UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State’s Center for Online Innovation in Learning (COIL) has announced it will fund three new projects through its Research Initiation Grant Program.
The goal of the grant program is to provide seed money for Penn State researchers to gather preliminary evidence in the hope of pursuing external funding for larger studies that enhance teaching and learning through online innovation.
The following three projects have received grants from COIL’s spring 2016 round of funding:
- Alexander Klippel, associate department head and director of the graduate program, Department of Geography; director, Human Factors in GIScience Lab; College of Earth and Mineral Sciences: “Immersive Virtual Reality (iVR): The Printing Press of the 21st Century and How Learning About Place and Space will Never be the Same”;
- Qiyuan Li, doctoral student of learning, design, and technology, College of Education: “ClassGotcha: Goal-oriented Personalized Online Learning Management System Supported by Educational Data Mining”; and
- Jan Reimann, assistant professor of mathematics, Eberly College of Science: “Improving Student Understanding and Mastery of Calculus using an online step-by-step learning platform.”
“We received a great batch of strong proposals from an expanding community of faculty, staff and student researchers working to enhance learning,” said Kyle Peck, co-director of COIL. “These projects emerged from a peer review process, edging out other worthy proposals. It's exciting to see the momentum developing and Penn State increasing its contributions in this area.”
COIL’s Research Initiation Grant program began in 2012, and funding has been made available to applicants each fall and spring semester. The next round of funding closes Nov. 14.
COIL is a research and development center housed at Penn State that engages the University’s extensive research enterprise to improve online learning. The core mission of COIL is to build and sustain a culture of innovation, collaboration, and invention focused on improving teaching and learning. COIL serves faculty, staff and students interested in the transformation of the educational paradigm.
For more information about the Research Initiation Grant program and past recipients, visit the COIL website.