Quality Assurance Committee - Teaching Excellence Awards

Teaching Excellence Awards 2006/07

CityU is the first university in Hong Kong to introduce Teaching Excellence Awards in 1993. External reviewers have commended the TEA scheme very highly.

The principal aims of the Award are:

to recognise and reward distinguished teachers
to emphasise the University’s commitment to supporting a teaching culture, and
to ensure continuous enhancement of learning effectiveness in the delivery of the University’s academic programmes.

Administration of the Awards

Criteria

Nomination Procedures

Submission of Documents

Selection Panel

Notes on Teaching Excellence :Assessing Quality of Teaching in Higher Education by Professor K P Mohanan

List of Teaching Excellence Award Winners

Enquiries

Download the Scheme Information (Print version)

Download Nomination Form (Word file)

Download the Summary Information Sheet (coming soon! )

Administration of the Awards

The awards are conferred at an institutional level and administered centrally by the Quality Assurance Committee. Each award has a value of HK$15,000. Award winners are presented at the annual Degrees Congregation and their names are added to a permanently displayed register to recognise their excellent teaching.

One or more awards are available each year. The awards are undifferentiated with no internal ranking.

Working Schedule on the 2006/07 Teaching Excellence Awards Scheme

TEA Forum (Feedback): 12 October 2006

Nomination period:3 October - 30 October 2006

Briefing Session of Nominees: 22 November 2006

Submission of documents: 22 November 2006 - 2 January 2007

Classroom observation: 26 February - 24 March 2007 (Wk 6 - 9)

Interview/presentation: 11 April 2007

Criteria

In determining excellence, the Selection Panel will seek to identify outstanding practitioners who are able to provide, over a variety of teaching situations and for a sustained period of time, evidence of their performance under some or all of the criteria noted below. The Panel will bear in mind that candidates are not necessarily excellent across all the criteria.

1.	Commitment to the University’s strategy to implement outcomes-based teaching and learning (OBTL) Participation in the relevant seminars and workshops in the University Participation in the Department/Division/School/Centre in redesigning the curriculum Sharing experience with others in the Department/Division/School/Centre and with others in the University Leadership in helping the Department/Division/School/Centre to move towards the OBTL environment
2.	A high level of competency in motivating and facilitating student learning, including: Classroom skills Effective application of strategies which encourage independent learning by students Ability to stimulate curiosity and interest in learning among students Currency and coherence of course materials Assessment of student learning outcomes Understanding and responding to students’ needs Demonstrating concern for student learning and development Effective supervision of projects and other independent work
3.	A constructive contribution to the University's teaching culture / performance, as demonstrated by: Active promotion of the scholarship of teaching Interest and involvement in promoting excellence in teaching among colleagues Effective participation in curriculum design and development Ability to anticipate and respond to changing conditions and their impact on programmes / courses and their delivery
4.	Bringing to students up-to-date knowledge and expertise in the subject area, including: Linkage of scholarly activities and research to teaching Involvement with professional bodies Linkage of activities in the community to teaching
5.	Interest in the improvement of teaching and the development of teaching innovations as demonstrated by: A reflective self-critical attitude to teaching A willingness to seek and act on feedback from stakeholders (including students and peers) in the teaching / learning process Professional development activities related to teaching / learning Involvement in projects aimed at the improvement of teaching and learning

Nomination Procedures

All academic staff members including instructors and demonstrators, and teaching staff in ELC and CCIV, with a minimum of two-years full-time teaching experience at City University of Hong Kong at the time of the nomination are eligible for nomination. Staff holding appointments in the ‘visiting’ category are not eligible.

Nominations may be made by:

any group of ten students who may include undergraduates, postgraduates, and / or alumni
student organisations, e.g. Students’ Union, departmental student societies, City University Postgraduate Association, Alumni Associations;
programme committees

Nominations must have the consent of the nominee.

Previous winners are ineligible for nomination for seven academic years after winning an award.

The Nominations should be forwarded to the Secretary, TEA Selection Panel c/o the Office of the Vice-President (Undergraduate Education).

