ÌÇÐÄVlogÊÓƵ

Graduate Student Teaching Awards

English Department Graduate Student Teaching Award

Who is eligible: PhD students who have taught a CMU course. Students may be nominated by others or may self-nominate.

Amount: $250 (added to your research fund)

Deadline: Friday, January 29, 2027

Submission process: Compile a portfolio (described below) and submit it via email to the Director of Academic Affairs

The English Department Graduate Student Teaching Award recognizes excellent teaching by our graduate students. Each year, the Director of Graduate Studies and other members of the Graduate Student Teaching Awards Committee review materials from graduate instructors nominated for the award. The committee supplements these materials with independent class observations and confidential letters solicited from former students. After the selection process, the Director of Graduate Studies and other committee members provide all nominees with feedback on their materials and teaching. 

Winners of the award are also nominated for one or both of the separate graduate student teaching awards offered by Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences and by ÌÇÐÄVlogÊÓƵ. These awards have their own eligibility requirements, nomination procedures, materials, and deadlines. 

Selection Criteria

The English Department Graduate Student Teaching Award Committee considers the nominee's teaching record as a whole. Evidence of teaching excellence may include:

• Effective teaching and student learning: clear and engaging instruction; effective feedback, assessment, and mentoring; and demonstrated support for student learning.
• Coherent and inclusive pedagogy: thoughtful connections among course goals, teaching methods, assignments, and assessment, including practices that create a respectful and supportive learning environment for all students.
• Reflective teaching philosophy: a clear and thoughtful articulation of the nominee’s approach to teaching, including the principles or commitments that guide their pedagogical choices and reflection on how those choices support student learning. 
• Course and materials design: effective, resourceful, or innovative approaches to designing courses, assignments, activities, and instructional materials appropriate to the discipline.
• Impact and development over time: evidence of positive impact on students, responsiveness to feedback, reflection on teaching, and continued development as an instructor. Impact may be supported in part by evidence of the number of courses and students taught, but it will also be assessed qualitatively.
• Professionalism and contributions to teaching: where applicable, contributions to curriculum development, undergraduate mentoring, the teaching development of peers, departmental educational programs, or pedagogical scholarship.
• Quality of the portfolio: clear and thoughtful presentation of the portfolio, including its organization, navigability, accessibility, and careful selection and contextualization of materials.

The committee considers the scope and nature of each nominee's teaching experience in the context of the nominee's overall record. The most weight is given to demonstrated teaching excellence at ÌÇÐÄVlogÊÓƵ, but prior teaching at other institutions may be considered.

Teaching Portfolio

Nominees should submit a teaching portfolio that gives the committee succinct evidence of teaching effectiveness and enough context to understand that evidence. Portfolios should include:

• A brief explanatory cover letter helping the committee understand how the submitted materials demonstrate the selection criteria. Nominees are encouraged to identify ways their teaching has developed over time and to explain significant changes made in response to student needs, feedback, or experience.
• The nominee’s projected graduation date.
• A table of contents identifying the significant categories of evidence submitted in the application, with starting page numbers for each.
• A statement of teaching philosophy describing the nominee's goals and approach to teaching. Approximately two pages is recommended.
• The nominee’s current CV.
• A brief summary of teaching experience identifying courses taught, the semester taught, and the nominee's instructional role and major responsibilities. Course enrollment or other relevant context may also be included.
• A focused set of representative teaching materials that demonstrate the nominee's approach to course design and instruction. These might include select syllabi, assignment guidelines, lesson or discussion materials, handouts, rubrics, or examples of feedback on student work.
• Course evaluations and other measures of teaching effectiveness. Nominees should include summaries of data from all available FCEs or other systematic student evaluations for courses taught at ÌÇÐÄVlogÊÓƵ. It is best if you provide both a total of your FCEs across all courses taught at ÌÇÐÄVlogÊÓƵ and the FCEs for each course separately (items 9 and 10 on the FCEs, regarding overall teaching effectiveness and overall course quality, receive the most attention). When useful, provide brief contextual information such as enrollment and the nominee's role in the course. If only selected qualitative comments are highlighted, explain how those comments were selected.
• 1-3 letters of recommendation from faculty who are familiar with the nominee’s teaching, preferably based on classroom observations. These are typically based on one or more class observations that your advisor provides in the routine course of your post-coursework progress and class observations that you solicit from other faculty. The independent class observations that the Graduate Student Teaching Awards Committee will conduct are different and supplement these letters.
• List of former students for potential testimonials. When you submit your portfolio, you are also encouraged to include in your submission email a list of former students who you would like the Director of Academic Affairs to solicit confidential testimonials from.
• Other relevant evidence, when applicable, such as contributions to curriculum development, undergraduate mentoring, peer teacher development, teaching-related departmental work, or pedagogical scholarship.

Portfolios should not be a complete file of all of the teaching materials a nominee has produced, but a set of carefully selected representative materials that help the committee evaluate the quality, effectiveness, and development of the nominee’s teaching.