Why Teaching Awards?
The EUSA Teaching Awards are EUSA's contribution to recognising and rewarding good teaching practice at Edinburgh University.
We know that good teaching has an enormous positive impact on students' learning experience. Despite the many demands on academics’ time, and the fact that most of the incentives in academia promote concentration on research at the expense of teaching, many academics go out of their way to deliver excellent teaching to their students. We think that this should be rewarded.
Nominate a lecturer, tutor, course or department for a Teaching Award 2012
The aims of the EUSA Teaching Awards
The EUSA Teaching Awards aim to recognise such people and to demonstrate that students appreciate the value that good teaching adds to their learning.
At the same time, it is important to recognise that there are areas where Edinburgh University teaching needs to improve. Edinburgh was rated by its students in the 2008/9 National Student Survey (NSS) as the worst University in the UK for feedback and assessment. In the last NSS there was a slight improvement - to 4th worst University in the UK on Feedback and Assessment. Clearly there is still room for improvement.
Additionally, it is a frequent complaint that students often feel that teaching is regarded as secondary to research. Edinburgh students are proud that they attend a world-leading research-intensive university, but they should feel that they are highly valued members of the academic community and not a distraction. The purpose of Universities is to share as well as to create knowledge. In pursuit of this, excellence in teaching should be the norm rather than the exception.
The Value of the Teaching Awards
Prof. Dai Hounsell, University VP, Academic Enhancement, talks about the value of the Teaching Awards
Teaching Awards on Facebook
Value teaching along with research
We have launched these awards because Edinburgh University currently lacks a systematic approach to recognition and reward of good teaching.
Edinburgh has multiple departments which boast world-leading research but in terms of teaching, students often tell us that the teaching that they receive is often far from world-class.
Although this isn't a problem unique to Edinburgh, it is arguably the root cause of poor feedback, large tutorial sizes, lack of contact time, and sub-standard preparation and delivery of lectures and seminars.
The EUSA Teaching Awards are our way of showing where there is good teaching going on within the University and promoting increased respect for good teaching within the University.
The EUSA Teaching Awards are a strong contribution to creating a new, more teacher-oriented institutional culture. EUSA believes that change in Edinburgh's institutional culture to deliver systematic recognition and reward in teaching would deliver a monumental improvement in the quality of teaching you receive and make your time at Edinburgh both more valuable and enjoyable.