Higher Education is also targeted for cuts, including but not limited to institutional improvement, research, and innovative technology programs. State colleges and universities, as well as minority-serving institutions, will be most impacted. The $9.2 billion in cuts represent a 13.5% drop from the U.S. Department of Education’s 2017 budget of $68.2 billion.

The following are examples of the key programs to be impacted, with deep cuts for K-12 and higher education:

• Programs for disadvantaged children to pay for school choice, including Title I funding that pays for services for low-income students, will see $1 billion in cuts to pay for a new school-choice program.
• Programs for innovation and competition will be cut in order to direct those funds to school voucher incentives. The existing program called Investing in Innovation, which is geared to assisting states experimenting with new educational approaches, would instead encourage states to create or expand school voucher programs.
• ThePublic Service Loan Program and federally subsidized student loans would be eliminated, and students would have to pay interest on the money they borrowed from the federal government, even while in school.
• Many other initiatives such as the Alaska Native Education, comprehensive and innovative literacy, enrichment and strengthening of instruction, preschool development grants, and international education and foreign language programs, both domestic and overseas, are on the chopping block for over $3 billion.
• In other cuts, low-income students and their families who depend on the federal government for help accessing healthcare, food, and shelter will see a budget cut of $193 billion in food stamp dollars. This will also have an impact on education and learning.

It is crucial that we convey to our representatives what we believe is essential to assure that our schools, students, and teachers are protected and can continue to deliver top level education and a chance at upward mobility for all students. Knowing what is in jeopardy and how it may affect you and future generations is the first step. Making your voice known to your representatives would be the next.

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Grant Search Engine

Finding the right grant for a specific research topic is a primary function of an agency’s website. Often, grants are sent to the wrong program and eliminated simply because they are not a good match. The National Science Foundation has special programs for undergraduate students and for K-12 educators. There are also program areas such as Biological Sciences and sub-programs such as Environmental Biology. A complete understanding of the goals and topics of each program is essential in matching a research idea with the proper program.

Basic and advanced searches in your area of interest are the first steps toward identifying opportunities directly related to your field. Also, signing up for email alerts in your area will give you weekly leads on what is available specifically for you.

Active Funding Opportunities: http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_list.jsp?org=NSF&ord=rcnt

Funding Opportunities by Subject Concentration: http://www.nsf.gov/funding/azindex.jsp

NSF Funding Search: http://nsf.gov/funding/

Grant Proposal Guide

The Grant Proposal Guide is an eighty page document that every applicant preparing a proposal to the NSF should know. It explains in detail the guidelines and the exact rules and regulations of the grant request, including pre-submission, proposal preparation instructions, proposal processing, and review. Many grant requests do not pass the first step in the review process simply because the guidelines were not followed.

Guide for Proposal Writing: http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=gpg

Award and Administration Guidelines

This document is especially useful for grant office administrators. It gives specific guidelines for the post-award administration requirements. Especially relevant are the guidelines for financial requirements and payments.

Award & Administration Guide: http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=aag

Responsible Conduct of Research

As the title of this document indicates, it provides information on ethical research conduct for scientists and engineers. In addition, it provides information on following the Statutory Requirements stating that “each institution that applies for financial assistance should describe in its grant proposal a plan to provide appropriate training and oversight in the responsible and ethical conduct of research to undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers participating in the proposed research project”.

Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR): http://www.nsf.gov/bfa/dias/policy/rcr.jsp

Award Search Engine

It is important to know what has recently been funded in your area of research. The NSF provides an award search engine that allows a search to be made by principal investigator’s name, university, topics, dates, and other criteria. Having a better understanding of what, who, where, and which grants are being funded gives insights into the inner workings of a particular grant program.

NSF Award Search: http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/

Tutorials

Many of the Directorates’ websites include tutorials on grant writing for their specific programs. For example, the Directorate for Education and Human Resources in their Division of Undergraduate Education includes a four step tutorial on writing a proposal. Under each step are specific instructions on how a grant should be assembled. Following these tutorials is helpful in knowing what to include in particular grant requests.

NSF Home Page: http://www.nsf.gov/index.jsp

Other Resources

The NSF website has numerous other resources that could be extremely helpful to any grantee, such as definitions of transformative, innovative, and interdisciplinary research. In addition, the News and Publications sections provide significant insight into the agency’s most important areas of interest. Last, but not least, are the NSF vision, mission, and goals for the next several years.

