Online Teaching Awards for Engaging Students

This award recognizes strong commitment to high quality online teaching that engages students, builds presence and fosters community in the virtual environment and promotes student success. This award is aligned with the University System of Georgia’s award and as such follows similar guidelines and eligibility criteria.

  • The award committee will look for persuasive evidence that nominees:

    • Are strongly committed to quality online teaching and learning as evidenced by teaching, service and scholarly activities designed to advance the quality of online teaching and learning
    • Use effective and innovative online teaching practices that result in student engagement, student satisfaction, and effectiveness in achieving desired learning outcomes
    • Demonstrate an extraordinary commitment to fostering the academic success of online students through the development of rapport with individual learners in and beyond the virtual classroom
    • Examine methods of assessment of student learning to inform teaching practices and reshape online courses based on an on-going and data-driven process
    • Utilize interactive strategies to promote collaboration among students
  • To be eligible for the Online Teaching Award, current full-time members of the teaching faculty must teach a minimum of 12 credit hours of fully online instruction across the previous three consecutive semesters (to be indicated on the cover sheet). Fully online instruction for this award is defined as “95% or more of the course must be delivered fully online” (this excludes hybrid and F2F courses from this count). Administrators with faculty rank are ineligible for faculty awards (i.e., receives a Contract for Faculty Ranked Administrators). Previous award winners of this award (under any of its previous names) are not eligible to apply again. The award recipient must be under contract at KSU when the award is presented.
  • Each award consists of $5,000.
  • Up to one (1) award may be presented annually, selected based on the qualifications of nominees.

 

Nomination Procedure

Each college is responsible for creating the process by which their nominees are chosen. College deans or their designees submit nominations. There are no limits on the number of nominees each college can submit. The selection committee can reactivate nominations submitted for 2 years after the original submission.

Nominations packets should include:

  • A completed Cover Sheet with signatures
  • A 3-5 page summary statement by the nominee highlighting their teaching and learning philosophy, objectives, strategies, and results. The summary must be created using 12-point Times New Roman font with one-inch margins
  • A condensed curriculum vitae (2-3 pages)
  • A support letter from the nominee’s academic home chair; jointly appointed faculty may submit a joint letter from both chairs or two separate letters
  • One or more letters of support from colleagues, in addition to the chair’s letter (please note KSU deans are not eligible to provide a letter)
  • One or more letters of support from recent and/or past students
  • A brief summary of 2 - 3 innovative teaching artifacts or practices used in the online environment to promote student success
  • Any other appendix materials useful to build the case, such as:
    • data showing success of the nominee’s students
    • selected components of course syllabi
    • handouts
    • innovative methods of assessing student learning and achievement
    • summaries of recent student evaluations
    • peer evaluations
    • student mentoring and advising
    • peer mentoring
    • service and scholarship relevant to promoting online education
  • All materials must be compiled into a single pdf document
  • The packet must not exceed 20 pages. The Cover Sheet does not count toward the 20-page limit

Evaluation Criteria and Procedures

The selection committee will look for originality, creativity and productivity and for evidence of outstanding online teaching and mentoring. Nominations will be evaluated by a university committee including one member from each of the degree granting colleges, and the Executive Director for Faculty Development and Recognition. Since members serving on this committee may not be experts in the nominee's field, it is important that nominations be submitted in language understandable to faculty in other disciplines.

Submission Procedure

To submit a nomination, the college dean or their representative should:

  1. Prepare each nomination application as a separate file, ensuring the correct cover page for the award is attached as the first page of the file
  2. Click on the name of your college below to access the OneDrive folder where you will upload the nomination packet(s) for your college
    (If access is denied, please contact CETL at cetl@kennesaw.edu or 470-578-6410)
  3. Click on the Upload button at the top of the page in OneDrive to upload each nomination file

Only the college dean or their designee will submit on this webpage. Individuals should reach out to their supervisor or the dean's office to determine your college's nomination process​.

The college dean and each nominee will receive a confirmation email for their nomination within the next business day.