The Jennifer Burke Award for Innovation in Teaching and Learning

Call for Nominations: Jennifer Burke Award for Innovation in Teaching and Learning 2012

ILTA and DCU sponsor an annual award: The Jennifer Burke Award for Innovation in Teaching and Learning in memory of Jennifer Burke, a well known and highly regarded friend and colleague, who the Irish Learning Technology Community lost in June 2007. The award recognises and rewards innovative practice in Irish Teaching and Learning, and in particular aims to reflect and remember Jenn’s vibrancy, creativity, energy and passion for learning.

We are now inviting nominations for the 2012 Jennifer Burke Award for Innovation in Teaching and Learning.

Awards process

Nomination process

• Nominations must be for an innovative idea, which must have been implemented.
• Nominations must be submitted in the following format:
• A 150-word description of the innovative idea. This should be submitted as an MS Word document, and it should address the following points:
• 1. Submission title
• 2. What is the innovation? This should give a clear, concise description of the innovation, and explain why it is innovative
• 2. What is the rationale behind the innovation?
• 3. Who is the target audience?
• 4. How has the innovative idea been implemented?
• 5. What lessons have been learned from the implementation?
•  A PowerPoint presentation of up to 5 slides, highlighting key points of the nomination.
• If desired, a link to a URL may be included, to illustrate or support the submission.
• The submission for the nomination must capture the essence of the innovative idea. Each reviewer will spend no more than 5 to 10 minutes reviewing your submission, so they must be able to understand the essence of the innovation, and rate it against the specific evaluation criteria, within this timeframe.
• You can nominate your own work or someone else’s but, if short-listed, the originator/instigator of the idea must be the presenter/one of the presenters to the final judging panel.
• It is important that your submission illustrates/provides examples of how the idea was implemented in teaching and learning, how it was brought to life, and how it impacted learners.
• The name of the nominee(s) and the context for their learning innovation idea i.e., college, home, work, etc as well as the name and contact details of the nominator should be included and submitted with the nomination.
• Nominations must be for a specific work/project/idea, rather than for an individual person.

Evaluation process

• On receipt of nominations, all nominations will be reviewed by a short-listing committee, and a short-list of candidates will be selected to be advanced to the final judging panel.
• Based on their review of the submission, members of the short-listing committee will each award marks under the following headings for submissions:

1. What was the innovative idea and how was it innovative? (10 points/50%)
2. What was the rationale for the idea? (5 points/25%) 
3. The creativity and quality of the submission (5 points/25%)

• Shortlisted applicants will be invited to meet with a final judging panel. At this event, they will each initially make a short presentation of their submission to the panel and to other shortlisted candidates. They will then be given an opportunity to informally meet each member of the final judging panel in turn, to briefly discuss their nomination with members of the panel. This informal session will be followed by a 20 minute Q and A session with the review panel. On completion of the Q and A sessions, the judging panel will make their decision on the award.
• The 150-word briefing abstract for each short-listed nomination will be made available to all short-listed candidates prior to the final judging panel event.

Award Activities

• The final judging event will take place at the Helix, DCU, and the award will be presented at that event.
• The winner must be present to accept their award.
• A Jennifer Burke Award Showcase event will be held at the EdTech conference, which will take place at NUI, Maynooth, on May 31st and June 1st, showcasing all shortlisted submissions. All shortlisted candidates will be invited to attend this showcase.
• The winner of the 2012 award will be expected to make a presentation of their winning submission at the EdTech conference

How to submit:

• Email jenniferburkeaward@gmail.com with your nomination as a PowerPoint attachment, along with, if applicable, a link to your submission on the web.
• You should receive an email confirmation of reciept of your submission within 48 hours of submitting your nomination. If you do not, please email morag.munro@dcu.ie.

Timeline

• Nominations to be submitted by 27th February 2012 
• Shortlisted applicants to be notified by 31st March 2012 
• Final judging event to take place on 20th April 2012

For further information
Please either contact:
Jen Harvey (ILTA) 01 402 7883 or jen.harvey@dit.ie or
Paul Gormley (ILTA) (0)91 492923 paul.gormley@nuigalway.ie or
Morag Munro (DCU) 01 700 5606 morag.munro@dcu.ie