Awards and funding

The scheme recognises that staff contribute to the learning environment in many different ways, and it has therefore been developed to encompass staff at different stages of their career and who are delivering a wide range of learning opportunities and support.

• Applies to newly appointed staff as well as very experienced staff;
• Applies to all staff at the University who contribute to the learning environment;
• Can relate to all forms of teaching/teaching support lectures, seminars, tutorials, fieldtrips, practicals, research degree supervision, e-learning etc;
• Recognises different types of excellence achieved through innovative practices or through high quality provision in a specialist area.

A judging panel appointed by Teaching and Learning Board, and including student representatives, will make recommendations for awards based on the nomination evidence and using the criteria listed below:

• Excellence in supporting student learning;
• Evidence of stimulating and inspiring student learning;
• Recognition and support of diverse student learning needs;
• Supporting colleagues in the promotion of student learning;
• A serious and ongoing commitment to review and reflection to enhance individual practice;
• Clear evidence of the impact on the quality of the student learning experience

There are two actions you need to take:

1. Referees
   You will be asked to supply the names of two referees. The referees must have personal knowledge of the contributions you have made to the enhancement of student learning. Referees can be University staff, current or past students or external colleagues. The referee statements are an important part of the application.
2. Personal statement
   The judging panel will need details of your approach and the activities you have introduced which have improved student learning and / or the learning environment.

Once a nomination is received the member of staff concerned will be contacted and asked to submit brief details as follows:

• The measures you have taken to improve teaching / support of teaching, learning and / or assessment of students with a summary of supporting evidence. The evidence should include, where possible, feedback from students such as SET results, student comments and / or indications of improvements in assessment and / or performance.
• A statement about your overall approach to improving student learning.
• Details of publications which describe the enhancements you have made.

The judging panel are only interested in the content of your personal statement, not the cosmetic design of the documents. You are therefore advised to avoid pictures, graphics and complicated layouts which do not add to the quality of your statement.

Applicants are now offered the option of supplementing their submissions with short video clips which illustrate their approach to learning and teaching. This option was introduced to enable nominees to provide a fuller set of evidence in support of their written application and might be particularly useful to illustrate elements of a submission which are difficult to capture in words.  

Nominees are encouraged to make a video submission, but there is no requirement to go through a formal interview and filming process. The panel is not looking for high quality, professionally produced videos but rather ones that capture something about the individual contribution, perhaps in creative and eye-catching ways.

The preferred method is via electronic submission to molly.fleischer@nottingham.ac.uk in one of the following formats:

.doc / .docx
.rtf
.pdf 

If you are also submitting supplementary video evidence, please use .wmv format.

Submissions should be a maximum of 4 sides of A4. Please note that any appendices or extra information submitted will not be made available to the Judging Panel.