Teaching Awards 2014 - Participation
The report briefly outlines reactions to the 2014 Teaching Awards at the University of Exeter. The Teaching Awards have now been established at Exeter for five years, which presents a series of new challenges. Although our awards criteria, judging process, and funding streams have been established for 2014, challenges remain. This year we have experimented with a reduced nominations timeframe and an off-campus awards ceremony, whilst facing the additional challenge of coping with the Teaching Award’s growth. At Exeter, the Teaching Awards has now sees active engagement with over 1500 students, a factor that has seen colleges begin to view how they perform in the awards very seriously. This has the potential to change the dynamic of the awards from a positive means of recognising excellent teaching and allowing students to say ‘Thank-you,’ to something that becomes overly competitive. All of these issues are discussed in some detail throughout this report.
Day-by-Day participation
The table below tracks numbers of nominations on a day-by-day basis in 2013 and 2014. In order to avoid participation fatigue around our Sabbatical Elections and the drive to complete the NSS, the nomination period has been shortened from three weeks to two weeks making this a particularly interesting year. Day-by-Day exploration of voting patterns is given below, based upon the daily updates received by each college.
Day 1: (83) 83 nominations - A relatively soft launch. Academic reps and Subject Chairs all receive an e-mail notifying them that TAs are now open; Social Media and Guild website promotion begins.
Day 2: (375) 292 nominations – Subject Chairs have now started to campaign, most noticeably Engineering who record 183 nominations in one day following a stall in the Harrison foyer. They provide six laptops, sweets and posters and are encourage people to nominate after lectures. The ‘Guild Times’ e-mail also contributes to a good day.
Day 3: (523) 148 nominations – Academic Reps in Psychology, Theology, and Classics use ELE and social media to gather between 20 and 30 nominations per subject. Otherwise, nominations are fairly evenly spread across subjects.
Day 4: (666) 143 nominations – A relatively unspectacular day. An ELE post from the Modern Languages Subject Chair gathers 30 nominations, but otherwise progress is gentle. Subject Chairs receive first league tables telling them how many nominations have been received by their departments at the end of day.
Day 5, 6 and 7: (889) 223 nominations – The Friday sees stalls in the Amory Foyer and Building:1 collect multiple nominations from Law and Business students. Several Subject Chairs react to league tables with Social Media or ELE posts. Saturday and Sunday are predictably flat, with no more than 30 nominations taken across the University.
Day 8: (1274) 385 nominations – The Teaching Awards all-student e-mail sees 385 nominations received in 24 hours, most of them coming between 12:00 and 20:00.
Day 9: (1605) 331 nominations - Maths and Computing and Physics offer foyer days in their respective buildings, taking almost 130 nominations between them. A small item in the ‘Guild Times’ e-mail continues to maintain momentum elsewhere.
Day 10: (1792) 187 nominations – A quiet Wednesday on Streatham, with Penryn based students submitting the majority of nominations. Penryn based sabbatical officers and subject chairs ramp up publicity seeing a real spike from that campus. Subject Chairs receive second league tables telling them how many nominations have been received by their departments at the end of day.
Day 11: (2261) 469 nominations – The ’24 hours to go’ all-students sees 469 nominations arrive in 24 hours, the second best day in Exeter’s TA history. Although less than at the equivalent point last year, when 535 were received in 24 hours, the overall total now far exceeds previous year’s at the equivalent point. Humanities based subjects also offer a range of stalls to boost participation.
Final total: (2601) 340 nominations – A final surge is largely due to English, who set up camp in the Queens foyer all day with sweets and laptops. Modern Languages social media campaign is also in full swing and is proving very effective. CSSIS based students offer an Amory foyer service all day, which captures a whole range of participants.
To conclude, the shortening the voting period has led to a much more consistent spread of nominations and has had no detrimental effect on turnout. Other observations include:
· Almost 900 nominations (over one third of the nominations) arrived on days when the all-student e-mails were sent out.
· Almost 800 nominations were made at a student-led Teaching Awards stall.
