Writing a Citation or Teaching Excellence award application
Writing a Citation or Teaching Excellence award application
This resource is designed to assist you with generating ideas for writing a Citation or Teaching Excellence award nomination. It refers to guidelines for the Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT) Australian Awards for University Teaching scheme. Internal UWS Awards for Learning and Teaching also follow the OLT guidelines, with some minor deviations, so this resource should help in writing a University specific award nomination. There are two levels of awards relating to this resource:
Citations for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning
(open to professional and academic staff, individuals and teams)
Awards for Teaching Excellence
(open to academic staff, individuals and teams)
You may find resources on other university websites that are helpful. A Google search will yield a variety.
Getting started
It’s really important to read the OLT guidelines thoroughly (available at: .au). Don’t rely on others to interpret the rules for you. The eligibility criteria, components of the application and compliance requirements are detailed, and you need to gauge the amount of work it will take so you can gather appropriate evidence and plan your writing. It’s also important to understand the aims and mission of the award scheme and speak to those aims in your nomination.
The award genre
Citation and Teaching Excellence nominations are a hybrid genre: a blend of promotion application, journal article and reflective personal narrative. There is room to be creative in an award nomination while carefully demonstrating and evidencing your claims. The assessors want to read a logical, well structured argument for excellence, but they also want to follow the story about the relationship between you, your students, and your pedagogical or professional practice. The genre is not just focused on what the teacher/professional does or achieves, it is about how both the teacher/professional and the students learn and how the higher education sector and communities benefit.
Academic writers are not always at ease with the award genre, so looking at exemplars and talking to colleagues who have won awards can generate ways to approach the task. Writing drafts in the language you would use to describe and explain your practice in conversation is a good start. Free writing can be refined or cherry picked for ideas. Get feedback on drafts; sometimes colleagues or support staff can glean outstanding practices that the award writer has obscured which could/should be highlighted.
Tone
High academic or formal tone will not shine. The assessors for external awards will not necessarily be familiar with your discipline or university, so avoid institutional or field specific jargon. If you do need to use academic or university specific terms, explain them.
Shaping an engaging tone is a balancing act between humility and pride. The award writer is required to show how their practice is excellent rather than just best practice – what everybody should do – and remain likeable. One strategy to achieve this balance is to wherever possible, begin with a context or challenge that the teacher/professional responds to. The context may relate to student backgrounds, learning and teaching scholarship, team work and collaboration, employer expectations or accreditation processes, or specific institutional missions.
Consider the difference in tone of the following two sentences that make the same claim:
My Student Feedback on Teaching (SFT) results are consistently higher than the School average which demonstrates the level of excellence I have achieved.
Analysing students’ feedback on my teaching in a systematic way has ensured a continuous cycle of improvement that is reflected in outstanding formal evaluations (Student Feedback on Teaching surveys).
Evidence
One of the most important elements of an award nomination is evidence, which must be provided for all claims. Student evaluation data, student quotes, retention and progression statistics, and observations or congratulations on your work from your university, peers or external colleagues are some examples of evidence. Please see the resource Evidence to support a Citation or Teaching Excellence Award nomination on the resource page of the Learning and Teaching website.
Evidence is threaded throughout the nomination statement, for example Student Feedback on Unit and Teaching are often presented in a table (for clarity) and direct quotes are used in-text as in a journal article. It is important to make sure the evidence you use matches the claim you make, and the selection criterion you are addressing.
Writing structure
Awards nominations are limited in page length and succinct, economical writing is very important. Each claim must be made in context, be described, explained, illustrated with example/s, and evidence of the impact must be provided. The following matrix can help with generating ideas for what you can include in your nomination, but it is also a very neat structure for a paragraph that can tease out one or two (related) claims:
|Context |Teaching philosophy |
|Claim |I use student-centred approaches to evaluate and develop curriculum because… |
|Example |I conducted student focus groups to inform re-design of unit in 2010 |
|Impact |Higher attendance and engagement in tutorials; better quality of assessments; increased scores in |
| |Student Feedback on Unit (SFU) |
|Evidence |SFU scores and comments; comparison of grade averages before/after re-design |
However you approach structuring your writing, it is important that you provide a clear picture of what you claim. For example, it is not enough to claim that you use student-centred approaches –
What does that term mean to you?
What does it ‘look like’ in your practice?
How has it improved aspects of students’ experience or outcomes, or your profession?
How do you prove it?
