PROPOSAL DEADLINE: April 17, 2023
Topic for 2023: Motivation and Purposeful Work: Finding your Passion
ACS is pleased to put out a call to ACS faculty and staff for the preparation and implementation of inter-institutional summer virtual workshops, working groups, writing accountability groups, and reading groups. This year we want to facilitate Motivation and Purposeful Work: Finding your Passion. This can be interpreted in a number of ways – are you thinking about ways to help your students find the passion in their studies with you? If so, what are some pedagogical solutions that you can discover and use in the classroom? It might involve mentoring, or a different way of assessing learning. It might involve the gamification, or role-playing, or scenario-building or integration of more high-impact practices both in- and out-of-the-classroom. You might be thinking of how you can reinvigorate yourself in your own work as a teacher/scholar. How do you go about this? It might be that you need some colleagues to work together on writing or to participate in a reading group – either on books regarding motivation or other topics related to your field or to the pursuit of teaching or mentoring. Finally, you may be in the position of mentoring and/or supervising others – how can you help others find their passion in their work?
This program will support the following:
- Workshops: the development and implementation of well-planned, highly interactive, substantive 90-minute sessions with accompanying “take-away” focused on some aspect of Motivation and Purposeful Work: Finding your Passion (1-4 faculty or staff members) and delivered to relevant colleagues across the ACS campuses; or
- Working Groups: groups of 4-8 faculty and/or staff participating in multiple conversations to develop and/or curate relevant material supporting aspect of Motivation and Purposeful Work: Finding your Passion, to be shared (both the resources and how they can be used) with colleagues across the ACS.
- Reading Groups: ACS will create 2-3 ACS Summer Reading Groups, each focused on a book related to pedagogy (generally) or a disciplinary topic. (Each group is for up 6-to-8 individuals from across at least 3 institutions who will meet together virtually at least 4 times to discuss the book and to think about how it applies to their own work.
- Writing Accountability Groups: ACS will create 2-3 ACS Summer Writing Accountability Groups – Please see separate announcement for description and application instructions for these groups.
Modeling Inclusion & Equity:
All Workshops, Working Group sessions, Writing Accountability Groups and Reaching Groups, as well as any shared materials should model inclusive practices, and their content should give consideration to the diversity of our students, faculty and staff, and our desire for inclusion, equity, and anti-racism.
Timeline:
Workshops should be offered to ACS faculty and Staff in time for them to prepare for fall semester–that is, between June 1 and August 15. Workshops will be delivered by Zoom and will be open, via registration, to faculty and staff from all 16 ACS Colleges.
Working Groups are expected to conduct their work over the summer through a minimum of three synchronous conversations via web conferencing (e.g., Zoom, Webex, Teams) and deliver their artifact/resources for the ACS to share across campuses by August 15. Working Groups might also choose to supplement their resource with a 30-60-minute Zoom panel discussion of how they resources can best be used.
Products:
All Workshops will be recorded, shared, and will leave participants with at least one useful artifact. All Working Groups will collaboratively develop at least one substantive product (e.g., curated library of resources) for participating faculty and, more importantly, share with relevant ACS colleagues, possibly through a video panel discussion. (Past Summer workshops and working group materials can be seen at https://www.acsouth.edu/core-initiatives/professional-development/resources-pedagogies/ )
These artifacts and resources should be content-rich and immediately helpful (e.g., relevant instructions or lesson plans, templates for activities or modules, a curated and annotated collection of high-quality resources, a collection of effective practices and recommendations, case studies, assignments, handouts, reading materials, videos, etc.).
Because ACS campuses use a variety of learning management systems (e.g., Canvas or Moodle), all artifacts and resources should be LMS-independent. These collaborations are possible through the collaborative curriculum and innovative instruction areas of our 2016 grant from the Mellon Foundation.
