Scaling Success RFP

The California Education Learning Lab (Learning Lab) announced that it is awarding seven grants in response to Learning Lab’s funding opportunity Scaling Success to Expand Impact in STEM which was designed to build upon the momentum of existing Learning Lab projects to expand positive impacts on STEM in public higher education.

Scroll to the bottom to view the funded proposals.

The awards were based on recommendations from Learning Lab’s 2022 Selection Committee for Scaling Success and were approved by Samuel Assefa, Director of the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research.

More than 50 unique institutions from the California Community Colleges, California State University, and University of California systems were part of 15 project teams that applied for the Scaling Success grant opportunity, and ultimately 21 unique institutions were part of the seven awarded projects. Projects will commence upon final agreement between the awarded institutions (listed below) and the Foundation for California Community Colleges, which is administering the grants on behalf of the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research.

Scaling Success to Expand Impact in STEM Awardees

Only Learning Lab grantees are eligible to apply for Scaling Success grants. The pool of eligible Learning Lab grantee applicants is comprised of 25 of the 30 projects awarded between 2018-2020. Project teams that received Innovation Grants in 2019-20 and will conclude in July 2023 and are not eligible to apply for funding through this RFP.

Existing grantees may band together to create a Scaling Success project application that integrates successful components of individual projects. If you are interested in identifying potential partnerships for your Scaling Success project proposal, explore Learning Lab funded projects by discipline and topic here. You can also find a directory of PI contact information on the Learning Lab Grantee Portal page.

Additionally, scaling projects must:

1. 1. Be comprised of an intersegmental team (combination of California Community Colleges, CSU, UC; minimum requirement includes 2 of the 3 segments).
   2. Include at minimum either the principal investigator or a co-principal investigator of the original project, as either the PI or co-PI of the expanded project, or as an advisor to the expanded project.
   3. Satisfy the initial project criteria:
      1. Focus on improving learning outcomes and closing racial and gender equity gaps in STEM (projects may choose to scale beyond STEM at this stage)
      2. Incorporate the science of human learning
      3. Incorporate aspects of adaptive learning, broadly defined
      4. Improve online or hybrid course environments, broadly defined.
   4. Demonstrate support and endorsement from host and partner institution leadership: Projects require the endorsement of the host institution’s president, chancellor, vice chancellor/vice president of instruction, or provost or equivalent through an institutional cover letter. Partnering institutions must also provide endorsement by either signing the host institution’s cover letter or by submitting their own letter(s).

Learning Lab Scaling Success grants will provide funding to select projects to support the design and implementation of scaling activities. Funding will be awarded through a competitive process that includes submission of a Statement of Intent and Proposal. (Please consult the Timeline tab for submission due dates.)

The overall goal of the Scaling Success RFP is to advance the most successful projects, in order to expand the positive impact and benefit for all students pursuing or interested in pursuing STEM education and careers.

Key Elements

Learning Lab believes the following to be key elements in scaling success and expanding positive impact and benefit for students. Awarded projects will be expected to:

• • Scale adoption of the project regionally or statewide (within or across disciplines);
  • Increase access to newly developed or redesigned teaching and learning strategies/tools/resources/technology platforms that have proven effective at improving learning outcomes and closing equity gaps;
  • Support and strengthen team capacity to successfully expand evidence-based success;
  • Produce/gather stronger evidence of the impact of these strategies at scale;
  • Continue to contribute to the science of human learning statewide and nationally; and
  • Encourage and facilitate the leveraging of other public and private resources to support effective teaching and learning at scale.

Learning Lab staff anticipates that eligible applicants will have collected and analyzed preliminary data to demonstrate their project’s impact by spring 2022. Incorporation of data gathered to date will be included in proposal requirements.

* All times stated below are in Pacific Time (PT).

