Recognising the Excellent Teaching at the University of Stirling
By Jeanine Førland
It’s a freezing Monday morning when your irritating alarm clock jolts you awake. It’s clearly far too early for this. As you lay there in the quiet stillness of morning you can already hear the pounding rainfall against your window. Your reluctance to drag yourself out of bed is further enforced by your aching body and throbbing head; it had been a pretty decent night out last night.
As you lay there, exhausted, you realise a grave decision has to be made. You could remain in this paradise of a bed or attempt to groggily seize the day, wanting nothing more than to be handed a hot cup of coffee before shuffling into that 9am lecture. This is no easy decision to make, but sometimes choosing the latter and dragging yourself to class is just totally worth it.
It can be argued that it takes a pretty special member of teaching staff to make you go to a 9am lecture. Those of you who have had the pleasure of experiencing this know exactly what I am referring to- and that is what RATE is all about.
Recognising Achievement in Teaching Excellence (RATE) is about two of the pivotal components of an excellent learning experience; you and a member of staff. We recognise that these features of excellence vary greatly within the University; between departments, schools, modules and individuals- because teaching excellence comes in all shapes and sizes.
What makes a difference for you?
We want to know about that member of staff who inspires, challenges, or encourages you to improve yourself. It could be their passion for their subject, knowledgability, or simply the impact they have in your life. This is for the person who goes over and beyond in the way they communicate, engage and support you.
The member of staff you thought of while reading this, that’s who to nominate.
The categories for this year’s RATE awards are:
- Excellence in Teaching Award (one awarded within each school)
- Best Support Staff Member - Most Inspiring Tutor
- Best in Career Development - Most Innovative E-Learning
- Excellence in Feedback - PG Supervisor of the Year
- Best Personal Tutor
Nominations are open to all students and can be submitted through the Portal (under the My Student Life tab), until 13th of March.
Please embrace this opportunity to recognise the members of staff who make a difference to your enhanced learning and development. This could be making it to that 9am lecture, providing invaluable feedback or those who just give you extra support.
RATE is much more than nominations, though. While all of the nominations remain anonymous, your comments and thoughts are passed onto the teaching staff so that they too can get a sense of the difference they’re making. After all, these are the individuals who go above and beyond, expecting nothing in return except a shared enthusiasm, discussion or effort.
The nominations you write put these members of staff into a pool together with other nominees, where they are in the running for 14 of the most prestigious awards; namely those celebrating teaching excellence, based on student-led nominations.
The data which has been compiled within the last 5 years since RATE has been running allows me as the RATE intern to conduct various measures of qualitative and quantitative data analysis. Using the nominations you’ve provided, we are collating vital insight which enables us to outline the aspects of teaching that we, as students, value the most.
At the end of January a paper highlighting two recommendations for improving the student learning experience was presented to senior members of staff at the University. I want you to know that your nominations go far beyond just you and that member of staff.
This is the celebration and development of the highest quality of teaching, and trying develop more of it so that even more students can benefit.
The ceremony will be held at MacRobert on 22nd April, 2015. All students who nominate are welcome to attend this event.
By attending the RATE Awards 2015, you are not only supporting improve learning and teaching but supporting the individuals you nominated. Demonstrate your appreciation of the hard work and effort they exert every day in order to create a more successful learning experience for you.
Get more info here - www.stirlingstudentsunion.com/rate