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The Grand Challenge: Overcoming the Calculus Barrier to STEM Success

Governor’s Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation · 5107

Eligibility details

Teams must include faculty and/or administrative co-principal investigators (PIs/co-PIs) from at least two of California’s public higher education segments. Additional partnerships, such as with private independent/nonprofit institutions and/or industry partners, are permitted. One institution must be identified as a host institution, which will be responsible for receipt/administration of the grant funds.

Matching funds & resources

Source matching-funds field: Not Required.

Matching funds and leveraged resources are different requirements. Read the description and reviewed rules below before determining resource commitments.

About this opportunity

Calculus is considered to be foundational to many STEM fields. Students are often required to enroll in this course series in their first year as they pursue life sciences, physical sciences, computational sciences, and engineering degrees. However, the college calculus sequence often poses considerable barriers for prospective STEM students. Retention and degree completion gaps are especially prevalent for Black/African Americans, Latinx, Native American, and Pacific Islander groups and women, despite showing high levels of interest in STEM. To help close these gaps, Learning Lab is inviting faculty teams from California’s public higher education institutions to reconceptualize the role of and approach to calculus in a student’s first year introductory STEM experience. Learning Lab intends to award up to five grants of approximately $1 million to $1.5 million over three years to support new, innovative ways to teach calculus, or reimagine the role of calculus in STEM majors where calculus is a prerequisite. Awardees will join the Grand Challenge Cohort through which they will share ideas, approaches, findings, data, and outcomes over the three-year grant period. Grounded in their experiences, awardees will collaboratively produce, by the end of the grant period, recommendations for model first-year STEM curricula with effective pedagogical approaches and faculty professional development components built in. A coordinating institution or project team will be selected to receive $500,000 over three years to foster collaboration among grantees and serve as the Cohort Facilitator.

Funding geography: Learning Lab funds are intended to be used in California. If the project necessitates the use of Learning Lab funds outside of California, provide a brief justification and estimate of the funding that will leave the state. The amount of funds that can leave the state will be subject to the final award agreement.

Funding instrument: Grant. Issuing jurisdiction: California. This is not a geographic eligibility determination.