Useful Theorists and Support Guides for the edTPA
Remember that each grant and application is different!
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Grants and Funding Resources!
As you master your craft, take your skills to earn money for your classroom, school, and students!
The NEA Foundation
The NEA Foundation is a national nonprofit and philanthropic organization based in Washington D.C. that offers grants for public school educators. They aim to solve complex teaching and learning challenges. These grants include Envision Equity Grants, Student Success Grants, Fellowship Opportunities, Learning and Leadership Grants, Global Learning Fellowships, and more. They even offer resources such as writing tutorials to help with writing for grants. They even give out national awards to teachers throughout the country for their dedication and diligence to students' success! Listen to their podcast and subscribe!
Association of American Educators
The Association of American Educators offers many grants to educators. Consider becoming a member and gaining access to numerous resources with colleagues from across the country. The following is a direct link to their grant application and details on grants and funds. Funds must be used within deadlines specified. There are five questions you must answer in your proposal. They should be listed in order. Keep in mind each response has a limit to 100 words. If you apply, consider what you understand about the learning and developmental process from reading about these theories and apply that in your writing, and effectively answer each question.
McCarthey Dressman Education Foundation
The McCarthey Dressman Education Foundation offers Teacher Development Grants to teachers who wish to improve their instruction and share their new successful approaches to educators. You must document your new and creative approaches with proper justification. They also offer Academic Enrichment Grants to develop in-class and extracurricular programs to improve student learning. Collaborate with the foundation to share your new best ideas before, during, and after school! Sign up for email updates!
General Tips for Applying for Grants and Funding
When writing proposals, while it may not be necessary, citing theory and how the learners will benefit from what you plan to purchase or develop with the funds, makes you sound erudite. As a teacher, you should know what are best practices based on how their minds work.
When applying for a grant, make sure to answer all the questions with details but also clearly and concisely. Justifying your reasoning with educational theory and cognitive science can make a difference in how they perceive you as a teacher and how you can use the funds.
There is no universal structure or requirements for grant applications. But these are general tips. Make sure you answer every question clearly and thoroughly. Depending on the question, make sure that your answer is not too short or too long. It should have details that indicate that you know for sure what you will be doing with the money if they were to give it to you. If and when you cite theory, make sure that it is entirely pertinent and that you have researched why the money you are requesting will help the students and school.
For Physical Submissions
If you are to submit everything in a portfolio or packet, read over all of the requirements, questions, and items to be submitted. Include a title page and table of contents if appropriate. Print everything clearly and cleanly. Place them in the order that they request. Add labels (namely binder dividers with tags) that make it very clear which submission item is which. Make it comfortable so they can flip to the section they want to go to. Readers will appreciate you making things easily accessible and organized.
For Electronic Submissions
Make sure your documents are accessible. Software such as Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat have accessibility checkers that you can use. Use Headings and Sub-Headings to label all of the requirements, answers to questions, and items to be submitted. These Headings will transfer if you save it to a PDF.
Always make sure to submit in the formats you are instructed to use. Often, but not always, this will be a PDF format. We recommend additionally saving the material as a PDF just in case they ask for such submission because PDFs are the most portable format and will usually remain readable and openable on any computer. PDFs preserve formats, structures, and fonts.
For Online Submission Forms
If it is an online submission form, we recommend typing the answer on a word processor and copying and pasting. If you cannot do so, save a copy of what you wrote. Be cautious of the character count limits. Do not let your response get too long. But also make sure there is enough content in each submission accordingly. Too short of a response often really does not make an impression and really lacks any content.
Be aware that if it is an online submission and that if you copy and paste, some software will not count the number of characters as your word processor might. This may be a formatting issue. It may be a good practice to type it in the submission box and copy and paste it into your word processor and then maintain that formatting. Sometimes when you paste into the submission box, you should use the "Paste without Formatting" option that allows you to preserve the character count, but then double check the formatting in the response and any special characters or formatting that might be in your submission.
Save your responses regularly. If you are unsure how to respond, you can draft ideas and then put them together later.
Make sure you read over your final responses to make sure things are coherent. We do not want our thinking process to accidentally end up in the writing or clutter our words.
Additional Ideas
If one day you are sitting on the bus or out in public and a genius idea comes to you while you are working, you should jot your ideas down, possibly on your smartphone if you have one. Otherwise jot it down on a piece of paper. Then type it somewhere.
Do Not Procrastinate!
Make sure you are doing things and getting them done in a timely manner!
Following Up
If you do receive the funding, congratulations! But be prepared for follow up on your use of the funds and questions on the results you obtained. Keep record of receipts if funds are based on reimbursements. Sometimes take photographs of the receipts and make photocopies of them too but please take care and do not lose the originals.
If they request that you write a report of how successful you are, do so honestly and positively. If you had cited certain theories in your original application, indicate how what you did lived up to the expectations based on your research.
Be prepared to describe results that you have achieved for students in the classroom. Showcase the results of these programs. Sometimes you can collect testimonies from the students. You want to show that such a grant or program from the grant was successful and gave students short-term and long-term benefits. Indicate that you would recommend the program and the Grant foundation to another teacher or school.
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Grants and Funding
Want to apply for a grant to improve your classroom or reward your master teacher, colleagues, or school?
Check out these grants and funding opportunities! Sign up or subscribe to them to learn more!
The NEA Foundation
Association of American Educators
McCarthey Dressman Education Foundation
Graduate Programs and Professional Opportunities
This project was made possible by skills from Cal State LA College of Education's MA in Education Technology Leadership programs. Consider enrolling or signing up for these programs.