· In almost all cases, an ELE message or social media post from a Subject Chair appears to have been worth at least 20 nominations for their department.
· Weekends still see participation drop dramatically, with only 30 nominations cast during this period.
College by College breakdown of Engagement
Running the Teaching Awards through the Guild website has allowed for the first detailed breakdown of participation demographics. Most notably, we can see the 2601 nominations were received for 1518 students. However, some interesting subject-specific trends can also be picked up.[1] For Example:
· English’s record-breaking final total of 290 nominations was submitted by 178 students – the highest number of students for a single subject.
· Engineering students submitted the highest number of nominations-per-student, with 218 nominations submitted by just 100 students.
· History students submitted the lowest number of nominations-per-student, with 75 nominations submitted by 72 students.
The following table shows the number of students who nominated someone from each college, the number of nominations submitted from each college, and the average number of nominations per submitting student.[2]
Name of University College / Number of students / % of sample / Number of nominations / Noms per studentCollege of Humanities / 470 / 30.92% / 896 / 1.83
College of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences / 267 / 17.57% / 518 / 1.94
University of Exeter Business School / 237 / 15.59% / 355 / 1.5
College of Life and Environmental Sciences / 231 / 15.20% / 353 / 1.53
College of Social Sciences and International Studies / 219 / 14.41% / 393 / 1.8
University of Exeter Medical School / 22 / 1.45% / 24 / 1.09
Naturally, these results suggest that the Guild should make a concerted effort to encourage participation from the University of Exeter Medical School in future years.
Participant Demographics
The following tables look more specifically at demographics of students who are voting. Most noteworthy are:
· 63% of students who submitted a nomination are female.
· Undergraduates submit 90% of the Teaching Awards nominations. Only 1.25% of nominations are submitted by PGR students.
· International students submit 13% of Teaching Awards nominations.
Year of studyNumber indicating the year of study / Members / % of sample
1 / 621 / 40.86%
3 / 434 / 28.55%
2 / 352 / 23.16%
4 / 110 / 7.24%
5 / 1 / 0.07%
Student type
Postgraduate, Undergraduate / Members / % of sample
UG / 1338 / 88.03%
PGT / 131 / 8.62%
PGCE / 30 / 1.97%
PGR / 19 / 1.25%
Fees status / Members / % of sample
Home & EU / 1304 / 85.79%
International / 200 / 13.16%
Channel Isles and Isle of Man / 11 / 0.72%
Erasmus/Tempus Incoming only / 3 / 0.20%
Again, conclusions are relatively simple. In order to continue to develop the Teaching Awards, a focused effort will need to be made to attract a wider range of students.
Nomination Categories
2014 saw a pleasing diversification in the nomination categories for the Teaching Awards. Whereas 2013 saw over 50% of nominations poured into the Best Lecturer category, 2014 has seen a much more diverse split with just 35% of nominations devoted to ‘Best Lecturer.’ All other categories, with the exception of ‘Best Supervisor’ have grown in number of nominations. This is probably owing to the fact that ‘Best Supervisor’ was launched in 2013 with much fanfare and has not had quite the same level of attention lavished on it in 2014. Credit for the diversification of nominations must got to Guild Marketing and Communications, with the distinction between the categories particularly well emphasised in branding and on the website:
· The new design work mentions each category by name, during additional emphasis to the range of possibilities.
· The new web layout displays all of the categories simply on one screen, in a manner than is easily accessible for both mobiles and on a larger screen.
The Ceremony
The 2014 Teaching Awards ceremony was held on May 1st in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum to coincide with the ‘Intimate Worlds’ exhibition, a collaborative research project being led by Exeter staff and students. Attendance was capped at slightly under 200, almost equally divided between students and staff. Feedback on the ceremony was almost universally positive with guests appreciating the exciting venue, the opportunity to view the Exeter research displayed at the galleries, and the informal atmosphere. All ten awards were presented by subject chairs or college officers drawn from Exeter’s various campuses.
