Reimagining Higher Education Grants award funding to faculty projects that reimagine how UC Berkeley can best continue to ensure broad access to an excellent education in light of technological, societal, and funding changes.
2025 Recipients
- Askademia: Transforming Lecture Engagement in Gateway EECS and Data Science Courses (College of Computing, Data Science, and Society and College of Engineering)
- John DeNero, Associate Teaching Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
- Narges Norouzi, Associate Teaching Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
Project Summary: Large EECS and Data Science courses at Berkeley often enroll hundreds of students per lecture. This size creates persistent barriers to interactive learning: students are reluctant to interrupt lectures with clarifying questions, while those who view recordings asynchronously lack avenues for immediate clarification. Through this project, our objective is to extend Askademia’s deployment to gateway and high-demand courses across Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS) and Data Science (DS) courses, reaching an estimated 6,000–8,000 students per semester. In doing so, the project aims to enhance interactive, technology-enhanced learning; embeds automated low-stakes assessments with peer dialogue; and improves access and success in gateway courses at less-than-proportional cost growth.
- The Development of a Virtual Scalable Summer Program to Close the Gap in High-School Preparation for College of Chemistry Undergraduates (College of Chemistry)
- Roya Maboudian, Professor, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
- Anne Baranger, Dean, College of Chemistry
- Marissa Yanez, Chief Diversity Officer, College of Chemistry
- Debjani Roy, Lecturer, College of Chemistry
Project Summary: This project seeks to implement impactful and sustainable resources that help close the preparation gap between our students. To do this, the project will analyze, improve, scale and optimize a new virtual summer accelerator program piloted in summer 2025. This “CoC Summer Accelerator” program leverages resources from UC Scout to deliver an online asynchronous version of AP Chemistry that can be taken over the summer prior to freshman year, and is complemented with the delivery of a professional development curriculum to help support our students. Given that this summer accelerator program is delivered virtually and largely asynchronously, this program has the potential not only to help close the high-school preparation gap within the College of Chemistry, but could also easily scale to help close the preparation gap across other STEM disciplines at UC Berkeley, and within STEM disciplines at the most competitive UC campuses (UCSD & UCLA) who face similar issues.
- Embedding Writing Fellows in Social Science and STEM Courses (Townsend Center for the Humanities)
- Ramona Naddaff, Associate Professor, Rhetoric; Director, Art of Writing
- Rebecca Egger, Executive Director, Townsend Center for the Humanities and Art of Writing
- Jane Liaw, Assistant Director, Art of Writing
Project Summary: Expanding the established Writing Fellows program, housed within the Townsend Center's Art of Writing Program, this project will focus on gateway courses and lower- and upper-division elective lecture courses in social science and STEM departments to cultivate the craft of writing and the teaching of writing at UC Berkeley. Embedding Writing Fellows into these courses will enable pedagogically innovative, efficient, and cost-effective ways for faculty outside the humanities to integrate training in discipline-specific writing into the very courses that prepare students for the major.
- Equitable Instruction by Design: A Pilot for Transformative Teaching and Learning (School of Education)
- Glynda Hull, Professor, School of Education
Project Summary: We propose to develop and pilot an innovative model for faculty professional development in instructional design in the Berkeley School of Education (BSE)’s undergraduate major in Educational Sciences (established in 2024) and its minor in Education (established in 1990). Through piloting this instructional design professional development workshop we propose to achieve the following: (1) increase the integration of interactive and collaborative technology-enhanced learning experiences across the curriculum of six undergraduate education courses; (2) create technology-driven opportunities for students to receive teacher-to-student and peer-to-peer feedback on learning as well by incorporating AI-powered assistance; (3) accelerate the use of authentic assessments with an eye toward designing assignments that maximize students’ engagement; (4) integrate experiential learning through refining and expanding opportunities to volunteer with the Discovery Hub, K-12 schools, and other educational organizations; and (5) structure courses to steward resources through the design of online asynchronous (but engaging) modules, decreasing the need for classroom space and better utilizing GSI and instructor time towards better serving undergraduate student needs.
- Glynda Hull, Professor, School of Education
- Making the Most of the L&S Language Requirement: Establishing a College-Wide Proficiency-Testing Service at the Berkeley Language Center (Berkeley Language Center)
- Kimberly Vinall, Executive Director, Berkeley Language Center
- Emily Hellmich, Associate Director, Berkeley Language Center
Project Summary: This multi-unit proposal, led by the Berkeley Language Center (BLC) supports an initial cohort of nearly a dozen language-teaching units and establishes a coordinated, College-wide service. BLC will provide common exam architecture, targeted departmental mini-grants and hands-on implementation support, and secure, proctored delivery in a newly outfitted computer lab while academic standards and discipline-specific content remain with departments. By grant end, BLC will operate the proctored lab, departments will deliver validated, standardized proficiency assessments at scale, and testing and reporting will run on predictable schedules.
- Reimagining Graduate Student Instructor Roles and Student Support in a High-Demand, Gateway Course
- Benjamin Blackman, Associate Professor, Plant and Microbial Biology
- Benjamin Wong Blonder, Associate Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management
- Charles Marshall, Professor, Earth and Planetary Science & Integrative Biology
- Cindy Looy, Professor, Integrative Biology
- Michael Nachman, Professor, Integrative Biology
- Michal Shuldman, Teaching Assistant Professor, Integrative Biology
- Caroline Williams, Associate Professor,Integrative Biology
- Julianne Winters, Research Associate, Integrative Biology
Project Summary: We seek to reimagine excellence in Biology 1B (Bio 1B) by investing in the relational experiences that most directly shape student learning and long-term success. We propose to focus instructional resources toward high-impact practices: concentrating limited graduate student instructors where they most enhance experiential learning, modernizing assessment, and expanding near-peer mentoring to support belonging and metacognitive growth. By aligning instructional roles with evidence-based practices, leveraging technology to modernize assessment, and cultivating a community of peer tutors, this project redefines access to an excellent education.
- Reimagining STEM Assessments at Cal with Mastery-Based GenAI Tools (School of Education)
- Zachary Pardos, Associate Professor, School of Education
- Anne Baranger, Dean, College of Chemistry
- Steven Kahn, Dean, Division of Mathematical & Physical Sciences
Project Summary: We aim to advance instructional design with generative AI through OATutor and PromptHive. Our goal is to develop scalable, high-quality instructional materials that are rigorous, adaptable, and accessible across diverse postsecondary contexts. Using PromptHive to author and refine content and OATutor to deliver adaptive tutoring, we seek to reduce both the cost and time required for high-quality content development while enhancing instructional effectiveness and transparency.
- Teaching in an Age of Digital Tools: Shared Resources to Support Instructor Experimentation with Teaching and Technology (Department of History)
- Abhishek Kaicker, Associate Professor, History
- Mark Brilliant, Associate Professor, History
- Yumi Kim, Associate Professor, History
- Cathryn Carson, Professor, History
Project Summary: This project proposes to create an infrastructure of shared resources, initially developed across the Department of History, to support instructors who are experimenting with transitioning humanistic and social scientific teaching practices to a range of technology-enabled modalities at the same time as they seek to support today’s students in acquiring mastery of core academic skills. The project will create a set of structured, reusable course templates that will enable instructors to jump into creating new technology-enabled courses as well as a repository of common resources for teaching both discovery-centric and classroom-centric skills. Once these resources are piloted in the community of practice represented by the Department of History, the broad range of skills taught in history classes means that their components are suited to be successfully translated to a broad range of other humanistic and social scientific disciplines.