Creative Teaching Awards

Marisa Pagnattaro gives Amanda Rugenski a Creative Teaching Award.

Amanda Rugenski, right,  receives a 2022 Creative Teaching Award.

 

Purpose of the Award

The Creative Teaching Awards recognize faculty members who have implemented in a course a significant, creative teaching innovation and/or strategy to improve student learning. These awards are presented annually by the Office of Instruction to encourage both instructional excellence and the dissemination of best practices by sharing promising innovations with faculty more broadly.

For 2022-2023, the competition will give priority to creative innovations in two domains:

  • promoting active learning across the curriculum
  • improving student writing and communication skills

Eligibility:

  • Must be a full-time faculty member, including tenured, tenure-track, clinical, or non-tenure-track faculty.
  • The creative teaching innovation and/or strategy was implemented during the previous academic year.

Criteria:

  • Demonstrated effectiveness of the creative teaching innovation and/or strategy nominated for the award, such as new uses of instructional technology, pedagogy that extends learning beyond the traditional classroom, new approaches to creating inclusive courses, new ways to use active learning in non-STEM disciplines, new approaches for improving student writing and communication skills, new approaches to student collaboration, new methods for replicating the advantages of a small course in a large lecture course, or other new teaching strategies that have significantly improved student learning outcomes.
  • Demonstrated positive impact of the creative teaching innovation and/or strategy on improving student learning outcomes, such as improving the DF and/or W rates in the course, improving final grades in the next course in the sequence etc.

The Nomination and Selection Process:

Nominations will open on October 1, 2022 and may be submitted by any faculty member, dean, or department head.

Nominating Process

All Nominations must be submitted via online form by January 12, 2023. The form asks for the following information:

  • The name, department, and rank of the nominee
  • Information about the course and when the innovation/strategy was implemented
  • A concise (approximately 300-400 words) description of the creative teaching innovation and/or strategy
  • Evidence of its impact on improving student learning in the course

Selection Process

  • Nominations will be reviewed by a committee selected from within the Office of Instruction.
  • Up to five winners will be announced in February 2023.

Recognition:

  • The recipients will be recognized during Honors Week April 17-21 and through various university marketing efforts.
  • Each recipient will receive a cash award that may be used to further their innovative teaching efforts or at their own discretion.

Marisa Pagnattaro gives Keith L. Dougherty a 2022 Creative Teaching Award. Keith Doughety, right,  receives a 2022 Creative Teaching Award.

2023 Creative Teaching Awards recipients

Audrey Haynes
Associate professor,  political science
 School of Public and International Affairs 

Chris Herring
Lecturer, electrical and computer engineering
College of Engineering 

Jane McPherson
Associate professor
School of Social Work

Ellen Neidle
Professor,  microbiology
Franklin College of Arts and Sciences

Yoo-Kyoung Seock
Professor,  textiles, merchandising and Interiors
College of Family and Consumer Sciences

Send any questions  to ovpi@uga.edu 

Jillian Bohlen receives a 2022 Creative Teaching Award from Marisa Pagnattaro (right).Jillian Bohlen, left, receives a 2022 Creative Teaching Award.