Students' Union enhances University Teaching Awards.
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The Students’ Union has been successful in lobbying the University to transform the current set of University-wide Distinguished Teaching Awards into the new Excellence in Learning and Teaching Awards.
The current Distinguished Teaching Award has been running since 2001. Currently, there are 8 Distinguished Teaching Awards available each year and each recipient receives £1000 to be spent on enhancing their teaching practices.
At Swansea University’s annual Learning and Teaching Conference, Education Officer Zahid Raja blogged about issues with the current award. Click here to read the blog. The blog was well received – it was shared by students and academics from in and around the Welsh Higher Education sector.
Zahid highlighted a number of issues with the Distinguished Teaching Award, namely:
a) That compared to other Universities, the number of students engaging with the award was poor.
b) That the only student input in deciding who gets an award was from those who submitted an award and then the Education Officer on the University-level panel.
c) There was no provision to award support staff.
This week, Swansea University’s Learning and Teaching committee endorsed a paper outlining critical enhancements that addressed all three issues.
The headline enhancements are:
-> The award is to be renamed the Excellence in Learning and Teaching Award.
-> The nominations process will be simplified. A short listing panel will be created at College Level. College Reps will sit on these to represent the student voice at College Level. The Education Officer will continue to sit on the University level panel:
-> The Students’ Union and the University will market the award in partnership through the Subject Representation System and will both continue to celebrate the recipients of the awards.
-> A new category of award will be created to recognise non-academic staff (porters, councillors, careers advisors, librarians etc) This will be called the Excellence in Student Support Award.
In a statement, Zahid Raja, Education Officer said: “When you look around at other Universities you will probably see one of two things. A University with a closed off system that awards it’s perspective on great teaching or a Students’ Union pushing the NUS / Higher Education Academy Student Led Teaching Awards.
It’s very rare that you see a Students’ Union and a University working in partnership to deliver a solution together. In Swansea, I’m proud to say that we have found that solution.
One of my key manifesto pledges was to work with the University to help improve the Distinguished Teaching Awards. I am confident that this set of proposals will help us to do just that. We’ve all experienced great teaching and great support whilst at University – every student should know how they can say thank you to those who have helped us the most.”