CPS Teaching Fellowship Program

CPS Teaching Fellowship Program (TFP)

To allow graduate students to develop their teaching skills and a teaching portfolio, the Department of Chemical and Physical Sciences (CPS) provides this annual fellowship to work on original and innovative lectures, tutorials, or new laboratory exercises in undergraduate courses. 

Student Eligibility

This fellowship is open to all CPS graduate students (MSc & PhD) who excel in research and have an interest in developing instructional skills for their future careers as academics.  All applicants must be affiliated at the University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM) and are supervised by a CPS faculty member.

To be appropriately identified in ROSI as 'UTM affiliated', students need to complete and submit the Campus Affiliation form on the Provost website.

Grant Purpose & Timing

This fellowship is provided to encourage training and scholarship in the pedagogical aspects of a discipline as a part of graduate programs. The successful applicants will work with a faculty member who will mentor them with the objective to provide a high quality learning experience in developing pedagogical tools that will benefit both the graduate student in their future career and enhance the quality of the instruction currently in the department.

Possible outcomes of this faculty-student collaboration include presentations in the education division of disciplinary conferences and publication in science education journals, e.g., Journal of Chemical Education, Journal of Geoscience Education, Journal of Science Education and Technology, etc.

The Fellowship for this round of applications needs to be held in the summer or the fall term with the project being completed by January 2025. Successful applicants will be expected to contribute about 45-55 hours of effort, for which they will be awarded a $2,500 fellowship. Each successful participant in the TFP will also receive an award certificate and be invited to the annual CPS Awards Night.  

This Fellowship is not related to a TA position in any way.  You may (with the concurrence of your research supervisor) do the Fellowship work in addition to a regular TA assignment.  Alternatively, you may choose to apply for a reduction of the required TA hours during the term of the Fellowship. The Fellowship is in no way linked to your TA hours or your RA stipend.

Application Process & Deadlines

Applicants are to develop a proposal that clearly articulates the pedagogical activity that will be developed in the TFP. Interested students should approach a faculty member to discuss potential activities and together prepare the proposal. 

Successful proposals will include the following information:

  1. the course on which the project will focus,
  2. a description of the educational materials to be developed,
  3. an explanation of the perceived value of the materials to be developed to the course,
  4. a proposal of how and when the materials would be implemented in the course, and
  5. a plan for assessing the value of the materials (e.g., learning outcomes) to the course.

Proposals should be no more than five pages (1.5 line spacing, 12 point font, 1 inch margins) including any figures, tables, diagrams, structures, and references. 

Please submit below to the attention of TFP Adjudication Committee at cpsgrad.utm@utoronto.ca by the deadline of Monday, July 8, 2024.

  1. CPS Teaching Fellowship application
  2. Proposal 
  3. CV
  4. any other supporting material to enhance the overall persuasiveness of the proposal 

Adjudication

All completed applications will be reviewed by the adjudicating committee, and the best 4 applicants will be awarded the grant for this program. If the total sum of grant requests exceeds the allowable funding, preference will be given to:

  1. Applicants who have not received this funding in previous years;
  2. Applicants whose graduate department doesn't already offer similar/the same program;