Submission of Documents

Nominees will be invited to submit the following documents on-line:

A summary information sheet which summaries the case and emphasizes key items in the supporting documents.
A teaching portfolio which is free form . It should be in two parts: a written part (a brief ) of no more than 2000 words which makes the case for excellence, and the second part of up to ten pages of the supporting documents as appendices. The appendices provide "evidence" to support the argument made in the brief and must relate specifically to the criteria for the TEA.

The mere inclusion of course material is not helpful in making the case for excellence. Commentaries on why the material is excellent, or how it reflects the candidate's excellence would be more helpful. While evidence that you care for the students is important, independent evidence from students or colleagues would be even more convincing.

The brief should include a statement of "teaching philosophy" – a short description of how you think learning occurs and how you organize your teaching and assessment to facilitate learning. This statement provides a backdrop for the rest of the material included in the portfolio.

The brief should include evidence from several sources (if available), self-assessment; students (current and former); colleagues (both inside and outside CityU), and others.
Teaching Evaluation scores for the last 5 years. If the nominee has been in this University for less than 5 years, then Evaluation scores for less than 5 years are acceptable. Qualitative comments on teaching will also be sought.
Further information and specific guidelines to facilitate the preparation of a teaching portfolio will be provided to nominees later at the TEA Briefing.

Selection Panel

The constitution of the Selection Panel will be:

Up to two external members (invited from local / overseas universities)
One student representative nominated by the Students’ Union
One member invited from the Alumni Association
Deans / Principal or nominees (one from each Faculty / School and the CCCU)
One most recent recipient of the award (invited by the QAC Chair)
Three nominees invited by the QAC Chair (one nominee will serve as the Chair of the Selection Panel)

The respective Heads of teaching units (Department / Division / School/Centre etc.) will be asked to provide comments on the nominations. Where circumstances warrant, the Selection Panel may decide to conduct peer review and gather a second opinion from a focus group of students and other staff members such as associate heads, programme leaders and course tutors.

The Selection Panel will be responsible for the final selection, which includes classroom observation of teaching, a presentation by the candidate to the Panel, and an interview.

Some Notes on Teaching Excellence

The following notes are selections from: "Assessing Quality of Teaching in Higher Education", by Professor K.P. Mohanan, a professor in the Department of English Language and Literature, and Deputy Director, Centre for the Development of Teaching and Learning, National University of Singapore.

"An excellent teacher helps learners to acquire the ability to learn from

experienced people,
printed or electronic documents,
collaboration with peers, and
their own experience.

[By contrast] …spoon feeding … is handing down to the learners what they could have acquired on their own through their own effort…. The effect of spoon feeding is to promote dependent learning, which goes against the very spirit of education….

A dependent learner is a surface learner, and an independent learner is a deep learner. The depth of learning abilities that a teacher is successful in instilling among students is a measure of the quality of the teaching….

In traditional teaching, a teacher who communicates information successfully through lecturing or reading materials is considered an excellent teacher. [But] … a teacher whose repertoire is limited to lecturing and reading materials is at best a competent teacher, …not an excellent teacher….

An excellent teacher helps learners to acquire all facets of learning ability: to supplement school based learning, [and] learn independently of schools; to integrate, extend and create knowledge; and to be critical as well as self-critical…

Assessing the quality of teaching is not a simple matter of looking at student feedback and auditing one or two lectures…. If we truly believe that teaching is facilitating learning, evaluation of teaching quality shifts its focus from the teacher to the process of learning….Teaching evaluation should include a careful consideration of module objectives and syllabuses, handouts, selection of readings, classroom activities, feedback to students, choice of assessment modes, and design of exercises, assignments, projects, quizzes, and final examinations. The quality of these ingredients must be assessed in the context of a reasonable estimate of the quality of learning outcome that they facilitate, in terms of knowledge, application, thinking, independent learning, communication, mind set and values, and interpersonal skills. In particular, it is important to estimate how well a teacher empowers students to become self-directed independent life-long learners."

Teaching Excellence Award Winners

List of Winners (from 1993/94 - 2006/07)

Enquiries

Ms Ira Chu
Tel: 3442 6716
E-mail: pdira@cityu.edu.hk