Stipends:
Funded Workshop designers and facilitators, as well as Working Group facilitators will each receive a $1,000 stipend upon successful completion of the work; Working Group participants (other than the one facilitator) will receive a $500 stipend upon completion of work. The assumption is that the bulk of the work comes in the planning of a good Workshop, or in the ongoing collaboration of a productive Working Group. Priority will be given to collaborative, cross-campus applications; as we receive multiple proposals on the same topic, we will facilitate the formation of cross-campus collaborations from among applicants. Members of writing groups or reading groups will also receive a stipend of $500. All working groups, reading groups, and writing accountability groups should include collaborators from at least 3 different ACS institutions; Workshops should include colleagues from at least two institutions. Workshops will be delivered by Zoom and will be shared across the consortium. All libraries of curated resources from the working groups will be available for use by members of the consortium; reading groups will be asked to develop a reader’s guide for group discussion.
How do I apply to organize or participant in Working Groups and Workshops?
Phase I: Short Proposal of Working Groups and Workshops
Submit proposals by email to sfabritius@acsouth.edu by April 17, 2023.
- Name, title, ACS institution, and email of any collaborators– NOTE: We will facilitate multi-campus collaboration, so do not worry if you have not yet built these collaborations. All projects must be multi-campus collaborations.
- Title of Workshop or Working Group
- A short half-page paragraph summary of your topic and approach. In this, please include a description of your topic; the relevant experience or expertise of primary applicant and any key collaborators; the relevance of your proposed project to the topic of Motivation in Purposeful Work: Finding Your Passion; and your plan (the Workshop’s learning objectives, activities, and artifact(s), or Working Group’s goals for the conversations and resulting resource(s) to share. Please also include how you will be modeling and promoting the principles of inclusive teaching during activities and in products.
- Timeline: Include the commencement of work, proposed week(s) for Workshop (between June 7 & Aug 15) or tentative schedule of Working Group meetings and date of shared resource (before Aug 15).
- Bibliography (if needed)
- Please respond: If similar proposals are received from multiple institutions, would you be willing to collaborate with other ACS faculty or staff members to co-develop and deliver the Workshop, or as additional Working Group members?
Phase II: Working Groups and Work Shops
We will post the proposed workshop and working group topics and descriptions on the ACS website in order to find additional collaborators (if necessary). If we receive multiple proposals for similar topics, we will work with those proposing the topics to see if we can consolidate groups. Once workshops and working groups have their members, the proposals will be reviewed by a small selection committee of ACS members and ACS staff.
Selection:
An ACS Virtual Workshop/Working Group Taskforce (members to come from ACS member institutions and ACS office) will evaluate proposals based on the clarity and potential impact of the plans, their relationship to the 2023 topic, and the relevant expertise of the applicants.
Note that we will look for similarities within proposal topics and encourage same-topic collaborations across campuses. This means that we understand that your proposal may be modified by you with further collaboration. Our ACS/Mellon grant requires multi-campus collaborations.
Successful applicants will be notified and working groups/workshop developers will be set no later than May 15. We will follow-up to discuss plans and next steps, including ACS publicizing of upcoming Workshops and Working Groups’ planned resource(s).
How do I apply to be part of an ACS Summer Virtual Reading Group?
Phase I: Brief Application – Please email to sfabritius@acsouth.edu by April 17, 2023
- Please provide your Name, Institution, and title.
- Provide the topic, name of book, and author of suggested reading.
- Explain why this book is of interest to you and how it is related to the 2023 Topic.
- Share the names of others who may be interested in participating in this reading group. (Remember that all reading groups must include participants from at least 3 ACS institutions.)
Phase 2: The Selection Taskforce will select a subset (likely 2-3) of titles to move forward as reading groups. We will then share the open reading group topics on the ACS website and take applications for potential members. Groups will be formed and notified no later than May 15.
How do I apply to be part of a Writing Accountability Group? Please see separate attachment.
Questions?
Please don’t hesitate to contact Stephanie Fabritius (sfabritius@acsouth.edu). Please include Summer virtual workshops/working groups question in the SUBJECT LINE.