• Release of Request for Proposals November 16, 2021
• Submit Questions to Learning Lab (see Q&A tab) December 21, 2021, by 5pm
• Virtual Q&A Session on the RFP (see Q&A tab) January 11, 2022, at 2pm
• Applicant Office Hours (see Q&A tab) January 31 - February 4, 2022
• Statement of Intent via Online Portal February 11, 2022, by 5pm
• Final Questions to Learning Lab (see Q&A tab) March 15, 2022, by 5pm
• Final Q&A Update March 18, 2022, 5pm
• Full Application Deadline via Online Portal April 1, 2022, by 5pm
• Review Period April 7 - April 28, 2022
• Selection Committee Meeting May 10, 2022
• Notification of Award Est: May 20, 2022, 5pm
• Deadline to execute Grant Agreement and Project Activities Commence No later than July 1, 2022

Statement of Intent

Applicants must file a Statement of Intent that identifies the anticipated host and partnering institutions and provides the names of PIs/co-PIs as well as brief project summary (see below). The Statement of Intent must be submitted through Learning Lab’s Application Portal.  The deadline to file a Statement of Intent is 5:00 pm PST on Friday, February 11, 2022.

Project Summary Information:

• • Project Title: Teams must develop a short title for their proposed project. This title should be used in all related documents of the proposal.
  • Project Abstract: Please provide a short project abstract (150-200 words).
  • Estimated Project Impact & Budget: Please indicate the number of students and/or faculty that will be directly impacted by project activities during the project period, as well as an estimated budget for the scale-up activities.

Submit all required materials through Learning Lab’s Application Portal  by 5:00pm PST on Friday, April 1, 2022. The following elements will be required:

1. 1. Institutional Cover Letter(s)
   2. Project Narrative
   3. Endnotes/Footnotes
   4. Team Member CVs
   5. Detailed Budget and Justification
   6. Letters of Interest (optional) that indicate an institution’s willingness to be part of the scaling effort

Per statute, Learning Lab will convene an expert Selection Committee to review and evaluate proposals in the stages described in the RFP.  

The Selection Committee will make final recommendations for award to the Director of the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR) for approval. Awards and final award amounts are contingent on successful negotiation of a grant agreement between the Learning Lab staff, the Foundation for California Community Colleges (administrator of the grant), and the awarded project team and host institution. 

Please note: Selection Committee members and the Director of OPR may take into consideration geographic, disciplinary, and institutional diversity in order to balance the diversity of awards. 

Scoring Rubric 

See Full RFP to review the Scoring Rubric.

Frank Gomez
Executive Director of STEM-NET, CSU Chancellor’s Office
Frank A. Gomez, Ph.D. is the Executive Director of STEM-NET, the Multi-Campus Consortium, also known as Affinity Group, at the CSU Office of the Chancellor. The vision of STEM-NET is to make the CSU a worldwide leader in increasing the pipeline, preparation, graduation and employment of outstanding, diverse STEM students.  STEM-NET enables CSU stem leaders to share expertise and leverage system-wide opportunities to foster the implementation of global best practices for our students and faculty in pedagogy, learning and research related to STEM fields within the CSU system. 

Gomez has served as Professor of Chemistry at Cal State LA since 1994 and has received over $22 million in research funding and published over 130 technical articles and two books on his research. His research group is engaged in developing fundamental and applied research in the area of microfluidics, point-of-care (POC) diagnostic devices, fuel cells, and chemical and biochemical separations. He has mentored over 130 undergraduate, masters, and high school students and 12 postdoctoral fellows and visiting scientists in his laboratories resulting in over 185 student presentations. He is the director of the NSF-funded Cal State LA-Penn State PREM program, co-PI of the NSF CREST Center for Energy and Sustainability, and PI of a W. M Keck Foundation grant for course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs). 

Gomez received his B.S. (1986) and Ph.D. (1991) in Chemistry from Cal State LA and UCLA, respectively and was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Southern California Conferences for Undergraduate Research (SCCUR) and on the Leo Buscaglia Foundation Board of Directors. 

Yvette Gullatt
Vice President and Vice Provost, UC Office of the President
Yvette Gullatt, Ph.D. serves as Vice President for Graduate and Undergraduate Affairs; Vice Provost for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion; and Chief Diversity Officer for the University of California system.  

