Professional Development

Innovation in Online Design and Teaching

Call for nominations!

Innovative Education Presents:
Innovation in Online Design and Teaching Award

Deadline to submit application extended to: Monday, February 5, 2024, 11:59 PM

Innovative Education is pleased to announce a call for nominations for the 2nd Annual Award for Innovation in Online Design and Teaching (IODT). This award recognizes exceptional online teaching practices and significant contributions to the design, development, and delivery of student-centered online teaching and learning.

The winner will receive $5,000, an award plaque, and will be invited to the Faculty Honors and Awards Reception hosted by the Provost’s Office. They will also have the opportunity to present at the TOPkit Workshop or Innovation Summit in 2025. Two finalists will also receive $1,000 each.

PURPOSE OF AWARD

The Innovation in Online Design and Teaching Award recognizes exceptional online teaching practices and significant contributions to the design, development, and delivery of student-centered online teaching and learning. Candidates will show evidence of sustained excellence and innovation in online teaching practices that support student engagement, student learning gains, and student satisfaction and demonstrate the impact of well-designed, high-quality digital course materials.

Exemplary Online Teaching Practices: Applicants should demonstrate innovative, student-centric online teaching practices within the categories of student engagement, student learning gains, and student satisfaction:

  • Student Engagement: Candidates demonstrate best practices in online course facilitation by fostering student engagement and interaction. Examples may include evidence of class community, student-to-student interaction, personalized and frequent instructor-to-student communication, effective instructor-to-student feedback, use of innovative instructor demonstrations, videos, and/or learning opportunities, active participation in learning activities, visible instructor presence and guidance throughout the course, etc.
  • Student Learning Gains: Candidates show various opportunities for deep learning and provide evidence of student learning gains. Examples may include creative use of self-directed learning, authentic and varied assessment methods, interventions for improvement in learning gains, artifacts of student learning impact, use of formative assessments and scaffolded learning techniques, positive correlation with grades over time, etc.
  • Student Satisfaction: Candidates promote student satisfaction and provide evidence of satisfaction and effectiveness. Examples may include ongoing changes and improvements based on student feedback, student comments on faculty evaluations over multiple semesters, student comments on course design surveys over time, artifacts that demonstrate consistently high or growing engagement in learning activities, student forums, live sessions, study groups, etc. 

Eligibility

Candidates for the Innovation in Online Design and Teaching Award must be full-time continuing faculty (including instructors) on any of the USF campuses who have developed and taught at least one fully online course that has achieved a high-quality designation during the past two academic years and must be certified to teach online through any USF online instructor certification program. Previous award winners and visiting faculty are not eligible.

Application

Application should include your name, rank, department, college, campus, and the following:

  • Online Teaching Statement: A brief statement that explains your beliefs about online teaching, your role in the learning process, and examples of how your beliefs translate to innovative teaching in the online environment. (1,000 words or less).
  • Quality Review: A digital copy of the quality review conducted on your online course being nominated.
  • Online Course Tour Video: A video tour of your online course that demonstrates the quality of your course design and highlights your exemplary online teaching practices. Your teaching practices must be presented within the three categories of student engagement, student learning gains, and student satisfaction (Videos should not exceed 10 minutes).

Guidance for creating and submitting a video tour may be downloaded .

Supporting Documentation

  1. A letter of support from a USF student, staff, or faculty member who is familiar with your online course and teaching practices (2 pages or less).
  2. A digital copy of your Online Instructor Certification completed at USF.
  3. If applicable, student evaluations of your online teaching and/or course design over multiple semesters.
  4. If applicable, data or artifacts that further demonstrate student engagement, learning impact and/or gains, and student satisfaction.

Submission Guidelines

All application materials, including your online teaching statement, quality review, online course tour video, and all supporting documents can be submitted using the form provided below. Please note that you will be asked to provide sharable Box links to your files.

The Innovation in Online Design and Teaching Evaluation Rubric may be downloaded .

Selection Process & Timeline

Applications are to be submitted by the applicant no later than Monday, February 5, 2024, 11:59 PM. For questions, please contact Christie Nicholas, Director of Learning Design & Research at cwnicholas@usf.edu 

Applications will initially be reviewed by the Learning Design committee, comprised of Learning Designers representing all three USF campuses of Innovative Education and USF Health. The committee will recommend five finalists to the Faculty Selection Committee, comprised of CTIR faculty and previous year’s awardees and finalists. No member of the Committee may also be an applicant. The Faculty Selection Committee will determine the two finalists and the winner.

  1. Candidates will submit their online application by Monday, February 5, 2024, 11:59 PM.
  2. The Learning Design committee will review the candidates’ submission materials and identify five faculty finalists to submit to the Faculty Selection committee by March 1, 2024.
  3. The Faculty Selection committee will select the top two finalists and a winner by March 22, 2024.
  4. The top two finalists and the winner will be awarded stipends and the winner will have the opportunity to present at the TOPkit Workshop or Innovation Summit in March 2025. The winner will also have the opportunity to create a professional course tour video with Innovative Education and have their course and teaching strategies showcased on InEd’s website.