Components of awards nominations
The following templates step through the nomination components, with content and writing strategies noted under each section:
|Citations for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning |
| |
|Citations for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning recognise and reward the diverse contributions made by individuals|
|and teams to the quality of student learning. Citations are awarded to those who have made a significant contribution to the |
|quality of student learning in a specific area of responsibility over a sustained period, whether they are academic staff, |
|general staff, sessional staff or institutional associates. Citations provide an opportunity for distinctive institutional |
|missions, values and priorities in learning and teaching to be recognised. Citations are awarded for a range of contributions |
|to student learning, both direct and indirect (OLT at: ). |
| |
|NOTE: For OLT awards, nominations require internal review and endorsement and central submission |
|Assessment criteria |
| |
|The nomination will be judged against the chosen criteria on the extent to which it shows evidence, particularly evidence of |
|evaluation in the written statement, that the nominee’s contribution has: |
| |
|influenced student learning, student engagement or the overall student experience |
|gained recognition from fellow staff, the institution, and/or the broader community |
|been sustained for a period of no less than three years. |
|Nomination form |
| |
|Requires institutional sign off and contains a Synopsis – 200 words max, written in the third person summarising |
|teaching/professional context and key claims. |
|Written statement |
| |
|Maximum 4x A4 pages, 11pt Arial or Calibri font |
|Citation |
| |
|The citation is your overarching claim for an outstanding contribution. 25 words max, beginning with |
| |
|“For………………………………………” |
| |
|Use key words in your citation that will be drawn out and explained in your nomination. OLT counts hyphenated words as two. |
|Overview/Summary |
| |
|The overview is written in the first person and contains all the information necessary for the reader to get a clear picture |
|of who you are, where you work, your students’ and/or clients’ backgrounds and needs and your main claims. This is also the |
|place to introduce your pedagogical or professional approach or philosophy. This overarching framework that you work to |
|provides the narrative glue to the rest of the nomination. The overview should be tailored around the chosen selection |
|criterion and the types of evidence you will be providing can be flagged. |
|Selection criteria |
| |
|Respond to ONE of the below: |
| |
|Approaches to the support of learning and teaching that influence, motivate and inspire students to learn. |
|Development of curricula, resources and services that reflect a command of the field. |
|Approaches to assessment, feedback and learning support that foster independent learning. |
|Respect and support for the development of students as individuals. |
|Scholarly activities and service innovations that have influenced and enhanced learning and teaching. |
| |
|NOTE: The bolded words in the selection criteria were included in 2008 to better include professional staff who may contribute|
|to student learning in both “direct and indirect ways”. If you are writing a nomination for your professional service, |
|reference to your role in supporting your university’s “distinctive institutional missions, values and priorities” are |
|important. |
| |
|TIPS: |
|See the OLT guidelines for example claims under each of the selection criteria – these are not exhaustive |
|Use subheading under the main selection criterion to flag context/claims |
|Your demonstrations of the selection criteria should be related explicitly to the approach or philosophy explained in the |
|overview |
|Follow the formatting guidelines. Don’t squash your text so that your nomination is difficult to read |
|Write a concise concluding paragraph that sums up the nomination statement as a whole |
|Attachments |
|Two references |
| |
|No more than one A4 page each, are to be provided by people able to comment on the nominee’s contribution to student learning |
|against the nominated selection criterion. One must be from your Dean or Head of Unit. |
|TIP: Give your referees time to write a good reference that is congruent with your nomination statement. |
|High quality digital photograph |
|Taken by a professional, white background. |
|Awards for Teaching Excellence |
| |
|Awards for Teaching Excellence celebrate a group of the nation’s most outstanding university teachers in their fields. |
|Teaching Awards recognise individuals and teams renowned for excellence in teaching, who have outstanding presentation skills |
|and who have made a broad and deep contribution to enhancing the quality of learning and teaching in higher education (OLT at:|
| ). |
|NOTE: For OLT awards, nominations require internal review and endorsement and central submission |
|Assessment criteria |
| |
|In assessing nominations against the five criteria, the Committee will take into account the: |
|extent to which the claims for excellence are supported by formal and informal evaluation |
|extent of creativity, imagination or innovation, irrespective of whether the approach involves traditional learning |
|environments or technology-based developments |
|information contained in Student Feedback Questionnaires, references and selected teaching materials submitted by the nominee.|
|Nomination form |
| |
|Requires institutional sign off / chosen category /discipline codes |
|Written statement |
| |
|Maximum 8 A4 pages, 11pt Arial or Calibri font |
|Synopsis |
| |
|200 words max. |
|Overview/Summary |
| |
|The overview is written in the first person and contains all the information necessary for the reader to get a clear picture |
|of who you are, where you work, your students’ backgrounds and needs, any distinct disciplinary/program information and your |
|main claims. This is also the place to introduce your pedagogical approach or philosophy. This overarching framework that you|
|work to provides the narrative glue to the rest of the nomination. The overview should be tailored around your responses to |
|the selection criteria and the types of evidence you will be providing can be flagged. |
|Selection criteria |
| |
|Respond to ALL five selection criteria: |
| |
|Approaches to teaching that influence, motivate and inspire students to learn |
|Development of curricula and resources that reflect a command of the field |
|Approaches to assessment and feedback that foster independent learning |
|Respect and support for the development of students as individuals |
|Scholarly activities that have influenced and enhanced learning and teaching. |
| |
|TIPS: |
|See the OLT guidelines for example claims under each of the selection criteria – these are not exhaustive |
|Use subheading under the main selection criterion to flag context/claims |
|Your demonstrations of the selection criteria should be related explicitly to the approach or philosophy explained in the |
|overview |
|Follow the formatting guidelines. Don’t squash your text so that your nomination is difficult to read |
|Write a concise concluding paragraph that sums up the nomination statement as a whole |
|Attachments |
|Curriculum Vitae |
| |
|The CV should be no longer than three A4 pages for individual nominations. Teams may allow for one additional page per team |
|member, that is a team of three may have five pages (three + two). |
|Two references |
| |
|Max ONE A4 page each. One referee must be from the nominee's institution, the second should be from someone external to the |
|nominee’s institution, who can comment on the wider impact of the nominee’s claims. If the nomination relates to a team, the |
|references should apply to the team. |
|Supporting teaching materials |
| |
|website (URL) |
| |
|audio, video or other media files in commonly accessible formats (e.g. .WAV, .AIF, .MP3, .MID, .MPG, .MOV, .WMV, .RM) and/or |
| |
|the equivalent of 10 pages of printed material in PDF (additional pages will be removed). |
| |
|TIP: The supporting teaching materials need to be cross-referenced from the written statement |
|Student Feedback Questionnaires |
| |
|Once the nominee has received formal UWs endorsement, the Institutional Contact Officer (ICO) will coordinate a survey of your|
|students. The first 30 student surveys will be sent to OLT following the electronic submission of the nomination documents. |
|Teachers applying for an award are not involved in the collection of student surveys and do not see them. |
|High quality digital photograph |
| |
|Taken by a professional, white background. |
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