What is mentioned above is only a small sample of available resources. Knowing who the funder is, what the funder wants, and how the funder wants a grant application assembled is essential to successful grantsmanship. Ultimately, seeking to understand first and asking to be understood second is practical advice for all proposal writers.

The post Navigating the National Science Foundation Website appeared first on Grant Training Center Blog.

Federal Sources

Citations from federal studies have an inherent authenticity that appeals to many donors. Regardless of discipline, most researchers and writers can make use of the following sites:

• USA.gov is the most authoritative statistical portal. You can search for and find statistics spanning all topics.
• Data.gov contains data and statistics on several topics pulled from federal agencies, state and local governments, and several major institutions of higher education.
• The Bureau of Labor and Statistics is the principal fact-finding agency for the Federal Government in the broad field of work economics and statistics.
• The National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics is the nation’s leading data source for science and engineering studies.
• The Department of Education has a large collection of statistical information pertaining to education.
• PubMed is a research warehouse for nearly all medical studies conducted within the U.S.
• All of the 26 federal funding agencies, such as the Department of Justice and the Department of Agriculture, hold a wealth of data within their individual websites.
• The National Archives and Records Administration provides access to archives and historical records. Historians and librarians will greatly benefit from this site.

Multilateral Organizations

Multilateral organizations are a great source of information on national and international areas such as in health, economics, geosciences and education. The following sites are just a few of the major resources:

• The International Monetary Fund (IMF) houses a comprehensive collection of research and statistics with publications in multiple digital formats. The IMF eLibrary is an excellent resource for global statistics and information.
• The World Bank provides data on multiple global-scale topics, such as poverty, education, and technology.
• The World Health Organization is an excellent resource on world health data and statistics.
• The Asian Development Bank and African Development Bank have country-specific economic and business performance measurements, data, and statistics.
• The United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has an array of data on culture and education gathered from global studies.
• The Organization for Economic Co-Operation Development (OECD) iLibrary, although not a multi-lateral organization, can be a great resource for international data for many disciplines.

Medical and Scientific Research

The most authoritative place to begin looking for data and resources for medical research is the National Institute of Health (NIH) site. For scientific research, it is the National Science Foundation (NSF). In addition, the following resources provide further statistics for some disciplines:

• Nature.com’s Statistics for Biologists focuses on data and resources in biology.
• The American Physical Society houses resources and guides for physics research.
• The American Cancer Society focuses on data for cancer research.

Social Sciences Research

Social scientists should make use of mixed method research. Both qualitative and quantitative data can be found at the following sites:

• The American Fact Finder pulls statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau data.
• The American Psychological Association provides resources and data for psychological research.
• The American Sociological Association supplies information and links for sociological research.

To have any chance of being funded you must always start with an important idea. Once you have that, citing authoritative previous research and data to demonstrate the completeness, legitimacy, and accuracy of your idea will greatly increase that chance. The resources listed above are only the some of the countless available, but they should provide an excellent start while writing your proposal.

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CoSTEM

The multi-agency Committee on STEM Education (CoSTEM) has generated four new grants for 2015 that shift the focus to the teachers. These four funding opportunities will facilitate and encourage teachers and education administrators to develop additional high-quality STEM programs and lessons by sponsoring the following:

• STEM Innovation Proposal – This $170 million grant program will be divided among those who can demonstrate fresh ideas and new techniques to teach the next generation of innovators.
• STEM Innovation Networks – School district and college partnerships are the target of this $110 million program. The goal is to increase the number of students in STEM field career tracks.
• STEM Teacher Pathways – Recruitment and training of STEM teachers is the primary directive of this $40 million program.
• National STEM Master Teacher Corps – $20 million has been dedicated to recognition and assistance for outstanding STEM teachers who are having a real impact in their communities.

NSF

The National Science Foundation (NSF) offers ten STEM-focused grant programs, each with numerous possible directions for proposals. Primarily, the NSF focuses on undergraduate and higher levels of education; however, the agency does partner with organizations and other agencies to augment secondary STEM education. Also, the Broader Impacts section of each NSF proposal must include an outreach component in order to strengthen STEM education. Typical NSF STEM grant programs are:

• Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Talent Expansion Program (STEP) – The goal of STEP is to increase the number of students earning undergraduate degrees in STEM disciplines, with awards between $50,000 and $1.5 million.
• Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE: EHR) – This program seeks to make STEM undergraduate education a better-supported set of disciplines, whether by improving student learning experiences or institutional program reform. Awards range from $94,000 to $2 million.

