2019-20 Innovation Grants
Each year, the Center invites the Cornell teaching community to propose projects that explore new strategies, emerging technologies, and approaches to facilitate vibrant, challenging, and reflective learning experiences. The 2019-20 grant recipients developed unique, creative ways to bring new learning opportunities to students and advance teaching within their disciplines. Read about the projects below, and click the images for video.
The CTI has funded a wide range of faculty projects through the Innovative Teaching & Learning Awards. Explore the variety of innovation projects: 2022-23 | 2021-22 | 2019-20 | 2018-19
Projected Natures
Landscape Architecture
Jennifer Birkeland, Assistant Professor
Jennifer Birkeland used the award to develop a course in which students would use biosensors to understand how individuals interacted with environments. The students then used those data to design new virtual environments to explore or evoke emotions.
Because of the shift to remote teaching in Spring 2020, Birkeland had students explore their own emotions around the pandemic through virtual spaces they created.
"I really wanted to bring that idea that a virtual landscape has the ability to evoke strong emotions into the classroom." - Jennifer Birkeland
3D Anatomy and Physiology
Biology
Darlene Campbell, Senior Lecturer & Andrew St. James, Graduate Student
Darlene Campbell and Andrew St. James used their grant to incorporate the Organon 3D software into their anatomy class to help students explore tissues and processes that cannot be investigated through ordinary dissection.
"Part of the appeal of the software is the ability to manipulate it in real time." - Darlene Campbell
Building your own Neuroscience Equipment
Neurobiology & Behavior
David Deitcher, associate professor & Bruce Johnson, senior research associate
David Deitcher and Bruce Johnson, together with James Ryan, professor of biology at Hobart & William Smith Colleges, used their innovation grant to develop an inexpensive microscope that would allow them to see neurons in action.
"We can really change how undergraduate neuroscience is taught across the country." - David Deitcher
Atmospheric Dynamics in Motion
Earth & Atmospheric Sciences
Peter Hitchcock, assistant professor & Mark Wysocki, senior lecturer
Through their Innovation grant, Peter Hitchcock and Mark Wysocki incorporated Jupyter Notebooks into their Atmospheric Dynamics course. The Jupyter Notebook is an app that allows students to use real forecast data in visualizations, and manipulate those data to explore the impact on forecast flows.
"It has really reinforced how important it is to actively engage students in the material." - Peter Hitchcock
Bending Instruments
Science & Technology Studies & Music
Trevor Pinch, Goldwin Smith Professor of Science & Technology Studies &
Marianthi Papalexandri-Alexandri, assistant professor of music
Trevor Pinch and Marianthi Papalexandri-Alexandri were awarded a grant to develop a class in which students create an instrument and use it to explore aspects of sound and performance. As the move to remote learning during the pandemic limited access to materials and workshop tools, Pinch & Papalexandri-Alexandri asked students to be creative and use their own living spaces and materials they had on hand to complete the assignment.
"When you are facing an unexpected situation, you have one option, which is to improvise." - Marianthi Papalexandri-Alexandri
Faculty Learning Communities for STEM
Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
Michelle K. Smith, associate professor & Claire Meaders, postdoctoral associate
Michelle K. Smith used an innovation award to continue faculty learning communities for STEM gateway course instructors. She was able to hire Claire L. Meaders, now assistant professor of biology at University of California, San Diego, as a postdoctoral associate to extend a pilot they had run in 2018-2019 to add additional faculty and different courses.
"We took away the silos of being in a specific department and made the common language data-driven teaching changes." - Michelle K. Smith