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Faculty Teaching Award

Deadline for nominations: Monday, May 1, 2017 at 5:00 p.m.

I. Eligibility

This award has been established for faculty with continuing appointments who hold the rank of Associate Professor (teaching stream or tenure stream) or Professor (teaching stream or tenure stream) and who have taught at UTSC for at least five full years. The award is intended to recognize sustained teaching excellence in the classroom and contributions to the teaching community at UTSC. This award can only be won once.  The list of past recipients can be found at http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/ctl/associate-and-full-professors-teaching-award-recipients

 

II. Criteria

The Selection Committee assesses nominees based on evidence of sustained teaching excellence in their primary teaching duties. The committee looks for evidence of outstanding student experiences and learning in courses designed with explicit learning outcomes and evidence of effective learning activities and assessments. As well the committee assesses the scope of their impact to the teaching enterprise at UTSC, with impact in one or more of the following areas:

  1. Initiatives to enhance and/or support student learning (e.g. the development of student mentoring programs mentoring programs or learning communities, innovative classroom practices, distinct approaches to courses and curricula)
  2. Initiatives promoting student-faculty or student-community interactions (e.g. creation of research opportunities or opportunities for co-/extra curricular learning)
  3. Contributions to the scholarship of teaching and learning (e.g. formal/informal research, presentations and/or publications on teaching and learning in a post-secondary environment)
  4. Pedagogical contributions outside the classroom (e.g. contributions to departmental/divisional curricular initiatives, work with teaching/learning committees or centres, mentorship of junior colleagues)
  5. Ongoing pedagogical development/enhancement (e.g. professional development to enhance one’s own teaching, evidence of a scholarly approach to teaching)

 

III. The Nomination Package Components

A complete nomination package consists of a PDF file that contains the following:

  1. Table of Contents
  2. Letter of nomination written by a member of the University community, detailing the specific contributions of the nominee, which address the selection criteria above. If the nominator is not the Chair/Director of the nominee’s academic unit then the nomination letter need to be supported by an accompanying letter from the Chair/Director of the faculty’s academic unit
  3. Current curriculum vitae
  4. A summary of the nominee’s teaching responsibilities.
    Please include a list (or table) of all of the nominee’s teaching responsibilities (courses, supervisory roles) for the past 5-10 years (as applicable). Where possible, please indicate the course code and name, enrollment numbers, and course level (undergraduate/graduate).
  5. Evidence of Teaching Excellence
    This section includes the nominee’s Statement of Teaching Philosophy and Goals (written by the nominee) and the evidence of teaching excellence. This section should not exceed 20 pages.
    1. Nominee’s Statement of Teaching Philosophy & Goals
      The Statement of Teaching Philosophy & Goals, prepared by the nominee, reflects his/her teaching approach and provides specific examples of the pedagogical techniques he/she employ in his/her teaching. The statement should consider the rationale for adopting these approaches within the nominee’s discipline. The nominee may also wish to reflect on his/her assessment of the effectiveness of strategies used.
    2. Description of the Nominee’s Teaching Practice
      The nominator provides an overview of undergraduate/graduate courses delivered, designed, and/or proposed by the nominee along with a sample of related materials, such as syllabi, bibliographies, assignments, assessment methods, descriptions of internship programs, or field experiences and teaching assessment activities. This section should also address innovative practices/strategies used by the nominee in his/her courses. If relevant, the nominator may also wish to include evidence pertaining to the nominee’s integration of his/her own research into teaching practice and/or curriculum and/or examples of the nominee’s successful efforts to involve undergraduate/graduate students in the research process (e.g. co- publishing, presenting at conferences, mentoring/coaching students, etc.).
    3. Summary Data of Annual Student Evaluations
      A summary table with Items 1-6 of Course evaluations for all UTSC undergraduate and graduate courses taught within the last five -10 years (as applicable). This table needs to include the academic unit and campus’s average for comparison. CTL will provide the table. Contact Janice Patterson at janicecp@utsc.utoronto.ca to arrange this. The nominator also may wish to include student comments from one or two of the nominee’s courses (found in textboxes from course evaluations). If course evaluation text box comments are included for a specific course, all student comments from the course need to be included unedited.
    4. List any teaching awards the nominee received and/or was nominated for.
6. Evidence of Contributions to the UTSC Teaching Community (12 page limit)
  1. Nominee’s Statement of Engagement within the Teaching Community. This section begins with a statement by the nominee about their approach to engaging with the UTSC’s community of teaching practice.
  2. The nominator summarizes the ways the nominee has contributed to UTSC’s (and/or other) teaching communities and addresses the success, impact, and significance of the contributions. The nominator may consider summarizing evidence within the categories that follow; not all categories need to be included.

Contributions to curriculum and/or pedagogical development. This can include: significant and ongoing contributions to curriculum/program development, the development of educational materials. (e.g. textbooks, teaching guides, learning objects, online modules), or the production of technological tools or multi-media resources that enrich teaching and learning. This section should address the success, impact and significance of these contributions.

Professional development in relation to teaching. This section addresses formal and informal professional development undertaken by the nominee and the application of these activities to enhance his/her teaching. This may include information on workshops, sessions, courses, training, mentoring, consultations, or other professional activities to improve teaching skills/course design in which the nominee has participated. It should also note the impact/outcomes of these efforts.

Active engagement in the professional development of other teachers through discipline initiatives/organizations or teaching/learning centres and organizations. This section could include evidence that demonstrates active involvement in the professional development of others (e.g. colleagues, graduate students). Examples may include: the delivery of workshops, seminars or presentations on teaching and learning, acting as a teaching mentor, providing mentorship to graduate students/teaching assistants/instructional team members. For workshops/presentations on teaching/learning issues please include titles, dates, locations, names of co-presenters, audience and a brief description of the session. A sample of materials produced for these events may be included. This section also could include the development/delivery of educational programming (e.g. roundtables, conferences) or educational resources, editing a pedagogical journal/newsletter, serving on executive/steering/advisory committees, or contributions pertaining to educational planning or policy development.

Engagement with the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). This section details the nominee’s activities relating to the SoTL. This may include evidence of research on teaching and/or learning conducted by the nominee. Such research may include formal or informal studies conducted by the nominee that demonstrate a scholarly investigation of a specific teaching issue within a higher education context. Additional evidence pertaining to the dissemination of the nominee’s pedagogical research (e.g. scholarly articles, conference or workshop presentations, educational resources) may also be included. Details on any educational grants to support SoTL activities should also be included. (Sample publications/ presentations may be included if space permits, otherwise summaries are sufficient.)

  1. Letters of Support From Students and Colleagues
    Nominators should carefully select individuals to write letters of support that clearly demonstrate the nominee’s effectiveness as a teacher, colleague, mentor, and/or educational leader. Please ensure that these letters speak directly to the award criteria and that they substantiate the evidence presented within the file. No more than 3 letters from colleagues and 3 letters from students can be included. Letters written by a group of colleagues or students are acceptable.

 

IV. Nomination Deadline and Information for Nomination Submission

The deadline for nominations is Monday, May 1, 2017. Please send the complete nomination package as one electronic, PDF file to: Judy Brunton (brunton@utsc.utoronto.ca), Centre for Teaching and Learning, IC365.  Questions regarding the nomination process should be directed to the Director of the Centre for Teaching and Learning, Clare Hasenkampf at hasenkampf@utsc.utoronto.ca.

A course evaluation table will be created by CTL; contact Janice Patterson at janicecp@utsc.utoronto.ca to arrange this.

At the request of the nominator, unsuccessful nomination packages can be reconsidered in the next award cycle, assuming the nominee consents.

 

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