teaching awards

Is your tutor a Miss Trunchbull or a Miss Honey?

The principle is simple - we sit in lectures, labs and tutorials all year long but rarely have the chance to vocalise who we think is an excellent teacher or what we consider 'good' teaching to be. We think that us, the students, are the best judges of good teaching and so teaching awards were born!

Equally, universities tend to rate research over teaching, and academics aren't rewarded as they should be for good teaching. Teaching Awards gives us the chance to say how important good teaching is and to reward those lecturers and tutors who have really made a difference to our degrees and our St Andrews experience. The university takes teaching awards into account as a tangible way of measuring good teaching.

what do I need to do?

1. Decide who you want to nominate.

2. Decide which category you want to nominate them for

  Dissertation or Project Supervisor in Science/Medicine
  Dissertation or Project Supervisor in Arts/Divinity
Innovation in teaching
Postgraduate tutor
Teaching at Honours
Teaching at Sub-honours

3. Fill in the nomination form by clicking here.
Nominations must be sumbitted before Wednesday 25th April 2012. The nominations will be judged on quality, not quantity so please be detailed about what made you nominate them.

You can send in your nominations any time during the year - so if you have a great tutor or lecturer in Semester One, tell us now!

who can nominate?

Any student, postgraduate or undergraduate, can nominate a member of teaching staff. However, the person you nominate must have taught you this academic year, in either semester one or two.

You can only nominate one member of staff for each category but you can submit a nomination for more than one category, for example dissertation supervisor and postgraduate tutor.

how will the winners be decided?

We will choose the winners based on the quality of submission, which should outline why the staff member is considered excellent at teaching, how they have contributed to your learning, and examples of good practice. You can go into as much detail as you want, remember you are trying to persuade the panel why your tutor is so amazing. Last year nominations included photo-essays, replying to emails on Christmas day, and exciting lecturing techniques.

The winners will be announced at an Awards Ceremony on Friday the 4th of May. All nominees and those who nominated them will be invited as well as students and other figues from the university.

questions?

Contact Sam Fowles, the Director of Representation, on dorep@st-andrews.ac.uk.

Terms and Conditions:

1.    Nominations for awards must be submitted by matriculated students.
2.    Nominations can be made at any point during the academic year up to the submission deadline at the end of Semester 2, as agreed by the SRC Education Committee.
3.    Awards will be given first and foremost on the quality of nominations rather than the quantity, although this will be given consideration.
4.    Nominations must outline the ways in which a member of staff has met one or more of the above criteria. It is not expected that all nominees will meet all criteria. Nominees with a particular strength in one criterion will still be eligible for recognition.
5.    Submissions should made using the Teaching Awards webpages on the Students’ Association website.
6.    Previous recipients of awards will be ineligible for a period of 2 years.
7.    Recipients’ achievements will be publicised via the Students’ Association website, the Saint, local press, the Standard (university staff magazine), etc.
8.    A judging panel will meet at the end of Semester 2 to decide which staff will receive awards.
9.    The panel reserves the right not to make awards in any given year.
10.    Membership of the panel will be as follows: Association President; Director of Representation; SRC Education Officer; Postgraduate Representative from the SRC, Arts Faculty Representative from SRC, Science Faculty Representative from SRC.