The overall cost of hosting a ceremony for 200 in the RAMM was just under £6000, which was largely sourced through external funding. The Guild maintains committed to not spending core funding on such celebratory events, but rather supporting the core activities of academic representation. In future, all funding will continue to need to come from external sponsors and the amount available will shape the nature of the ceremony.
Communications with Academic Staff
After the ceremony, every member of academic staff who received a nomination was sent a congratulatory e-mail, a short example of which can be found below:
Dear Dr ...... ,
I am pleased to inform you that you received nominations from students in this year’s Teaching Awards.
The Teaching Awards are about recognising, celebrating and promoting excellent teaching at the University and are the opportunity for students to acknowledge and thank the staff that have gone above and beyond what is expected of them during their time at University.
Please find below details of the nominations received for you as provided by the students that nominated you.
Category / Reason For Nomination / Specific Examples
Best Lecturer / I think Andy is doing a good job in making Mining Engineering interesting to students. / He's very practical and would always refer to his past experience in the industry to explain concepts
We thank you for promoting such great examples of teaching and support, these nominations really are testament to all the hard work you have put into furthering the academic experience at Exeter. Both we and the students at this university appreciate it greatly.
Alex Louch and James Smith.
This year, 709 members of staff received nominations and received one of these congratulatory e-mails. This element of the Teaching Awards remains the most positive aspect of the process. Staff continue to express their gratitude that the Guild provides this feedback and it maintains a clear positive association between the Students’ Guild and academics.
However, an interesting trend has emerged. Over the years, upon receiving their nominations hundreds of staff have e-mailed the Guild to say ‘thank-you’ for sending out these comments. However, an interesting trend has emerged:
Year / Number of student nominations / Number of Staff nominated / Number of ‘Thank-You’ messages received from staff2012 / 2021 / 514 / 117
2013 / 2415 / 561 / 77
2014 / 2601 / 709 / 54
Despite receiving more nominations each year and e-mailing more members of staff, less staff are reacting by sending excitable messages of thanks to the Guild. Potentially, this may reflect the fact that staff are beginning to take the Teaching Awards at Exeter for granted – they have come to expect nominations rather than be pleasantly surprised by them. This is coupled to another interesting trend. In previous years, focus on the winners of the awards has been reasonably low key, with people choosing to accentuate the positive aspects of being nominated. However, a sense of competition has been steadily growing between colleges. Already under pressure from course evaluations and the NSS, colleges are concerned that the Teaching Awards reflects badly on them when they do not win awards.
The Guild are concerned that the Teaching Awards should not be viewed as a performance management tool. The process is entirely student-led and will always be based on the subjective judgements made by panels of students and staff. For the University to consider using this as anything other than a supplementary measure for assessing staff performance would be clearly flawed and the positive message of the Teaching Awards should be clearly articulated at the start of the next academic year. For example, staff in Social Sciences and International Studies may not have won any awards, but students still took the time to write 393 positive nominations for their staff. Rather than the college feeling nervous that they have not won any awards, we would like to find a way of re-emphasising this undoubtedly upbeat message.
The Teaching Awards exist primarily to celebrate exceptional teaching practice and to allow students to thank staff for their hard work throughout the year. The nominations reflect the outstanding contribution made by individual members of staff to student lives, and should be seen as this light. The way that the Teaching Awards are communicated to staff needs to be re-evaluated next year to ensure they continue to be viewed in a positive light.
Education Enhancement Post-Project Work
Collaboration with the NUS and HEA has enabled us to carry out much more extensive series of post-project work. Although many of these initiatives have existed in the past, the additional funding and staff expertise have allowed us to produce a much more coherent and focused project. Examples of such initiatives include:
· For the first time, the Guild will be carrying out a deep analysis of two of our award categories, ‘Innovative Teaching’ and ‘Best Feedback Provider.’ Both of these topics are of particular interest to the University at the moment, and results of our findings will be shared with the University Education Enhancement Team to help their development. These findings will be shared in a separate report.