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NUS Annual Innovative Teaching Excellence Award (ITEA)

The Innovative Teaching Excellence Award (ITEA) recognises distinguished achievements in developing innovative technology-enhanced teaching, including instruction, feedback, and assessment. The award seeks to promote thoughtful use of educational technologies and will recognise both individuals and teams, whether in a single course or a programme.

 

The award has two categories—Blended Learning (BL) and Artificial Intelligence (AI).

 

Definitions

The term ‘Innovative’, used within the context of this award, is defined as creating impactful, sustained approaches or solutions, using new or existing digital technologies, to advance the educational mission of NUS and enhance the learning of students, colleagues, and the wider university community.


‘Blended learning’ is defined as “the thoughtful integration of classroom face-to-face learning experiences with online learning experiences” (Garrison & Kanuka, 2004, p. 96). We consider ‘thoughtful integration’ as effectively incorporating (a) online learning and (b) in-class interactive learning in such a way that the two elements complement each other to provide learners with a deep and holistic learning experience.

 

We define ‘Artificial Intelligence’ broadly as “technology that can generate new and unique outputs”. AI-driven technology, such as generative AI applications – ChatGPT, Mid-journey, and GitHub Copilot, has the potential to promote personalised learning, create or revise teaching materials, develop coding for research, and generate prompted information in response to students’ inquiries. We adopt an augmentation perspective (Molenaar, 2022) as opposed to a replacement perspective on AI in education, implying that AI is used to optimise and augment human intelligence rather than replace it. As in blended learning, the focus on the interplay between learners, teachers, and AI to deepen learning will be central to the successful application of AI in teaching and learning.


Purpose

The purpose of the award is to encourage thoughtful integration of technology into teaching and learning. The award seeks to recognize colleagues who have used technology in innovative ways in order to advance their pedagogy by positively contributing to students’ learning. An ancillary goal is to encourage wider adoption of such thoughtful use of technology beyond a single course, i.e. within the department, programme, faculty, or the university more broadly.


The award is not intended to provide recognition simply for bringing and introducing technology into the classroom.

 

Categories and Focus

Category 1:
Innovative Teaching Excellence Award – Blended Learning (ITEA-BL)
  Sub-categories: Individuals / Teams
Focus Description
Blended Learning Recognises contributions by an individual or team to successful design, development, implementation, and evaluation of technology-enhanced teaching and assessment at the course or programme level, using blended learning strategies, in a creative and successful way, within NUS.
Eligibility
  • Applications may be submitted for only one university-level teaching award per year (between OEA, ATEA and ITEA-BL/AI).
  • Applicant must be a full-time NUS faculty member or NUS employee with a significant teaching role and impact. FTEC should exercise discretion on the eligibility of all applicants.
  • The application must specify an at least 4 units course and meet the standard set by the new Blended Learning 2.0 Initiative.
  • The applicant (individual or team leader) does not need to be a current faculty level teaching award winner.
  • There will be no quota on ITEA-BL nominations, but FTECs need to ensure that the highest quality nominations are put forward.
Entitlement The award will carry a monetary value of $2,000 (individual category) and $8,000 (teams, to be awarded to team leader and distributed among team members). Recipients will be recognised at a university-wide Teaching Awards Ceremony to celebrate and share their achievements with the NUS community.
Criteria

For impactful blended learning, it is important that the teachers analyse and identify the strengths and weaknesses of different face-to-face and online learning activities and find effective ways to integrate the benefits of the chosen learning activities to bring about a desirable blend.


Specifically, a ITEA -BL nomination will be evaluated in the following 3 aspects:

  1. High quality online materials, in particular online videos. Refer to the Blended Learning 2.0 Toolkit for video quality reference.
  2. High impact face-to-face teaching and learning activities.
  3. Course outcome, which can be one or more of the following:
  1. Enhancing student learning, student engagement and/or the overall student experience.
  2. Effective feedback strategies to motivate and support students’ learning and growth.
  3. Creating an inclusive and supportive learning environment.

The table below provides non-exhaustive example of teaching and learning design elements for consideration in Points (1) and (2) above.
Documentation and Submission Process

Applicants will submit a portfolio consisting of:

A. An impact narrative (1000 words) centred on the blended learning course, articulating the three aspects:

  1. Quality of online materials: In particular, the applicant is expected to explicitly draw examples from the (B. Curated Course Videos) and elaborate.
  2. Impact of face-to-face teaching and learning activities: Succinct description of design and implementation of the activities.
  3. Course outcome: Articulate the successful integration of the aspect (1) and (2) in the course and provide suitable evidence of course impact.

B. Curated Course Video: A compilation of:

  1. At least 3 – 5 video segments from different topics / lectures.
  2. Total duration: 30-minute (max).

C. BL2.0 Self-declaration Checklist

Submit the filled form as a supplementary document in your application.


All the submission and evaluation timelines will be aligned with ATEA/OEA.

 

 

Category 2:
Innovative Teaching Excellence Award – Artificial Intelligence (ITEA-AI)
  Sub-categories: Individuals / Teams
Focus Description
Artifical Intelligence Recognises contributions by an individual or team to successful design, development, implementation, and evaluation of technology-enhanced teaching and assessment at the course or programme level, using artificial intelligence, in a creative and purposeful way, within NUS.
Eligibility
  • Applications may be submitted for only one university-level teaching award per year (between OEA, ATEA and ITEA-BL/AI).
  • Applicant must be a full-time NUS faculty member or NUS employee with significant teaching role and impact. FTEC should exercise discretion on the eligibility of all applicants.
  • The applicant (individual or team leader) does not need to be a current faculty level teaching award winner.
  • There will be no quota on ITEA-AI nominations, but FTECs need to ensure that the highest quality nominations are put forward.
Entitlement The award will carry a monetary value of $2,000 (individual category) and $8,000 (teams, to be awarded to team leader and distributed among team members). Recipients will be recognised at a university-wide Teaching Awards Ceremony to celebrate and share their achievements with the NUS community.
Criteria

We propose that faculty members provide a pedagogically sound and evidence-based implementation write-up (impact narrative) in relation to the following criteria:

  1. Is AI used in an authentic learning task?
  2. Is AI facilitating a high level of engagement?
  3. Is AI used to challenge students in higher-order thinking activities (i.e. high cognitive demand)?
Documentation and Submission Process

Applicants will submit a portfolio consisting of:

1. Teaching statement (1000-1500 words). The statement should consist of a teaching philosophy and one impact narrative that together make an evidence-informed case for the award.

This reflective statement needs to articulate the individual or team’s strength, based on the pedagogical rationale for using AI in teaching, educational design, assessment, or feedback in the specific case being made. It should do so by demonstrating alignment with the criteria and explaining how as well as why the AI-integrated pedagogical practice exemplifies the achievement.

2. (optional) 3 to 5-minute video that demonstrates the teaching innovation (i.e. the actual application of AI in teaching and learning).

In the case of teams, the submission must be made by the team leader. The documentation should highlight the way the team collaborated on a common purpose and spell out the different contributions of team members.


For any attachments (optional) to the Teaching Statement, please upload separately in the Supplementary documents section in the University Teaching Awards Portal (UTAP). All attachments must be properly interpreted and cited in the Teaching Statement; they should complement what is written to make a case for the award.


All the submission and evaluation timeline will be aligned with ATEA/OEA.

 

 

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National University of Singapore


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