By: Patrick Lyons, Director, Teaching and Learning
The deadline for the Desire2Learn Innovation Award in Teaching and Learning has been announced as Sunday, Feb. 2, 2014. This international award celebrates and recognizes innovation in post-secondary teaching and learning. About to enter into its third year, Carleton is proud to count professor Shawn Graham from the Department of History as one of the 10 previous award winners.
If you take a look at the brief profiles of the previous award winners (2012, 2013), you can get some sense of the breadth of what the award considers to be innovative in teaching and learning:
- The thoughtful integration of technology into teaching and learning
- New approaches to curricular development and its implementation
- The application of different pedagogies and learning theories
- Student engagement and active learning approaches
- Disciplinary innovation
I have had the privilege of coordinating the award on behalf of the Society of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (STLHE) and I have noted that all the successful award winners have been highly reflective of their teaching and consider whether or not their innovations are helping learners learn. Many award winners conduct formal or informal evaluations into the effectiveness of their innovation and share their ideas with their colleagues and peers.
I think it is important that we try new activities and approaches in teaching. Any time we do something new, there are elements of risk. Will it work? How will my students respond? How am I helping learners? It is important that we have awards that encourage and support instructors who take risks in their teaching. To quote from Shawn Graham’s award application:
“Not every experiment results in success; indeed, the failures are richer experiences because as academics we are loathe to say when something did not work – but how else will anybody know that a particular method, or approach, is flawed? This idea that it is ‘safe to fail’ at something, that sometimes what we try just might not work, is something that I try to foster in my classes.”
While you can find information about the award and how to apply here, I’d like to encourage you to reach out to the EDC (613-520-4433 or edc@carleton.ca) to find out more or for help in preparing your application.