The Distinguished Teaching Award is given annually by the University of Nebraska to recognize up to three members of the College of Education and Human Sciences faculty who have demonstrated distinguished teaching. Nominees of the Distinguished Teaching Award should demonstrate the qualities of a “model teacher.” Rather than detail what those qualities might be, two criteria are presented. First, the model teacher is one to whom colleagues would send their students to observe and emulate if their students had to follow in the footsteps of only one teacher. Second, to be eligible for the award the nominee must have at least three years teaching experience in the College of Education and Human Sciences at the University of Nebraska.

 

In trying to characterize the attributes of the model teacher, we were unable to do so in any definitive way. A model teacher may use technology in the classroom or may simply lecture. The model teacher may teach at the graduate level only, at the undergraduate level only, or some combination of both. The model teacher may mentor students, or not. In short, there are no explicit, uniform characteristics one  could observe and then say “This person is a model teacher.” The one common component of the model teacher is that he or she has made a positive difference in the lives of a vast majority of the students with whom he or she has been in contact. Rather than prescribing a package of evidence to be submitted, the nominee should submit a brief narrative describing the nominee’s reasons for believing he or she is a model teacher. In addition, the nominee should provide supporting evidence of their teaching  quality.  Below, the committee is suggesting multiple forms of information that could provide this evidence. The nominee should provide a narrative description and two different forms of evidence from this list or beyond this list.  

1.  Narrative Description (required):  

The brief narrative description should be less than three pages long (double spaced) and should characterize the teaching philosophy of the nominee. It should also include other information the candidate thinks would be useful to the committee in determining that he or she is a model teacher. 

2.  Supporting Evidence (provide two forms of evidence):  

Any evidence of teaching quality should be representative of the past three to four years of teaching experience.  These illustrations of evidence listed below are not intended to be neither exhaustive nor  required; they are simply illustrative.  The nominee should decide how to best demonstrate, in a concise way, how he or she is a model teacher. The evidence should be selected by the candidate to illustrate the quality of teaching. 

   

•  Letters  (one or two)  of support from colleagues who have observed the nominee’s teaching, their department chair, or from students who can speak to the nominee’s impact (letters solicited by the nomination committee)

 

•  Teaching evaluations and details about  impact and teaching load (e.g., number of classes taught each semester and how that compares with others in the department or unit, number of classes taught at both graduate and undergraduate levels, number of masters and doctoral advisees and advisory committees) 

 

•  Other awards or recognition related to the nominee’s teaching skills

 

•  Instructional materials, such as syllabi or teaching materials used in the classroom 

 

1. The model teacher is one to whom colleagues would send their students to observe and emulate if their students had to follow in the footsteps of only one teacher. 

 

2. To be eligible for the award the nominee must have at least three years teaching experience in the College of Education and Human Science at the University of Nebraska.