2011 Teaching Innovation Prize nominations are due Jan. 27. More information >
2011 Provost’s Teaching Innovation Prizes of $5,000 will be presented to up to five faculty members this spring, with a current call for proposals due Jan. 27.
This prize differs from other teaching prizes in that it honors original, specific innovations to improve student learning, not instructors’ overall teaching excellence. Faculty who develop the most original approaches to teaching are considered for the prizes, which honor and encourage creativity in the classroom. The awards also advocate the dissemination of these innovations by more broadly sharing them with faculty colleagues.
Students, faculty, department chairs, directors, deans and staff members are invited to submit nominations. Faculty self-nominations also are welcome.
“Our faculty are innovative educators who find remarkable ways to enhance student learning through new technologies, entrepreneurial experiences, global engagement, and service to others,” says Provost Phil Hanlon. “It will be exciting to learn about the projects that are nominated this year.”
Ann Arbor faculty who are tenured, tenure-track, clinical instructional or lecturers who have continuing appointments are eligible. This is the third year the prizes are being awarded.
“Each year, we have been delighted by the number of students and others who have taken time to nominate excellent, innovative projects,” says Constance Cook, associate vice provost and executive director of the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching (CRLT).
“The projects they have nominated are ingenious. For example, in last week’s Chronicle of Higher Education there is a story about one of last year’s winners: BiblioBouts, an online game developed by School of Information Professor Karen Markey to teach students citation skills. At CRLT, we are always impressed by the creativity of U-M faculty,” Cook says.
Award criteria include originality, demonstrating significant impact on teaching effectiveness, student learning and/or retention, potential for widespread use within or across disciplines and the potential for scalability.
While the awards recognize innovative pedagogy, students are the ultimate winners as they benefit long term from the fresh approaches to learning that the annual prizes encourage.
Kirk Schell, U-M alumnus and director of product marketing at the Dell Business Product Group, took the 2009 prize-winning Integrated Product Development (IPD) course. The class, developed by Shaun Jackson, professor of art & design and architecture, and William Lovejoy, professor in the Stephen M. Ross School of Business, joins students in several disciplines to create successful products.
“No other course in the curriculum utilized such a cross-functional approach to general manager level problem solving,” Schell wrote in a nomination letter for the class. “The professors provided a balance of classroom learning, real life examples, guest speakers and project work to deliver a complete learning experience.”
“IPD took me to the limit and I know my peers had the same experience — it made us stronger students then and stronger workers now,” alumnus Corey Bruno wrote in a nomination letter.
Honored faculty members say receiving the prize has a positive effect going forward on their teaching and on their respective departments.
“The award brings the course and the participating schools some positive visibility and provides an objective corroboration of the deans’ instincts. This is helpful to reinforce one’s natural intuition that such cross-functional courses are valuable and worthy of support,” Lovejoy says.
Barry Fishman, associate professor in the School of Education and School of Information, won a 2010 prize for his approach to encourage students to use their own cell phones and laptops to engage in class activity. “The award was a lovely recognition of these kinds of approaches and a really nice side effect was that many other faculty contacted me. It was really one of my goals to help more people learn about these approaches,” Fishman says.
A faculty committee will judge the nominations and recommend the winners to the provost. The awards will be announced May 2 at the annual, campuswide technology conference, Enriching Scholarship. For more information on nomination and selection processes go to www.crlt.umich.edu/TIP.