Department of Education

More than thirty-four programs at the U.S. Department of Education focus on or give priority to STEM education. With the recent movement toward STEM-oriented disciplines, even more programs will be developed. The Department of Education supports all levels of education, and many K-12 school systems depend on this funding. Two examples of STEM grant programs are:

• Mathematics and Science Partnerships – The goal of this program is to improve math and science education via partnerships between K-12 school systems or education programs and STEM professionals, and between teachers and institutions of higher education for training purposes.
• Minority Science and Engineering Improvement Program – This initiative solicits long-term projects to increase the number of people from underrepresented groups, especially women.

Private Foundations

An increasing number of private foundations are taking the initiative to solve the STEM education problem in America. Support for teacher training, innovation in the classroom, or undergraduate research is available from many organizations, from local community nonprofits to globally recognized foundations. Some examples are:

• Gates Foundation – A technology component and teacher support are required for the CollegeReady program, which seeks to improve personalized learning in the classroom.
• Alfred P. Sloan Foundation – The Leadership Diversity program seeks to sponsor faculty positions and professional development for underrepresented groups.
• Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers Foundation – The Noche de Ciencias program sponsors a series of informative and interactive student activities throughout the community to generate an interest of the STEM disciplines in Hispanic students.
• Burroughs Wellcome Fund – Promoting Innovation in Science and Mathematics (PrISM) awards are granted to exceptional K-12 teachers for classroom support in STEM education.

The call to action from these organizations has broadened the horizons for those who have been seeking to make a difference in their classrooms or institutions. Innovative, creative, and outcome- and student-centered approaches are what will drive the changes toward correcting America’s STEM education problem.

The post Fixing America`s STEM Problem: Funding Opportunities appeared first on Grant Training Center Blog.

The Learning Environment and Challenging Curriculum

Funding requests should include the following best practices for a positive learning environment:

• Encouraged collaboration between students
• Topics that relate to student interests and the discovery process
• Integration of math, science, and technology to help students understand the importance and connections between these fields
• Focus on hands-on experience, not just textbook learning
• Students should be helped to understand that failure is a normal occurrence while learning, and under no circumstances should they be punished for failure
• Flexible curriculum that demonstrates and facilitates creativity
• Use of latest technology, visual aids, and laboratory kits to foster learning
• An inquiry-based experiential curriculum that is clearly defined and understood
• Real-world applications
• Critical thinking and problem solving
• Student-centered plans to carry out investigations
• Students critiquing their own and their peers’ science practices
• Criteria that incorporate local, state, and national standards

Teacher Training on Inquiry-Based Learning

I would agree with Bill Gates, who said: “Technology is just a tool. In terms of getting the kids working together and motivating them, the teacher is the most important.” Teacher training should be ongoing and provide the techniques to use state-of-the-art technology and experiential teaching approaches. The focus should be on how teachers and students can work together as active learners. Specifically, training should include:

• Outcome-based lessons, whereby teachers transform their classes to include components of their training
• Topics for classroom instruction, such as: inquiry-based science teaching, the frontiers of science, and the analysis of difficult problems
• Subjects that lead to inquiry-based science learning with embedded student experiments
• An emphasis on the importance of student diversity, individuality, and uniqueness

Defined Outcomes or Assessment

Your proposal should clearly identify goals and objectives, and success should be measured against them. These should reflect the short-, mid-, and long-term outcomes. The evaluation should include a mixed method approach, in which quantitative and qualitative information is sought. The resulting assessment must clearly demonstrate a continuous effort to improve the program and ensure that all students are reached.

Sustained Commitment from the School Leadership, Parents and Community

In order for any STEM program to be sustained, collective support should be a major factor. This should begin with the school leadership, who should encourage and reward teachers who practice inquiry learning. Just as importantly, parents should be recognized for being involved in their children’s education. The community can also become an active partner via the funding from private industry.

These elements need to be included in a funding request to the donor to win STEM education grants. Both the public and private sectors are now offering funding opportunities, based on the urgency of this problem.

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