Submit your IDEATION PROPOSAL by 5 pm ET on Monday, December 2, 2024.

The Center for Applied Research and Design in Transformative Education (CARADITE) at Duke Learning Innovation and Lifetime Education (LILE) is pleased to announce its Emerging Pedagogies Seed Grants call for proposals. Selected Duke faculty will comprise a second cohort of CARADITE collaborators whose research projects will commence during the 2025-2026 academic year. Funding for Seed Grants will typically range from $2,000 to $10,000 annually.

CARADITE is Duke’s think-tank and living laboratory for innovative research and design about transformative education. The Center explores critical questions across lifetime learning journeys, spanning pre-college through post-career. Emerging Pedagogies Seed Grants support CARADITE’s mission of co-designing timely research, generating meaningful insights, and developing iterative programming about transformative education. This program is in support of the Duke 2030 goals and ambitions to enhance teaching and learning at Duke. Funding for this grants program is provided by LILE.

Program Goals and Priorities

CARADITE’s Emerging Pedagogies Seed Grants program advances three related goals:

  1. Supporting and facilitating early-stage research projects about emerging pedagogies and related student learning practices.
  2. Cultivating a more connected and robust community of faculty at Duke who are thinking about and exploring with emerging and innovative pedagogies.
  3. Promoting the engagement of Duke voices in national conversations about emerging pedagogies and pedagogical scholarship through peer-reviewed publications and presentations on educational research at relevant conferences.

Priorities for this program include, but are not limited to, researching how transformative approaches to pedagogy can reimagine:

  • How learning is designed, including through the use of participatory and collaborative methods.
  • How learning advances equity and inclusion, for example through pedagogies of care and critical pedagogies.
  • How learning affirms students’ identities and interests, including with instructional methods that are culturally-responsive and justice-directed.
  • How technology enables learning, including through the use of generative AI, augmented reality, virtual reality, simulations, as well as with digital and social media.
  • Where learning is facilitated, including across classrooms, online, and community-based settings while also utilizing synchronous and asynchronous modalities.
  • With whom learning occurs, including with children and youth, university undergraduate and graduate students, K-12 educators, professionals and alumni, post-career learners, and other community members.
  • How learning is assessed, including through competency-based, formative, and ungrading approaches.
  • How learning inspires social change, as with novel inquiries at the intersection of equity, education, technology, and society.

Eligibility

Project Lead: A Project Lead must be a Duke or Duke Health faculty member of any rank, from any discipline in any school or university institute, initiative or center (UIC). Preference will be given to regular rank faculty. A faculty member may serve as Project Lead for only one Seed Grant proposal.

Project Co-Lead: A Seed Grant project may include, but is not required to include, a Co-Lead on the grant application. A Co-Lead may be a Duke or Duke Health faculty member of any rank, from any discipline in any school or university institute, initiative or center (UIC), or a Duke staff member. A Co-Lead may be listed as Co‐Lead on a maximum of two proposals. There should be no more than one Co‐Lead on any Seed Grant proposal.

Scope and Duration

Applicants should propose a research plan, with a matching budget, that will be completed within one year. However, CARADITE encourages researchers to approach funding activities as a multi-year effort, and successful applicants will have the opportunity to request additional funding for up to two years pending a progress report and review during the Spring 2026 semester. Continued funding is also contingent on project team participation in CARADITE activities including periodic check-ins with Center leadership, as well as annual events like the Emerging Pedagogies Summit and related activities. Project Leads may be able to apply for up to $1,000 in conference registration or travel funding to support presenting about their educational research at pedagogical or educational research conference(s) in 2026 or later.

Proposal Development, Submission, and Review Timeline

This grant program seeks to support and grow a community of innovative educational researchers at Duke. Similarly, our phased review process is intended to encourage ideation, dialogue, and scaffolded design for thinking audaciously and creatively about transformative teaching and learning.

Round 1: Ideation

  • Monday, December 2, 2024: Ideation Proposals are due by 5 pm ET.
  • Friday, December 20, 2024: Applicants whose proposals will move forward to Round 2 will be contacted and invited to a one-hour dialogue and project consultation.