In this role she oversees programs, services and initiatives that maximize baccalaureate and graduate degree attainment. As chief diversity officer for the university, she leads essential efforts to further UC’s aspirations as a diverse and inclusive institution by fostering equitable campus climates for students, faculty and staff. 

Prior to joining the Office of the President, Gullatt served in staff and leadership roles at UC Berkeley. She joined the Office of the President in 1999 as systemwide director for early and immediate outreach and, soon after, became Vice Provost for Education Partnerships. In the latter position, Gullatt developed key initiatives for expanding UC’s public education role, among them data systems that help schools improve UC and CSU eligibility rates, as well as partnerships with K–12 schools, California higher education institutions and community-based organizations. At the root of all Gullatt’s work at UC has been the university’s mission of improving academic preparation and higher education opportunity for more first-generation, low-income and underrepresented students.  

She received her B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from UC Berkeley; her research interests include early African American life writing and Afro-Christian discourses of community development and nationalism. 

Kathy Kubo
Mathematics Instructor, College of the Canyons
Kathy Kubo is a Mathematics Instructor at College of the Canyons. She helped create the college’s statistics pathway, then co-designed and led a faculty training program to support the dramatic increase in section offerings.  Canyons’ statistics pathway has been honored by the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office and the Board of Governors.  She participated in a National Science Foundation grant on statistics education, worked with Stanford University’s Open Learning Initiative to revise their Concepts of Statistics courseware, and was a writing team member for the American Statistical Association’s Two-Year College Data Science Summit. She was a 2019 recipient of the American Statistical Association’s Fellowship Program for Two-Year College Teachers. Kubo has worked with the California Acceleration Project and coordinated the Chancellor’s Office Statistics Institute, introducing best practices in pedagogy for teaching introductory statistics at the community college level. She holds a master’s degree in Mathematics from the University of California, Los Angeles. 

Mitchell L. Stevens
Professor of Education, Stanford University
Mitchell L. Stevens, Ph.D., is Professor of Education and (by courtesy) Organizational Behavior and Sociology at Stanford University. He studies the organization of US higher education, the quantification of academic performance, and alternative school forms. With John Mitchell, Stevens co-directs the Stanford Pathways Lab (pathwayslab.stanford.edu), which uses a variety of methods, data sources, and conceptual frameworks to understand how people make sense of learning experiences; how families, schools and workplaces recognize and reward learning; and how learning opportunities can be made more effective, equitable, enjoyable and humane. He received his B.A. from Macalester College (1988) and his Ph.D. from Northwestern University (1996). 

Shawn Whalen
Program Director, College Futures Foundation
Shawn Whalen joined the College Futures Foundation in September 2015. As program director, he leads the development and implementation of the Foundation’s grantmaking strategy in student-centric practices. 

Whalen has extensive experience in higher education as both a faculty member and university administrator. Prior to joining the Foundation, he held the position of chief of staff to the president of San Francisco State University, where he served as a member of the senior leadership team, advised the president on academic policy, student achievement, and strategic planning, and facilitated institutional partnerships. Whalen is professor emeritus of Communication Studies at San Francisco State University. As a faculty member, he was active in university governance and served three terms as chair of the Academic Senate. He also directed nationally ranked speech and debate programs at two institutions and is a past president of intercollegiate debate’s national governing body, the Cross Examination Debate Association. Whalen was elected as a public member to the WASC Senior College and University Commission and began his term July 2020. 

Whalen received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from San Diego State University and completed Ph.D. coursework at the University of Utah. 

Interested applicants can engage with Learning Lab staff in multiple ways to address any questions about the grant opportunity or application process.

1. 1. Applicants can still submit questions through a shared Google Doc by Tuesday, March 15, 2022, 5:00pm. Learning Lab staff will monitor this document and answer questions as they are submitted.

The documents within this section are intended to be helpful resources as your project team develops a proposal. There is no requirement for their use.