TEACH Awards: Recognizing Our Outstanding Educators!

Rising Star Award: The TEACH RISING STAR award recognizes emerging leaders in health profession education whose teaching experience demonstrates ongoing and promising growth in their contribution to teaching and (as well as) increased levels of teaching leadership and responsibility. This award is intended to acknowledge faculty members showing extraordinary potential at the beginning of their academic careers.

Nominees must: 

• Have completed at least one year of teaching experience
• Be within their first five years of service as a faculty member within this organization or others
• Demonstrate ongoing and promising growth in their contributions to teaching
• Show evidence of increasing teaching leadership and responsibility
• Exhibit extraordinary potential as an emerging leader in health professions education

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Award: The TEACH Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Award recognizes outstanding achievements in research, scholarly activity, and creative accomplishments that focus on the effectiveness of teaching methods. Recipients will embody the Environment of Inquiry related to teaching by systematically investigating questions associated with learning and the conditions under which it occurs to improve student learning outcomes. This award category is eligible for a team award.

Demonstrations of excellence in SoTL include but are not limited to

• Developing presentations and/or publications of research and creative efforts related to SoTL. 
• Securing external grant and/or contract support for SoTL
• Contributing to the local, regional, and/or national impact in SoTL
• Recognizing learner and peer recognition of research and creative efforts
• Demonstrating how scholarly work improves student learning outcomes
• Embodying an Environment of Inquiry related to teaching effectiveness

Educator Mentorship Award: The TEACH Educator Mentorship Award recognizes an individual who has demonstrated excellence in counseling and guidance towards another’s teaching practice and/or educational research. Mentorship is a long-term commitment to the education and advancement of learners and/or faculty at VTCSOM and RUC. Your nomination of a faculty member for this award should describe how the mentor has been outstanding in supporting, encouraging, and promoting enhanced teaching practices, education research, and other approaches to professional and personal development related to teaching. This award category is eligible for a team award.

Demonstrations of excellence in Educator Mentorship include but are not limited to: 

• Providing outstanding guidance for learners and/or faculty as they seek opportunities to advance their teaching skills.
• Providing advice and  consultation for learners and/or faculty as they ponder career pathways in education
• Offering expertise, direction, and mentorship in developing and completing education research projects
• Assisting in identifying opportunities and suggesting additional training for further work in advancement of teaching education research
• Exhibiting consistent personal commitment to the mentorship role
• Displaying honesty and integrity
• Delivering constructive feedback when needed or sought
• Supporting, encouraging, and promoting enhanced teaching practices and educational research
• Demonstrating a long-term commitment to the advancement of learners and/or faculty through contributions to professional and personal development related to teaching.

Feedback Award: The TEACH Feedback Award recognizes the skill of effectively incorporating feedback into daily routines that focus on specific behaviors, assess performance, guide reflection, promote expertise, and identify a learner's readiness to change. Excellence in Feedback involves key principles of “Good Feedback” which include aligning goals, feedback that is well-timed, regulating and limiting feedback to remediable behavior, and maintaining a focus on specific performance, decisions and actions. Recipients will have provided invaluable and supportive academic feedback, in both content and delivery method, which helps others to develop and excel in their work. Nominees for this award should utilize feedback as an integral part of the daily partnership between the learner and teacher and deliver both timely and constructive feedback allowing for improvements before the next assessment. 

Demonstrations of excellence in Feedback include but are not limited to: 

• Emphasizing the importance of feedback in learning. 
• Demonstrating a committed and consistent effort to providing timely feedback for impactful learning. 
• Creating novel approaches to providing feedback. 
• Developing feedback that has a local, regional, and/or national impact.
• Aligning feedback with learner goals and performance expectations that focuses on specific behaviors, decisions, and actions
• Providing well-timed feedback that allows improvement before the next assessment
• Guiding learner reflection and promoting expertise development
• Assessing and supporting learner readiness to change
• Maintaining feedback as an integral part of the daily learner-teacher partnership

Innovative Teaching Award: The TEACH Innovative Teaching Award recognizes the use of new teaching strategies and/or the implementation of existing strategies in new ways to enhance learning. Innovative teaching encompasses teaching students from diverse learning backgrounds, having a passion and enthusiasm for meaningful teaching, and applying  innovative  and creative teaching technologies in engaging students. 
This award category is eligible for a team award.

Demonstrations of excellence in Innovative Teaching include but are not limited to: 

• Utilizing creative and engaging in-class activities. 
• Using creative and innovative educational technologies to actively engage learners in traditional, online, and asynchronous settings.
• Integrating novel and innovative assessment techniques into their courses. 
• Practicing hands-on teaching to include simulation or laboratory experiences. 
• Implementing new teaching strategies or applying existing strategies in new ways to enhance learning
• Demonstrating passion and enthusiasm for meaningful teaching
• Engaging students from diverse learning backgrounds