Round 2: Project Consultation 

  • January 2025: Select applicants will meet with CARADITE leadership for a one-hour project consultation focused on study design, research questions, methods, IRB status, requests for support, and next steps.

Round 3: Final Proposal

  • Monday, February 3, 2025: A small group of finalist applicants will be invited to submit a final Seed Grants proposal.
  • Monday, March 3, 2025: Final applications are due by 5 pm ET.

By Monday, March 31, 2025: Final Seed Grant proposal applicants will be notified of funding decisions.

April 2025: Cohort programming commences, including a required community-building event for the incoming cohort of grant recipients.

Proposal Requirements

Ideation Proposals include the following items:

  1. Summarize your proposed research project in one sentence.
  2. Imagine, three years from now, that this proposal has been funded and your research successfully implemented. How has your project meaningfully changed teaching and learning practices, and what new insights have you learned about emerging pedagogies?
  3. Why are you passionate about this project, and what uniquely qualifies you to lead this research?
  4. How will you design and implement this research so that the project supports student-centered, as well as inclusive and more equitable, pedagogies and practices?
  5. What challenges do you anticipate while advancing this project, and how might CARADITE assist your research?
  6. Seed Grants typically range from $2,000 to $10,000. How much funding do you anticipate requesting?

Final Seed Grants Proposals include the following items: 

  1. Study background and motivation, relationship to current literature and applicant’s prior research (if applicable), the proposed research question(s) and methods, potential impact (including anticipated presentation and/or publication opportunities), as well as the project start date and end date. 
  2. A list of research team members, including name, email address, affiliation, and project role. A CV for the Project Lead and, if applicable, the Co-Project Lead.
  3. A proposed budget for the first year of the project, including a budget justification for how proposed funding will be used and how funding will enable project success. Regarding a project’s budget, please note:
    • Funding from other sources for the same or related work should be disclosed.
    • Funds may not be used to support faculty effort, full-time staff effort, travel (unless required for research) or monetary distributions to support secondary or related projects. 
  4. A timeline that provides a projection of progress and benchmarks for the first year of the project. 
  5. A copy of an approved IRB protocol, only in the case that an applicant has already conducted some research related to the proposal (if applicable).

Selection Criteria

Applicants invited to submit a final Seed Grants proposal will have their proposals evaluated according to the following criteria:

  • Alignment to program priorities outlined above
  • Feasibility of the research design and appropriate research methodology
  • Awareness of current knowledge, practice, and/or literature
  • Focus on research that supports student-centered, as well as inclusive and more equitable, pedagogies and practices
  • Feedback from project consultation incorporated into final proposal
  • Potential for novel and impactful outcomes
  • Project activities start date no later than July 2025

Sharing Progress

Recipients will complete a brief report at the conclusion of the funding cycle, due during the Spring 2026 semester, that summarizes project activities and outcomes, details budget expenses, and describes efforts to sustain or build upon project successes (if applicable). Recipients will also be expected to share their work by participating in the Fall 2025 or Fall 2026 Emerging Pedagogies Summit.

Recipients will be invited to contribute to CARADITE publications and other programming activities (such as Emerging Pedagogies webinars).

Contact Information

If you have questions about this CFP please contact CARADITE.

FAQ

How is this CFP different from other research CFPs for faculty?

This CFP supports faculty to conduct research and build knowledge about emerging pedagogies and student learning. This grant program aims to grow the community of Duke researchers interested in producing scholarship and public knowledge about transformative teaching and learning practices.

I’m a faculty member at DKU. Can I apply?

Project leads for this CFP should be Duke or Duke Health faculty. DKU faculty can be co-leads. DKU faculty interested in similar educational research projects are also encouraged to contact DKU’s Center for Teaching and Learning, which offers CFPs specific to the DKU community.

I’m a clinical faculty member in the School of Medicine or School of Nursing. Can I apply?

Yes.

Must my research project include students in courses I teach?

No. Research projects may involve faculty studying teaching and learning practices associated with their own students and courses; however, this is not a requirement of this grant program.

My idea for an Emerging Pedagogies Seed Grant does not involve emerging technologies, such as generative AI. Is that ok?

Yes.