:Daniel’s Teaching Blogfolio

The Award Nomination Committee is asking for nominations from the faculty for the program’s teaching award. While I think it’s great to be recognized for the hard work that one does, particularly by one’s peers, I see a small flaw.

There are 24 potential candidates from Foundation English and the truth of the matter is that I don’t know the majority of them well enough to nominate them for anything. Take a look at the sought-after characteristics:

A. Significant contributions to teaching

B. Innovative classroom techniques and classroom materials

C. Availability to students

D. Ability to inspire students and motivate them to learn

How does one measure A? Is it the number of contact hours per week? What makes teaching significant?

I think the answer is D, however without observing the teacher, how would I know if D applies to a given nominee? For that matter, it’s necessary to observe someone in the classroom in order to address B. Of all my colleagues, I’ve only seen one in the classroom with her students and that was only one time toward the end of the class. As for C; we all keep office hours and the common complaint is that students rarely/never take advantage of them so wouldn’t it be better to evaluate the teacher’s attitude toward availability? Better still, their approachability?

Perhaps I’m over analyzing the process…I’m prone to that sort of thing, I know. Again, I’m reluctant to nominate anyone when I know so little about them in this way. That being said, I was on the verge of nominating one colleague who is passionate (to a fault) about helping his students, eager to improve his technique and easily accessible to his peers. However, I stopped short because a technical glitch with the online submission form gave me time to reconsider in light of this person’s perpetual conflict with authority.

So what’s the solution? I guess I’ll refrain from nominating anyone, look at the candidates once they’re presented and then I’ll…probably repeat this post except I’ll remark that I don’t feel good about voting for any of them for the same reasons that I couldn’t bring myself to nominate any of them. I wonder if I’ll feel more informed next time this whole thing rolls around next year?

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