- September 10, 2025
- By Annie Krakower
A highlight for students taking the class “Water-Based Fire Protection System Design” is the day when they get to watch the testing of a fire pump in a campus building, applying what they learned in class as they monitor speed and pressure readings and measure water flow.
With the introduction of an online version of its bachelor’s degree, Department of Fire Protection Engineering faculty had to figure out how to take that scene to the screen. Thanks to a UMD program supporting inventive teaching methods, students starting this spring can participate in “Pump Day” via a new virtual reality platform.
“That’s an enhancement to even what’s offered on campus, because on campus, they witness a test. In the online modality with the VR platform, they will also be able to actually operate the valves, start the pump, do everything that’s necessary to do the test,” said Associate Clinical Professor William Koffel, who’s also planning to add VR to “Introduction to Life Safety Analysis.” “We can let the students make a mistake, and they can learn from that mistake.”
The projects are among 48 supported by the newest round of Teaching Innovation Grants, awarded to faculty to enhance their instructional practices. This year, approximately $473,000 in total awards funded course-based projects integrating Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles, which emphasize addressing natural variability in how learners process information, engage with content and demonstrate knowledge.
“Inclusive teaching is effective teaching,” said Mary E. Warneka, director of teaching innovation in the Teaching and Learning Transformation Center (TLTC), which administers the grants. “And digital accessibility is an important aspect of effective teaching—making sure all learners can access course content.”
Part of the university’s strategic plan to reimagine learning, the Teaching Innovation Grants program has since 2022 invested $4.4 million in 187 projects. The new awards will benefit an estimated 5,100 learners this academic year, and mid-semester surveys will gather feedback about their experiences.
This years’ grants also require UDL training for recipients through the TLTC, to help them “really shine as ambassadors of this practice,” Warneka said. The three key UDL principles encourage educators to design multiple means of representation, or presenting information in different ways; multiple means of action and expression, meaning students have various ways to communicate what they learned; and multiple means of engagement, or stimulating interest and motivation for learning.
For biology Senior Lecturer Maira Goytia, that background, paired with the financial support, helped her revamp her “Anatomy and Physiology I” class. Besides redesigning her course slides with accessibility in mind, she also worked this summer to flip some sessions and develop in-class application-based activities on how the human body regulates multiple physiological variables after different physical tasks. These short case studies and other hands-on activities aim to promote engagement with the concepts through real-world applications and build community and belonging in the large classroom.
“The students have to think about all of these aspects: How does the volume of bodily fluids actually change in that individual? How does that impact the osmolarity? At the same time, they are also acquiring new vocabulary,” she said. That’s practical experience for both the public health and biological science majors who make up her class.
In mathematics Lecturer Matt Griffin’s “Elementary Statistics and Probability” class, he’s using the grant to enhance digital accessibility of his online resources and to help make the content relevant to his students’ varied interests. Instead of just providing a few datasets for them to analyze, he’s adding options focused on law, sports, music, business and more.
“We have a pretty broad spectrum of learners in this class,” he said. “I’m really hoping to make it more inclusive, more engaging, more challenging and more supportive for all the learners.”