ANN ARBOR—The University of Michigan’s investment in engaged education is about to get much bigger as leaders prepare to award faculty and staff grants of $100,000 to $3 million for new approaches to teaching and learning.

This is the amount of money potentially available in the latest round of funding through the university’s Third Century Initiative.

U-M announced today that it seeks proposals for the first Transformation Grants, which were established to fund programs that represent “large-scale changes to instruction and/or infrastructure.” Eligible programs will enable faculty and staff to implement new learning approaches that are sustainable and replicable.

“As a large residential institution and a place of discovery, we believe that the U-M provides an outstanding platform from which engaged student learning experiences can be launched, in which students learn to wrestle with complex, ambiguous and authentic problems, and in which they come to embrace working in teams, wherein diverse perspectives are the key to finding good outcomes in attacking that problem,” said James Holloway, U-M’s Vice Provost for Global and Engaged Education.

“Our goal is to develop these opportunities at large scale, with experiences ranging from engagement within existing classroom structures to civic engagement in Detroit, to educational experiences all around the globe. All of this for literally thousands of students annually.”

Following the success of two other grant programs for the development of engaged learning courses and opportunities, the Transformation phase is focused on department, division or college-level changes that evidence shows will favorably impact the education of students.

“We have already seen faculty and staff embrace this concept with more than 75 smaller projects funded over the past two years,” said Melanie Sanford, Moses Gomberg Collegiate Professor of Chemistry and chair of the steering committee for the initiative. “We are now ready to move to the next level of large scale engaged education projects.”

The president and provost announced the Third Century Initiative in 2011, as leaders began to plan for the university’s 2017 bicentennial and set a course for teaching and scholarship in the new century. They allocated $25 million to fund student learning under a program called Transforming Learning for the Third Century (TLTC).

To further cement the commitment to transforming the student learning experience, Holloway was named to direct the global and engaged education effort within the Office of the Provost. U-M leaders also made engaged learning a goal in the current $4 billion Victors for Michigan campaign, announced in the fall.

To date, the TLTC team, comprised of faculty and staff from across campus, has awarded five rounds of Quick Wins and three rounds of Discovery grants. Quick Wins are small-scale, easily ready courses or programs eligible for funding up to $25,000. Discovery grants provide up to $50,000 for projects that allow a general education hypothesis to be explored and planned or piloted.

Some of the Quick Win and Discovery projects funded and under way include:

Citizen Interaction Design
Students developed information tools such as apps and social media sites to foster citizen engagement with government. Through a unique three-year partnership, students work on 10 projects with the city of Jackson, Mich. http://bit.ly/1hvGYXt

Into the Wind
This multidisciplinary course under development focuses on the opportunities and controversies surrounding wind energy. Collaborators include dance, music, visual arts, literature, and natural resources and environment faculty and students from U-M and Grand Valley State University. Government and industry leaders round out the team that will explore alternative energy, culminating in a performance in Muskegon, Mich. http://bit.ly/1uARIxJ

Teacher, social work competencies to enhance school performance of trauma-affected adolescents
Faculty and students from the schools of education and social work will develop a new initiative, in collaboration with a southeast Michigan alternative school, to prepare young professionals to work with adolescents who have experienced violence, instability or other traumatic events. http://bit.ly/1lgxarG

E2Coach electronic coaching program
The program is designed to improve student success in large introductory science and math courses. It’s a data-driven and yet personalized program that developers say combines next-generation learning analytics with the best of behavioral change theory. http://bit.ly/JmYbJL

Growing community at the U-M farm
Volunteers developed a new campus farm on a roughly two-acre spot located at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens. Unlike most university farms that have the goal of teaching about agriculture as a business, this one is focused on sustainable food systems. http://bit.ly/1slrddM