explain.
  • Application: To what courses that you teach would you apply this strategy? Comment on the scalability of the proposed strategy. If granted the award, which semester(s) are you available to teach at CAPS?

Attach a CV; include courses taught at Washington University as part of the CV or as an addendum.

Submit Your Proposal

Submit proposals to Pat Matthews, Associate Dean for Academics.

Previous Horstmann Grant Recipients

Saher Alam, Creative Writing, proposed building a series of Canvas-based modules that instructors could plug into the existing coursework to deepen their students’ engagement with the course content and the writing process in general.

See more of Saher’s proposal.

Bryn Lutes, Chemistry, proposed designing a discussion-based applied mathematics course that would help students build confidence in their mathematical abilities and help them develop of set of problem-solving strategies they could apply in many situations.

See more of Bryn’s proposal.

Jeremy Caddel, International Affairs, proposed redesigning American Foreign Policy “to emphasize the collaborative active learning modeled on the Reacting to the Past curriculum, which integrates role-play and competitive game mechanics to inspire high levels of engagement and deep learning.”

See more of Jeremy’s proposal.

Susan Craig, International Affairs, proposed teaching a course that incorporates synchronous national security decision-making simulations utilizing the Model Diplomacy simulations built by the Council on Foreign Relations.

See more of Susan’s proposal.